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.