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Halo 2 lives up to the hype

It's been three long years, was "Halo 2" worth the wait?

Judging by the sales and consistently near-perfect scores it's been receiving, the answer is simply "absolutely."

At first glance, it may appear that only the graphics have been improved, maybe a few minor tweaks to the weapons and vehicles too. But spend any amount of time with Bungie's impossibly popular sequel and you'll see why everyone's freaking out around the globe.

The whole single player experience is tighter and much more focused than before. Once the Covenant lands on Earth, some serious street fighting kicks in and a whole new side of "Halo" is revealed. It ceases to be a space opera and becomes a gritty door-to-door melee of alien carnage.

Massive ships soar overhead, dropping enemy reinforcements right in your face just before your own cavalry arrives with a giant tank of more troops. You even get to try your hand at playing a Covenant soldier, The Arbiter. And of course there's another halo, why wouldn't there be?

It's just a whole new feeling for the series. Actually playing the game feels familiar, but not predictable. Many felt the original "Halo" was perfectly fine but cemented its role in gaming history through multiplayer fragfests. Now first-player simulation fans can sink their teeth into the solo campaign of "Halo 2" and feel completely satisfied.

In the sequel, Master Chief holds two weapons at the same time, and vehicles can be picked apart piece by piece. Xbox Live is fully supported in what has to be the most amazing console multiplayer event to date. Seriously, everything has been immaculately fine-tuned it makes you wonder what the hell all the other developers are doing.

Just walking around the lavishly decorated environments is fun enough. You can truly see the care that went into crafting each room, crevice and hallway. The visuals can be breathtaking at times, enough to make you pause and appreciate how much work this must have been. And the sound, which is presented in full surround, tunes you in to where enemies are and allows the rich soundtrack to be fully heard. The basic rule to apply here is anything that was done before is done better.

But that doesn't mean there aren't imperfections in the Chief's armor. Those same graphics are redrawn quite often, enough to really distract; when an in-game movie shifts scenes, there may only be one texture layer ready to go. Then the rest start popping up with a jarring effect, noticeable and questionable. This happens in gameplay too, but not quite as bad. Granted, once everything's in place the regular visuals look better than some generated sequences in other games, but c'mon...this could have been avoided somehow.

And once again the main focus is to kill anything that moves. Mission objectives still stream together to create a cohesive story (much more involved than the original's), but goals are renamed to sound fresh. "Push through," "fight your way" and "secure" are really fancy ways of saying shoot first and ask questions later.

Then there's Xbox Live. After waiting in a lobby for freaking ever you're pitted against other players of similar skill level. Do well enough and your rank will rise, as will your standings with other gamers (and who doesn't want to impress RickJames187?). You can Quickmatch, which attempts to find the best match possible without any specifics, or wait for something more suited to your own tastes. There are free-for-alls, capture the flag games, team battles and the much-vaunted clans.

Each clan can have up to 100 members, of varying degrees of quality. You can create symbols and personalize your suit, or don the clan colors and go make everyone pay for what they did...that last time on Xbox Live. The game's only been out for a week so the clans should start weighing in pretty soon, and there's already an amazingly crowded lobby for Master Chiefs all over.

To put it simply: if you like action, get "Halo 2." First person shooter fan? Buy it now. Love multiplayer anything? You've found your game. It's a little cliché to say there's something for everyone here, but it's damn near true. Look past the hype and enjoy the best title the Xbox has to offer.

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