A Look at HALO 2 - Multiplayer experience
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The biggest and best thing about HALO2 is its multiplayer section. Not only we can still do our good old co-operative campaign and system link, now you can legitimately take on the wrath of other Master Chiefs (or Arbiters) from all over the country. HALO2 officially supports XBOX live and requires a broadband connection with a proper Xbox Live account setup.
Every time you select a game and play over XBOX live, you are being ranked based on your performance. The better you do, the higher your rank gets, with more experience points. Few things are taken into consideration: your Game performance, your current rank, the rank of the players that you defeated and the rank of players that defeated you.
After playing a game on Live, you can sign in to www.bungie.net and check your stats online. You have to link your Gamertag to the bungie.net website and provide a passport.net name and password to sign in as well. Once you do that, you can check your progress almost right after the game is completed. In addition to rankings you receive medals for various reasons like bashing your enemy with melee attack or sticking a plasma grenade onto your opponent’s body. Screenshots are available there as well, where you can track where you have killed, who you killed and who killed you with proper pictures displayed on the map and pictures of weapons used.
You are able to play a number of different types of games :
Quickmatch
You pick the type of the game, Xbox Live generates the rules and map automatically and picks random players who opted for quickmatch as well. Here you can be matched with a player of any skill, as long as they were in line for a quickmatch.
Optimatch
Here you pick the type and players of similar ranks are pulled together for a more balanced game. Again level and rules selected randomly.
Team Play
You make the rules, you set the pace, you invite the players from your friends list.
The game always shows you the recent players list, where you can go and befriend the ones you like. After sending them a friend request, you can invite them to your clan or just plain chat with them on Xbox Live. You can also send voice messages to your friends along with text via Live.
It seems like every single new addition to the game was made with the multiplayer action in mind. Dual-wielding becomes essential; you don’t want to be found dead with one single-handed weapon, since your opponent is probably bringing a can of whoop-ass along with him. Master Chief can now fall off the building unhurt, so there’s no more accidents where you tumble down the ladder to your death as happened in HALO.
All the goodies are here for your enjoyment: guns, vehicles, even stationary turrets. Turrets can be easily destroyed, but do play an important role when you try to force off an initial attack on your base. A nice addition to the levels are little rectangular boxes that are placed all over the map and explode when fired upon. If you see one of these boxes laying around, Warning: do not hide behind one of those, they aren’t meant to protect you from hostile fire.
The general pace of the game has increased greatly. If the first HALO multiplayer was about refined strategy and picking the best route to victory, HALO2 multiplayer resembles Quake3 arena or Unreal Tournament. The action itself changed a lot with such a major change done to the weapons. Gun stocks are shorter now, so that means that you have to be closer to a person to deliver a powerful melee attack. The energy sword is a wild card; especially in smaller closed levels, he who owns one and knows how to use it, will usually prevail.
The firing rate of all the guns is a lot faster, therefore you no longer have long duels between two people. Life expectancy in HALO was a lot longer and you could enjoy the game while finding new spots on the maps that your friends would never think to look in. Although some of the maps’ designs stayed very close to the original (Battle Creek and Blood Gulch), new elements have been added, such as new vehicles and an arsenal of new weapons on each map.
Conclusion
Whether you like the changes or not, that is up to you. I, personally, expected somewhat of an expansion pack to the first game, where I still get to do all the fun stuff, but with new toys. What we got is a brand-new game that is just as good, but very different in style and game play. Graphics are just as amazing as the first game; levels are better and less repetitive; we now have a whole army of new enemy forces using all kinds of new guns with most old guns still in the game; vehicles are destructible and received major upgrades and you can get the satisfaction of playing as the Arbiter.
Halo2 definitely receives 9 out of ten from me and I hope Bungie does not stop here. If you are madly in love with the first HALO, be careful with your expectations: this is a brand-new game and a lot of things have changed. If you haven’t bought HALO 1 and are starting out fresh, this might be the best first person shooter you have ever experienced. Either way it gets 2 thumbs up from us and a Definite Dev Hardware recommendation.
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