Everything i could have hoped for. I thank Hired Gun for bringing this to a platform i can at least play it on!
However, on with the review. Well, for gameplay it's everything i set my PC Gaming expectations to. It's got some solid level design, some fantastic artistic sci-fi world design and the weaponry feels solid and it's fun to use them. The story ain't half bad either, it's along the lines i'd expect from a middle episode of a trilogy. No major beginning or teeth smashing ending, but some pretty interesting plot twists and expansions along the way. Perhaps one or two puzzles to make use of the Havok physics engine it employs wouldn't have gone amiss, but that's not truely Halo style. I think the characters have really come a long way, somehow they seem more....alive, more animated than before in Halo 1. Something definitely seems more real to them. I love Cortana's new hair cut...hehe. (yes that is completely random) There is some really clever and witty dialogue between the characters, something that does help lighten things up a bit in the face of impending possible doom. New weaponry set certainly keeps things fresh and dual weilding is extremely fun and useful at times. There are only a few quirks i have for this category, so i give it a very happy score of 9.
The visuals are perhaps beginning to show their age, but only just. In the shadow of looming games such as UT3 and Crysis, Halo 2 can't hope to compete. However, i personally i never expected it to compete and graphics aren't everything. Hired Gun certainly put some effort in to smarten the textures, effects, models and in-game HUD. There could be a few more graphical tweaking settings, but that's not really very important. Having the game in Shader Model 2.0 by default REALLY does make a massive difference to how good it looks. The overall effect is as such: Low settings give you roughly Xbox looking visuals. Textures are set right down, lighting is downgraded, models less detailed and there are less decals and details to the environments. It only uses the basic feature-set of Shader Model 2.0. Medium settings give you slightly above Xbox looking visuals, with higher quality Shading and textures, with some extra effects available. High settings turns on Full Quality Bloom, full decals, full special effects and highest quality textures and it all looks significantly improved over the Xbox version of the game. There is some absolutely stunning use of cinematic depth of field in the cutscenes, something i haven't seen used properly very often before. While i'm impressed with the visuals, they do still not look as good as a 2007 bred game. So depite me always insisting that graphics aren't everything, i have to by default give this category a score of 7. However, that score suggests how i feel, they're still good.
The sound is simply fantastic, Hired Gun really did well on this front. Although not using EAX, as this is no longer an available technology in Vista, the game uses the Miles sound subsystem. This sound platform is tried, tested and very well optimised on your PC. The result is crisp, clear, concice, unfaltering and atmospheric bassy sound. The lack of EAX support is MORE than made up for using features of the Miles sound system which simulate atmospheric sound refraction, echo and natural quality. There is nothing to fault on this category, so a score of 10 here.
For £30, it wasn't exactly cheap, but i'm sure after a few months the price of that will come down. You get a free month's Xbox Live Gold account subscription card, which would otherwise cost you about £4, so that's not a bad deal. You're getting a game which i personally believe was worth the wait by a longshot and as long as you meet the requirements on the back of the box, i can ASSURE you you will get it working no problems. My PC i'm running it on has: Pentium 4 2.8Ghz CPU, 1GB DDR400 RAM and a Geforce 6200 graphics card. So, in all honesty, not an altogether spectacular PC. However, even at Medium settings, Halo 2 runs acceptably, though on High it becomes unplayable but fair enough. For this category i give it a 9, i don't see a problem with £30 for a PC game when most other PC games come out around that and console games are up to £50...
Halo games are one of my favourite series of games, of all time. Hence i give my tilt as a 10. There is nothing like running into a room filled with grunts, firing a rocket and hearing their terrified squeals. There's nothing like that first moment where you walk into the Control Room on first Halo. There's nothing like stepping up the the cliff edge on Delta Halo and seeing for miles across the lake, with it's structures and gondolas. In my mindset, i don't think there ever will again.
So go out there, get Halo 2 for PC, and enjoy! For gods sake upgrading to Vista isn't THAT much of a big deal, i did it without blinking an eye despite Halo 2 and i certainly haven't had ANY problems with the OS, nor does anyone i personally know. I know 7 people personally who are running Vista like me, seriously not ONE of them has had any troubles at all. It's safe, secure and packed with functionality well above what XP had to offer. After almost 6 years, it's really time to move on for PC Gamers anyway, Vista is showing some good signs with Live and DX10 gaming of progressing our somewhat, shall we say, flagging platform.
I definitely recommend this game to anyone who enjoys Halo games, is a map editor at heart, likes a good Shooter, loves cinematic Sci-Fi games or simply wants to get the game.