Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Mixed reactions"

I loved the first Halo game(I have reviewed Halo Combat Evolved and gave it a score of 9.5),but I'll have to admit I was a bit disappointed with Halo 2's single player campaign,and even though Halo 2 has better multiplayer,I'm not a big fan of online play/multiplayer.

What I loved about the first Halo game was it's big open battlefields,and how you could fly around in aircraft and get into dogfights against other aircraft and shoot at enemies on the ground using the aircraft or you could do things such as travelling up a tall hill and sniping enemies below and doing these things was very epic.

Halo 2's single player campaign has level designs which are much smaller/more narrow,but some of the level designs can be very fun when you're speeding through long sections of the level on a ghost vehicle and blowing up every enemy vehicle/killing every convenant enemy in your path.Halo 2's single player campaign feels like it has the basics that a FPS game needs to be fun,while having some of the Halo features such as a rechargable shield and the cool vehicles that you can use,but the way it's done in Halo 2 is not as good as it was in the first Halo game.

For example,in Halo 2,you can control aircraft,but it's done on rails now.The more narrow environments means you won't get an opportunity to drive the warthogs around over big battle fields and you won't be able to climb up a tall hill and shoot at enemies below(you can still snipe enemies,but it's not as fun to do as it was in the first Halo game).

The single player campaign in the first Halo game is still fun,and much faster paced than the first Halo game,but not as fun and feels stripped down.

Halo 2 had beautiful graphics for it's time,and even though on a technical level they look better than the graphics in the first Halo game,they lack the atmosphere of the first Halo game,such as how Halo combat evolved has the planet that's surrounded by the magnificent Halo ring and had beautiful alien buildings and the murky swamps and tropical areas.Halo 2's environments have more detail such as seeing more urbanized areas and beautiful cutscenes and some of them are quite spectacular(such as seeing beautiful,but purple energy created by some sort of energy weapon destroying a city in seconds).

Halo 2's music has a beautiful orchestric sound to it now,and it sounds depressing in a beautiful way.

Overall,Halo 2 is still a good game and is very fun at times,but single player wise it feels a bit stripped down compared to the first Halo game,but if you like playing Halo in multiplayer,Halo 2 was a very good game for multiplayer.