Halo 2: First Thoughts

I am happy about many things in Halo 2. The story seems very interesting and exciting. One thing I noticed is that the Special Collector's Edition has the manual written from the Covenant's perspective, whereas the regular game has it written from the human's perspective. Kinda neat to see what the Grunts and Elites and so forth are called in their native tongue. The one grievance I had was how Bungie was promoting the game, it made it seem like there was not going to be a Halo ring in this game and it was going to be primarily the resistance of the Covenant on Earth; something odd for a game called "Halo 2" to not have a Halo in it. This may be considered a spoiler, but since it doesn't take too long into the game to find it out, but there are scenes on the first Halo and on another Halo, so sorry if I ratted this out, but if you were playing the game, you'd know it by now.

The multiplayer has huge advancements. The things that bothered me were the fact that there are no Default names and that changing players seems clunky. I love the fact that you can join a game already in progress and on any team color you wish. There are a lot more weapons so there becomes a huge orgy of weapon fire on smaller maps. I also love that if you started the game, you can leave it and someone else will take over rather than crashing the system. I was a little disappointed that there are no more pistols, but the dual automatic weapons make up for it. Jester and Mr. Beavers are trying to set up a "Star Wars" match with just energy swords. It is fun, but I told them you need to have the ability to parry. Lightsaber battles wouldn't last very long if the Jedi were killed based on who struck first. Another thing, there are so many customization attributes for your character. And they don't have salmon! Jimmy is salmon! I have to go with purple which looks more like a pale pink as my color now. It also uses icons for the characters, which is nice, especially Jester's kiss and heart icon. Because of this extreme customization, it feels like it may be unnecessary to go and create this character cause it takes a while to get it to look right. But considering you can back out, make a new character, and join the game everyone else is in, it makes up for it. By the way, the Xbox Live Communicator is frickin' sweet for Halo 2. Now you can finally tell people how to set p a map or diss them in-game...or just allow your ADD to run rampant.

Another note, the first Halo 2 LAN will be tomorrow in Morey Lobby at 6:30 pm. There is room for up to 32 people, sure you'll probably be in the whole time.
Other than all that, check out Rhea's article in the Stater tomorrow. She says we will like it.
Read Rhea's article here