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Halo 2
Developer(s)	Bungie Studios (Xbox) Hired Gun (PC)
Publisher(s)	Microsoft Game Studios
Platform(s)	Xbox, Microsoft Windows Vista, and Xbox 360 backward compatible
Release date(s)	November 9, 2004 Xbox: NA November 9, 2004[1] AUS November 9, 2004 EU November 11, 2004 JP November 11, 2004 Microsoft Windows: AUS May 17, 2007[2] NA May 31, 2007[2] EU June 8, 2007[2]
Genre(s)	First-person shooter
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer, Xbox Live, co-op, and system-link
Rating(s)	ESRB: M- OFLC: MA15+ OFLC: R16+ PEGI: 16+
Media	DVD

Halo 2 is a science fiction first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie Studios. Released for the Xbox game console on November 9, 2004,^[1] the game is the second video game title in the Halo franchise and the sequel to 2001's critically-acclaimed Halo: Combat Evolved. A Windows Vista version of the game was released on May 17, 2007,^[2] developed by an internal team at Microsoft Game Studios referred to as "Hired Gun". The game features a new game engine, as well as using the Havok physics engine; added weapons and vehicles, and new multiplayer maps. The game's plot, taking place in the 26th century, concerns future humanity fighting an interstellar war against a collective of xenocidal alien races, the Covenant. The player assumes the roles of Master Chief and the Arbiter, and fights enemies on foot or with a collection of alien and human vehicles.^[3]

After its initial release, Halo 2 was the most popular video game on Xbox Live,^[4] holding that rank until the release of Gears of War for the Xbox 360 nearly two years later.^[5] By June 20, 2006, more than 500 million games of Halo 2 had been played and more than 710 million hours have been spent playing it on Xbox Live;^[6] by May 9, 2007, this number had risen to more than five million unique players on Xbox Live^[7] As of November 2008, Halo 2 is the best-selling first-generation Xbox game^[8] with 8.46 million copies sold worldwide,^[9] with at least 6.3 million copies sold in the US alone.^[10] Critical reception of the game was generally positive, with most publications lauding the strong multiplayer component; at the same time, the campaign was the focus of criticism for its cliffhanger ending.

Gameplay

In-game screenshot of Halo 2 for Xbox.

Halo 2 is a story-driven action-shooter game with a first-person perspective.^[11] The game features an expanded range of vehicles, as well as other gameplay changes compared to its predecessor. The original Halo featured separate health and shield bars. In Halo 2, the health bar is no longer visible; instead, the player's shield regenerates quickly when the player is not taking damage.^[3]

Certain weapons can be dual-wielded, which allows the player to trade accuracy and the ability to use grenades and melee for raw firepower.^[3] The player can carry two weapons at a time (or three if dual-wielding; one weapon remains holstered), with each weapon having advantages and disadvantages in different combat situations. For example, most Covenant weapons eschew disposable ammo clips for a contained battery, which cannot be replaced if depleted. However, these weapons can overheat if fired continuously for prolonged periods.^[3] Human weapons are less effective at penetrating shields and require reloading, but cannot overheat due to prolonged fire. The player can carry a total of eight grenades to dislodge and disrupt enemies. A new ability found in Halo 2 is the ability to board enemy vehicles that are near the player and traveling at low speeds. The player or AI latches onto the vehicle and forcibly ejects the other driver from the vehicle.

Campaign

The game's "Campaign" mode offers options for both single-player and cooperative multiplayer participation. In campaign mode, the player must complete a series of levels that encompass Halo 2's storyline. These levels alternate between the Master Chief and a Covenant Elite called the Arbiter, who occupy diametrically opposed roles in the story's conflict. Aside from variations in storyline, the Arbiter differs from Master Chief only in that his armor lacks a flashlight; instead, it is equipped with a short duration rechargeable form of active camouflage that disappears when the player attacks or takes damage.

There are four levels of difficulty in campaign mode: Easy, Normal, Heroic, and Legendary. An increase in difficulty will result in an increase in the number, rank, health, damage, and accuracy of enemies; a reduction of duration and an increase in recharge time for the Arbiter's active camouflage; a decrease in the player's health and shields; and occasional changes in dialogue.^[12]

There is hidden content within the game, including easter eggs, messages, hidden objects, and weapons. The most well-known of the hidden content are the skulls hidden on every level. The skulls, which can be picked up like a weapon, are located in hard-to-reach places. Many are exclusive to the Legendary mode of difficulty. Once activated, each skull has a specific effect on gameplay. For example, the "Sputnik" skull found on the Quarantine Zone level alters the mass of objects in the game; thus resulting in explosions being able to launch these objects across larger distances. Skull effects can be combined to provide various new levels of difficulty and/or novelty.^[13]

Multiplayer

Unlike its predecessor, Halo 2 allows players to compete with each other via Xbox Live, in addition to support for split-screen and system link multiplayer.^[3] Halo 2's multiplayer mode offers changes from earlier online first-person shooters. Traditionally, one player sets his or her computer or console up as a game server or host, specifying the game type, map, and configuring other settings. The game software then uses a service such as GameSpy to advertise the game to the world at large; other players choose which game to join based upon criteria such as the map and game options each host is offering, as well as the ping times they are able to receive. In Halo 2, however, Xbox Live players do not choose to host public games, and they do not specify individual maps and options to search for. Instead, players select playlists that are geared to different styles of play.^[3] For fairness and balance reasons, certain gameplay aspects from the campaign mode are disabled or missing in multiplayer; for example, the Fuel Rod weapon is missing from vehicles and maps.^[11]

Technical lead designer, Chris Butcher, commented on the development of Halo 2's multiplayer in Edge, a British gaming magazine, in January 2007.^[14] Responding to a rash of subsequent news articles, Butcher clarified his position on Halo 2 multiplayer. He noted his original intent with the game, but he also reiterated disappointment. "For Halo 2 we had our sights set very high on networking," Butcher said. "We thought about the great LAN parties you can have with Halo 1 and decided to try [to] recreate that awesome experience of having all your buddies over to play, but using Xbox Live instead of having to lug consoles and televisions around. Going from having no Internet multiplayer to developing a completely new online model was a big challenge to tackle all at once, and as a result we had to leave a lot of things undone in order to meet the ship date commitment that we made to our fans."^[15]

Synopsis

Setting

See also: Halo: Combat Evolved and Characters of Halo

Halo 2 takes place in a futuristic science fiction setting, where humans, under the auspices of the United Nations Space Command or UNSC, have developed faster-than-light slipspace travel and colonized numerous worlds.^[3] According to the game's backstory, in 2525 the outer colony world of Harvest was decimated by a collective of alien races known as the Covenant. Declaring humanity an affront to their gods, the Forerunners, the UNSC wages an increasingly desperate struggle against the technologically superior aliens. After the human bastion at Reach is destroyed, a single ship, The Pillar of Autumn, follows protocol and initiates a random slipspace jump to lead the Covenant away from Earth. The crew discovers a Forerunner ringworld called Halo. Leading a guerilla insurgency on the ring's surface, the humans discover that the rings are weapons of last resort built to contain a terrifying parasite called the Flood. Rather than activate Halo and destroy all sentient life in the galaxy, the human supersoldier Master Chief detonates the Pillar of Autumn's engines, destroying the ring and preventing the escape of the Flood. The Master Chief, his artificially intelligent companion Cortana, and a handful of survivors race back to Earth to warn of an impending invasion by Covenant forces.^[16]

Plot

Taking place shortly after the events of the novel Halo: First Strike, Halo 2 opens with the trial of an Elite commander aboard the mobile city of High Charity, the seat of the Covenant. The Elite is stripped of his rank and branded a heretic for failing to stop a ship of humans from destroying Halo. It is revealed that the Covenant's interest in Halo lies in the religious belief that the activation of the rings would bring about a "Great Journey", sweeping loyal Covenant to salvation.^[17] At the same time as the Elite Commander is tortured by Tartarus, the Chieftain of the Brutes, the Master Chief and Sergeant Avery Johnson are being commended for their actions at Halo during a recognition ceremony aboard a coilgun platform orbiting Earth. Lord Hood awards the soldiers alongside Commander Miranda Keyes, who accepts a award on behalf of her deceased father, Captain Jacob Keyes.^[18]

Shortly after the commencement of the ceremony, a Covenant fleet appears outside Earth's defensive perimeter. The Covenant send boarding parties carrying bombs towards the orbital platforms, near Earth. After repelling the Covenant assault, the Master Chief, Cortana, and the crew of Keyes' ship In Amber Clad proceed to Earth's surface and the city of New Mombasa, Kenya, where the Covenant flagship has anchored. Cortana learns the ship carries an immensely important member of the Covenant hierarchy, a High Prophet known as Regret. With his small fleet destroyed, Regret makes a hasty slipspace jump; In Amber Clad, Johnson, Cortana and the Master Chief follow just as the slipspace rupture destroys much of the city. In Amber Clad arrives at Regret's destination to find another Halo; realizing the danger the ring presents, the Master Chief is sent to kill Regret while Keyes and Johnson find Halo's key to activation, the Index.

The disgraced Covenant commander is presented before the Prophet Hiearchs, who acknowledge that though the destruction of Halo was his fault, he is no heretic. Branded as he is, the Elite can no longer lead troops into battle as he is, but the Prophets offer him the honored position of Arbiter. Realizing that he is expected to die in service to the Prophets, the Elite accepts the mantle of Arbiter and in his first mission assassinates an Elite professing heretical beliefs, in the process discovering what the Prophets refer to as an "Oracle", a Forerunner artificial intelligence known as Guilty Spark. Responding to Regret's distress call, High Charity and the Covenant fleet arrive at the new Halo, Installation 05, where the Chief kills the Prophet. Bombarded from space, the Chief falls into a lake and is rescued by a mysterious tentacled creature.

The death of Regret sows seeds of discord among the races of the Covenant, as the Brutes are given the Elite's traditional job of protecting the Hierarchs. The Arbiter is sent to find Halo's Index and captures Johnson and Keyes before being confronted by Tartarus. The Brute reveals that the Prophets have ordered the annihilation of the Elites, and sends the Arbiter falling down a deep chasm. The Arbiter is saved by the tentacled creature and along with the Master Chief brought before it. The creature, Gravemind, is a intelligence which controls the Flood on Installation 05. Gravemind reveals to the Arbiter that the Great Journey would destroy Flood, humans, and Covenant together, and professing friendship sends the Arbiter and Master Chief to different places to stop Halo's activation. The Master Chief is teleported to High Charity, where a civil war has broken out between the member races. At the same time In Amber Clad crashes into High Charity, and Cortana realizes that Gravemind used them as a distraction to infest the Covenant city with Flood. As the Flood overrun the city, the Master Chief follows the Prophet of Truth aboard a Forerunner ship leaving the city; Cortana remains behind to destroy High Charity and Halo if the Brute Tartarus succeeds in activating the ring.^[19]

The Arbiter is sent to the surface of Halo, where he rallies his allies to assault the Brute's position. With the help of Johnson, he confronts Tartarus in Halo's control room. When the Arbiter tries to convince Tartarus that the Prophets have betrayed them both, Tartarus angrily activates the ring, and a battle ensues. The Arbiter and Johnson manage to kill Tartarus while Keyes removes the Index. Instead of shutting down the ring entirely, the unexpected shutdown of the ring triggers a system-wide failsafe, putting Installation 05 and all the other rings on standby for activation from a remote location, which Guilty Spark refers to as "the Ark".^[20] As Truth's ship arrives amidst a raging battle on Earth, Hood asks the Master Chief what he is doing aboard the ship. The Chief replies he is "finishing this fight". In a postcredits sequence, Gravemind is seen arriving on High Charity telling Cortana he has many questions to ask, and the A.I. agrees to answer them.

Development

Halo 2 was officially announced in September 2002 with a cinematic trailer. The trailer was subsequently packaged with later Halo: Combat Evolved DVDs. A real-time gameplay video was shown at E3 2003, which was the first actual gameplay seen by the public; it showcased new features such as dual-wielding and improved graphics. Bungie informed the public on development with weekly Halo 2 development updates which started on January 16, 2004 and ended June 25, 2004; the weekly updates became standard on the Bungie website even after the release of Halo 2.^[21] With only a year to go until release, Bungie went into the "mother of all crunches" in order to finish the game. The cliffhanger ending of the game was not originally intended, and resulted from the frenzy to ship on time.^[22]

Audio

Main article: Halo 2 Original Soundtrack

Halo 2's soundtrack was composed primarily by Martin O'Donnell and his musical partner Michael Salvatori, the team that had previously composed the critically-acclaimed music of Halo. O'Donnell noted in composing the music for Halo 2 that "Making a sequel is never a simple proposition. You want to make everything that was cool even better, and leave out all the stuff that was weak."^[23] O'Donnell made sure that no part of the game would be completely silent, noting "Ambient sound is one of the main ways to immerse people psychologically. A dark room is spooky, but add a creaking floorboard and rats skittering in the walls and it becomes really creepy. "^[23] Halo 2, unlike its predecessor, was mixed to take full advantage of Dolby 5.1 Digital surround sound.^[24]

In the summer of 2004, Producer Nile Rodgers and O’Donnell decided to release the music from Halo 2 on two separate CDs; the first (Volume One) would contain all the themes present in the game as well as music “inspired" by the game; the second would contain the rest of the music from the game, much of which was incomplete, as the first CD was shipped before the game was released.^[25] The first CD was released on November 9, 2004, and featured guitar backing by Steve Vai. Additional tracks included various outside musicians, including Joe Satriani, Incubus, Breaking Benjamin, and Hoobastank. The Halo 2 Original Soundtrack: Volume Two CD, containing the game music organized in suite form, was released on April 25, 2006.

Release

Contents of the Limited Collector's Edition.

The release of Halo 2 was preceded with numerous promotions, product tie-ins, and movie trailer-like commercials. There was a Halo 2 Celebrity Pre-Release Party at E3 2004, in which a private home was transformed to replicate the world of Halo, complete with camouflaged marines and roaming Cortanas.^[26]

In addition to more traditional forms of promotion, Halo 2 was also part of an elaborate Alternate Reality Game project titled "I Love Bees" which cost an estimated one million dollars. This 'game' centered around a hacked website, supposedly a site about beekeeping, where an AI from the future was residing. The project garnered significant attention from sites including Slashdot and Wired News;^[27] Wired noted that the game was drawing attention away from the 2004 Presidential Election.^[28] The game won an award for creativity at the 5th annual Game Developers Choice Awards^[29] and was nominated for a Webby award.^[30] On the morning of October 14, 2004, a leak of the French version of the game was posted on the Internet, and circulated widely.^[31]

Halo 2 was sold in both a standard and "Limited Collector's Edition". The Collector's Edition features the regular edition and includes several promotional offers, a special cover and a special DVD of the making of Halo 2. The instructional booklet is also written from the Covenant point of view rather than from the UNSC point of view used in the regular edition. Also enclosed is the "Conversations from the Universe" booklet that contains additional information from both the human and the Covenant side of the Halo storyline; transcripts are available online. The game is enclosed in an aluminum case with the Halo 2 logo.

The first official release of Halo 2 was in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States on November 9, 2004. Anticipation for the game was high; three weeks before this release, a record 1.5 million copies had already been pre-ordered.^[32] Massive lines formed at midnight releases of the game; the event garnered significant media attention.^[33] This was followed by releases on November 10, 2004 in France and other European countries, and November 11 in the UK. The game sold 2.4 million copies and earned up to US$125 million in its first 24 hours on store shelves, thus out-grossing the film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest as the highest grossing release in entertainment history.^[34] The game sold 260,000 units in the United Kingdom in its first week, making it the third fastest-selling title of all time in the UK. On June 20, 2006, Xbox.com reported that more than a half-billion games of Halo 2 have been played on Xbox Live since its debut. Halo 2 is the best-selling first-generation Xbox game^[8] with 8.46 million copies sold by November 2008. As of September 25, 2007, Halo 2 was the fifth best-selling video game in the United States with 6.3 million copies sold, according to the NPD Group.^[10] From the day of its initial release and up until mid-November 2006, Halo 2 was the most popular video game on Xbox Live, even after the release of the Xbox 360; its position was eventually surpassed in 2006 by the 360-exclusive Gears of War. Halo and Halo 2 are still some of the most played games for the Xbox console.^[4]

Windows version

The PC version with fixed widescreen ratio.

See also: List of Games for Windows titles

On February 9 2006, Nick Baron announced that a version of Halo 2 would be released on PC, but exclusively for the Windows Vista operating system (though this limitation can be removed by an (unofficial) crack).^[35] The game was ported by a small team at Microsoft Game Studios (codenamed Hired Gun) who worked closely with Bungie.

Halo 2 for Windows^[36] was originally scheduled for release on May 8, 2007, but the release was pushed back to May 29. This delay was due to the appearance of nudity in the game.^[37] Microsoft will be offering patches to remove the nude content and is revising the boxes to reflect this. The nudity was a photograph of a man mooning the camera (presumably a Microsoft or Bungie employee) which appeared as a ".ass" error when using the map editor in Halo 2 for Windows Vista.^[38]

Downloadable content

A common complaint regarding Halo 2's online play was widespread cheating, which began occurring almost immediately after the game's release. Users exploited bugs in the game and vulnerabilities of the network to win ranked games and thus increase their matchmaking rank.^[39]

Some players used "standbying" to cheat, in which the player hosting the game intentionally presses the standby button on his or her modem; this results in all players except the cheaters freezing in place. This way, the cheater would be given time to accomplish an objective in the game. "Dummying" involves using an Elite character and a vehicle, exploiting a glitch which would cause a doppelganger of the player to appear. Cheating also includes softmodding, in which a player uses devices such as Action Replay and computer programs to gain unfair advantages, and bridging, which uses computer programs to give a player 'host' status, and therefore the ability to disconnect other players from the game session. A game exploitation called "superbouncing" or "superjumping" is labeled cheating by many in the Xbox Live community, and Bungie employees have described it as cheating when used in Matchmaking.^[40] Another group of glitches, which involve the use of certain button combinations, has similarly been described as cheating by both fans and Bungie employees.^[41] Halo 2 updates have been used to balance multiplayer and fix bugs, as well as release new maps and content.

Bungie released several map packs for Halo 2, both over Xbox Live and on game discs. The Multiplayer Map Pack is an expansion pack intended to make Xbox Live content and updates available to offline players, and was released on July 5, 2005. The disk contains the game's automatic update, all nine new multiplayer maps, a documentary about the making of the maps, and a bonus cinematic called "Another Day on the Beach", amongst other features.^[42]

On March 30, 2007, Bungie announced that two new maps would be available on April 17, 2007 for US$4. Bungie's own Frank O'Connor confirmed that both Xbox and Xbox 360 users would have access to the content.^[43] The two new maps were remakes of maps from the original Halo: Combat Evolved, "Hang em' High" and "Derelict".^[44] Due to issues with distribution of the maps, the updates which made the maps mandatory was released on May 9, 2007, later than planned. Bungie also reset all ranks for Halo 2 at the same time.^[45] On July 7, also known as "Bungie Day", Bungie released the map pack called the "Blastacular Map Pack" for free.^[46]

Reception

Halo 2 was well-received by critics. The game has a 95% average critic score on review aggregate sites Metacritic and Game Rankings.

Many reviewers praised the audio for being especially vivid.^[52][47] Multiplayer especially was noted in being the best on Xbox Live at the time. Game Informer, along with numerous other publications, rated it higher than Halo: Combat Evolved, citing enhanced multiplayer and less repetitive gameplay, however on one occasion Halo 2 was beaten by its predecessor in IGN's Top 25 Xbox Games of All Time where Halo: Combat Evolved secured #1 with Halo 2 following in #2. Halo 2 received multiple awards, including Best Console game and Best Sound Design from the Interactive Achievement Awards. Most critics noted that Halo 2 stuck with the formula that made its predecessor successful, and was alternatively praised and faulted for this decision. Edge noted in its review, “It's fitting that we're able to steal a line from the script to sum everything up. No spoilers here, just an epitaph, from the moment Cortana turns to Master Chief and says this: ‘It’s not a new plan. But we know it’ll work.' "^[52] According to Xbox.com, the game has received more than 38 individual awards.^[53] The game's campaign mode has received some criticism for being too short,^[54] in addition to some dissatisfaction with the abrupt, cliffhanger ending that sets up the sequel, Halo 3.^[48] GameSpot noted that the story switching between the Covenant and Human factions made the plot more intricate, but distracted the player from Earth's survival and the main point of the game.^[48] There is also some criticism of the game's on-the-fly streaming and level of detail adjustment, which can sometimes result in textures loading erroneously and "popping in" when the camera changes in cutscenes. Bungie has stated that this issue has been fixed for Halo 3 and the Windows Vista port.

In an interview with Edge magazine in January 2007, Jamie Griesemer, one of Halo's design leads, said that the main reason for Halo 2's shortcomings was a lack of "polish" period near the end of the development cycle. Staff member Frank O’Connor admitted the cliffhanger ending was abrupt, noting “we drove off 'Thelma & Louise' style". Nonetheless, in the interview Griesemer promised that they would make Halo 3 a more than worthy successor.^[14]

References

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Halo 2

• Halo 2 PC Official site
• Bungie's Official Halo 2 site
• Xbox.com's Official Halo 2 site