Halo 2

Halo 2 is the sequel to the critically-acclaimed blockbuster Halo: Combat Evolved, and features a newly built game engine, the Havok physics engine middleware, new weapons and vehicles, new multiplayer maps, and a storyline that continues the story begun in Halo: Combat Evolved. Halo 2, released for the Xbox game console on November 9, 2004, and its predecessor are both backwards-compatible for the Xbox 360, including its Xbox Live functionality. A Windows port has recently been announced; this version will be one of the first games to require the Windows Vista operating system.

History
Halo: Combat Evolved became a best-selling and well-lauded title upon its release in November 2001 but some complained that it lacked support for Xbox Live even though the broadband service would not be ready until a year later. The only cross-console multiplayer was either from System Link, Gamespy Tunnel, or XBConnect. Given the expected long development time of Halo 2, there were rumours of an updated "Halo 1.5" which would add Xbox Live support for the original and would be released in late 2002 or early 2003 but that never materialized. The PC version of Halo: Combat Evolved released in Fall 2003 however, and did have online support.

Since Bungie's 2002 announcement that they were working on an Xbox Live-enabled sequel to Halo, Halo 2 had became one of the most anticipated titles in development, only rivaled in hype by Doom 3 and later Half-Life 2. All three games were slated for a 2003 holiday season release but due to delays they were pushed back to 2004.

Of particular note regarding the release of Halo2 was an estimated one million dollar Alternate Reality Game project titled I Love Bees. The story line was entirely unique in the Halo universe, but was at the same time very engaging and tied in seamlessly with the game itself. For those who are not familiar with the "ARG" premise: a story is put forth on webpages and other media devices. Players are invited into a part of the story they might not otherwise see. ARGS have become increasingly popular in the early 21st century, and this popularity is owed in large part to I Love Bees.

On the morning of October 14, a leak of the French version of the game was posted on the Internet, and circulated widely. Microsoft, the parent company of Bungie Studios, tried to contain the spread, and pledged to bring legal action against anyone who spread the leaked version. Fortunately, the leak failed to have a significant effect on Halo 2 sales, due in part to a supportive Halo community which was determined to honor the original release date and which was instrumental in curbing the spread of the leaked version.

The first official release of Halo 2 was in New Zealand on November 9, 2004. Anticipation for game was high; three weeks before this release, a record 1.5 million copies had already been pre-ordered. This was followed by releases on November 10 in France and other European countries, and November 11 in the UK. The game sold 2.4 million copies and earned up to $125 million US in its first 24 hours on store shelves, thus out-grossing the film Spider-Man 2 as highest grossing release in entertainment history. As of 1 January 2005, the game had sold 6.3 million copies. According to a contemporary Wired Magazine issue, Halo 2 had a more profitable opening day than did the then-highest-grossing Hollywood film, Spider-Man. Some observers saw this as another milestone in the emerging dominance of the video game industry; a few years earlier, the video game industry had surpassed the movie industry in total revenues for the first time and had never relinquished its lead since then. It also won "Game of the Year 2004" at GPhoria, among other awards (Best Boss Battle, etc.), including different award shows.

Since Halo 2 was a successful killer app for the Xbox and its Live online service, Microsoft took advantage of Halo 2 to ban modded (modified) Xboxes from the network when they tried to log on for online gaming.

Music
The Halo 2 soundtrack was mostly composed by Martin O'Donnell, who had also composed the music of Halo. Steve Vai provided guitar backing for many tracks. Additional tracks were also provided by various outside musicians, such as Joe Satriani (for the remixed theme song, which includes new guitar solos).

The Last Spartan, is the signature theme tune for Halo 2.

The bands Incubus, Breaking Benjamin, and Hoobastank also feature on the official soundtrack and to a certain extent, in the game. The song Blow Me Away is considered the most popular of these contributions, however Incubus's contributions create the mood of the game the best.

Xbox Live updates
A common complaint regarding Halo 2's online play has been the widespread cheating which occurred almost immediately upon 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. In response to these complaints, Bungie released an automatic update for Halo 2 (a mandatory patch) on Monday, April 18th, 2005, which fixed many of the various bugs and cheats in the game (though some inevitably persist), slimmed down split-screen HUD information, and rebalanced various weapons to promote use of single-wield weapons, grenades, and melee attacks. For example, the melee attacks and grenades are now far more powerful. The battle rifle is now more accurate. A full list of changes can be seen here. This brings Halo 2 up to Version 1.1.

Halo 2 also supports downloadable content, with Bungie making various new multiplayer maps available. Four maps were made available to download on Monday, April 25th, 2005. Two of these were immediately free to download (the "Bonus Pack"), while the other two (the "Killtacular Pack") had a charge attached (US$5.99, £2.99) until July the 5th (in actuality, late June), when they too became free to download. On the 5th, 5 new maps were made available in a pack for $11.99, and were similarly made free to download on August 30th. The Map Pack disk (below) was also released on that date. For further information on the map packs and their contents, see the /list of downloadable maps/.

Another update was added in July, 2005 (a week or so after the release of the map pack). The update added a detection tool that would automatically detect and ban 'modders' using modified content on their Xboxes. Modified versions of the downloadable maps would allow people to use cheats such as 'super jump' and 'automatic reload' during matches on Xbox Live. Any players who are detected using modified content would be automatically banned from Matchmaking on Xbox Live. The update also fixes a teleporter glitch on the map, Relic.

Criticism
While Halo 2 has won many awards and raked in colossal profits, debate has risen over the merits of such success, especially when faced with comparisons to the immense impact on the console market that the first Halo had. Many gamers even credit Halo CE with singlehandedly propping up the Microsoft Xbox's image and sales through its first generation of games.

Criticisms of Halo 2
Some players dispute whether Halo 2 is a good game at all. A large chunk of this group consists of disgruntled Halo fans who feel that certain changes have made the game unbalanced, mainly in multiplayer gameplay. Several argumentative complaints have been registered by members of this movement:
 * The lack of mid-to-long range weapons in the game.
 * The Sub-machine gun starting weapon which some claimed was imbalanced and underpowered, leaving the outcome of the game determined by a combination of luck and who can get to more dominating weapons first.
 * Increased "autoaim," "stickyaim," and "magnetism," which some claim levelled the playing field between the professional and the casual players. Magnetism guides the aiming reticle towards an enemy character, while the autoaim allows hits to be registered over a wider area around the target.
 * Toned down pistol. In Halo, the M6D pistol was an extremely powerful sidearm that, if aimed precisely, killed any shielded enemy with three shots to the head. This made it one of, if not the best multiplayer weapon and the main weapon used by many experienced Halo players. In Halo 2, however, the pistol lost a considerable amount of power, making it a support weapon of dubious functionality.
 * Addition of the plasma sword, a one-hit-kill mêlée weapon with a lock-on feature, considered by many players to be overpowered.
 * A narrower field of view of 70 degrees.
 * Minor gameplay differences when compared with Halo CE which deleted or changed more subtle aspects of skill that originally steepened the learning curve (deletion of fall damage, inclusion of vehicle lock-on feature for rocket launchers, shorter fuse times for grenades, decreased blast radius, massive plasma grenade damage, underpowered melee attacks, reworked network code which leads to massive host advantage, change of weapon respawn system so that the more powerful weapons won't respawn if someone has them, etc.)
 * A cliffhanger ending.

It should be noted that many of these gripes all concern intricate game balances regarding competitive gaming, and almost exclusively focus on the interests of competitive gamers.

Matchmaking
A number of players take issue with Xbox Live Matchmaking. One frequent complaint involves the default weapon settings used in multiplayer gametypes, situations where the player starts off with the relatively underpowered and inaccurate SubMachine Gun. These players feel that a starting weapon such as the Battle Rifle would make much more sense in the competitive environment of matchmaking, allowing for a greater emphasis on aim and strafing techniques. Others feel that the Battle Rifle is an annoying weapon and isn't nearly as much as "fun" as the traditional SMG. Bungie has since responded to these demands by including the Battle Rifle as a default weapon in several playlist scenarios.

Many members of the Major League Gaming league share similar gripes. Fans of the strict policies and gametypes endorsed by MLG routinely posted on the Bungie.net forums arguing for these to be included in matchmaking, often proposing the compromise of an MLG-style playlist. These complaints escalated until Bungie.net moderators eventually banned all talk of MLG related proposals. Now Bungie has added Team Hardcore playlist to enact several of the key MLG ideas into matchmaking.

There are many issues with lag as well. Due to the fact that there are no regional hosts, lag can get very excessive if someone of another country plays in the same game with someone from a different country. Regional hosts are when a host if from a specific country visibly seen in normal online games. This reduces lag times because the players are closer together, less distance for data to travel.

Technical
Conflicts also arose because of Bungie's Halo 2 game engine. This engine uses an "on the fly" rendering technique in an attempt to create a game without load times. The downside is that the full resolution version of most textures are loaded as needed on-screen, which means that often times when loading new levels or characters, there are a couple of frames with lower resolution textures. Although this side-effect is not common during the single player campaign or the multiplayer scenarios, it is very common in the cutscenes used to separate levels and level segments. A few wish that such implementation was optional and would rather sit through loadscreens in exchange for a more consistant cinematic presentation.

Offline multiplayer
Another area that is criticised is the lack of computer controlled enemies (also known as bots) in multiplayer. While Halo 2's main attraction was its online multiplayer component, its failure to improve over the original Halo in regards to players who do not have Xbox Live is sometimes pointed out as being negligent. The omission of bots is also strange in that the AI in the singleplayer section of the game is fairly intelligent and dynamic, and could possibly have been transferred to multiplayer with a reasonable amount of ease. However, early rumours in Halo 2's development as to the inclusion of bots were firmly rebutted by Bungie.

Many online players of Halo 2 suggest that bots would be a waste of development time for the game, although for the offline community it is another example of them being overlooked in favour of online multiplayer. Halo 2 certainly shines in this area, but for a game aiming to push the limits of the console FPS, the absence of bots is fairly odd, given that they are present in earlier console games such as Timesplitters 2, XIII, Perfect Dark, and even The World Is Not Enough.

Story
Other disputes concern the creative liberties taken with the story. Several fans felt that the game's plot was too different from what the previews suggested. They felt that the struggle to defend Earth should have been the centerpiece of the story rather than a preface to the reiteration of the first game's storyline. This was most likely due to Bungie's policy against the divulsion of spoilers prior to the game's release, a move reflected in Halo's advertising.

More controversy was generated by the game's abrupt cliffhanger ending. Many players (and some reviewers ) were dissatisfied with the apparent lack of climax and some claimed that Microsoft forced Bungie to cut the last level. However, according to the Collector's Edition supplemental DVD, Bungie's decision to resort to a cliffhanger ending was necessitated by "time constraints". After being given almost three years to finish the project, with numerous and competent staff, this was seen as a rather dubious excuse, and the outcome was less than satisfactory for many.

Players also lamented the demystification of the Covenant enemies. In Halo 2 Bungie decided to further humanize the alien enemies; aliens suddenly spoke English, due to the Master Chief's "Covenant translator" built into his new armor (the Covenant actually spoke backwards English in the original Halo). Also included were cutscenes that shed light on their socialization, inevitably compromising the Covenant's menacing appearance. Further, the decision to include a playable Covenant character (The Arbiter) proved a risky move that was not universally supported. Jokingly referred to as an example of the Metal Gear Solid 2 syndrome, it shifted focus away from the franchise's main character (Master Chief).