Gaming Halo 2

[BlueYoshi]

Doesn't bother me, as I won't be taking the game too seriously, anyway. Though this talk of the aspiring AI in Heroic mode intrigues me, because I'm a big fan of that, and like I said in the other thread (the war-sim one), seeing new changes to these types of games is always a bonus.

Xbox junkies better report in when the game hits shelves in November. That's an order, bitches.

[Warlock]

Eh, the lack of bots doesn't really faze me. If you don't have Live or friends to play with, well, bots really aren't going to fill the gap. At all. Single player AI wouldn't work for multiplayer, and it would take a [i]lot[/i] of hard work to program AI that could move around the maps, using vehicles effectively (and switching in and out of them), stealing flags, ect, and even then the end result wouldn't be fully worth the effort. Bungie are great, but I doubt they could pull off something hardly anyone's done well, and that's good multiplayer bots (even Unreal Tournament 2003/2004's bots, which are arguably the best, have faults). And of course, they have enough as it is to fit on that single disk, too.

Hmm, I 've got to stop rambling on in these half-asleep dazes.

[QUOTE=Semjaza Azazel]I know some people were asking about this in the past, so I figured this was the best place to put it: [url]http://halo.bungie.org/oldnews.html?item=10511[/url]
[/QUOTE]

And speaking of good ol' HBO... [url]http://halo.bungie.org/oldnews.html?item=10500[/url]
Guess who pointed out the first bit of Gamespy's Halo 2 Reader Feedback Followup #2... (Gotta squeeze all these little bits of publicity for all they're worth.)

[Shinmaru]

[quote name='Warlock']Eh, the lack of bots doesn't really faze me. If you don't have Live or friends to play with, well, bots really aren't going to fill the gap. At all.[/quote]

Well, for me, just four players wasn't sufficient enough to take advantage of the types of levels that Halo offered. They bored me very quickly, because there weren't enough people available to make them really fun. Bots by themselves would not make any difference, I agree, but bots in combination with other people [i]would[/i] be a significant difference.

However, with the linking and online options available, it is pretty easy for me to see why adding bots was placed on the low end of the shelf, so to speak, heh.

[Warlock]

[QUOTE=Shinmaru] Bots by themselves would not make any difference, I agree, but bots in combination with other people [i]would[/i] be a significant difference.
[/QUOTE]

Hmm, true, hadn't thought of it with that edge before. But yeah, with Live and System Linking and all, Bungie at least has a pretty good excuse. :)

Also, Frankie (from Bungie.net, the official bungie site) posted a little rumour debunking list. [url]http://www.bungie.net/News/TopStory.aspx?story=rumorbuster&p=676412[/url] Bots is in there, down a bit. Interesting just to see a Bungie member's take on it.

[50 cent]

Ya I wanted to get this thread going again since it comes out Tuesday. So what I have seen from the comercials it looks like the story line in this game is going to be way deeper, and the graphics of course look amazing. So what do you all think about it?

[NorykoAngelcry]

[SIZE=2][COLOR=darkred]Well, I know this is coming a bit late. . but I must say that if you really want some background to the game, read the trio of books that came out for this storyline. They are official novels of the game, so I can only assume that the authors worked closesly with Bungie to get a lot of the facts and stuff down. I will not leak any of the info about the stories, but there are some real surprises that are in there. I don't know all that Halo 2 is going to include, but if you find yourself with an extra $20 - $30, pick up the box set of these books. The key ones to read are 'The Fall of Reach' - which sets you up the storyline before the first game, and 'First Strike' - which sets you up on what happened between Halo and Halo 2. The other book, 'The Flood' gives you a lot of sidestory to what happened during Halo, showing you a bit more detail about the Covenant and the Flood. Again, I will not go into any details about any of these books. . but they are good. 'The Fall of Reach' and 'First Strike' are both written by Eric Nylund, who really made the books easy to read. I got through both in under three days - keeping in mind that two of these days I had to work long shifts.

Ok. . on that note. . working till 10, then picking up the game at midnight. Will be getting on X-Box live with some friends and brothers, so. . I am going to have a great night! [/SIZE][/COLOR]

[Burori]

A hint to all those whom follow the story line: [spoiler] The black Sargent (johnson I think his name is) survives Halo's destruction.[/spoiler] And One more thing: [spoiler] There is going to be another Halo game coming out eventually.[/spoiler] Play the game and you'll see what I mean -_^

[Attimus331]

Halo 2!!!!!! I'm the best, if anybody would like to challenge me my gamertag is attimus331. Just tell me you're from otaku and we'll play.

I say i'm the best so people will feel threatened and want to challenge me, i do realize i'm not the best, i just wanna play. I really hope i get it tommorow.

Do you guys think there'll be enough???

[50 cent]

If you reserved it yes there will be enough but if you didn't you out of luck because well its said that you won't have it until after christmas because so many didn't reserve it and they'll try to go when the doors open so if you didn't good luck trying anyway. 50 out

[Brasil]

Unrelated Moment of Irony:

It's 11:45 pm on Monday, November 8th. I have approximately 15 minutes to either repair my broken Xbox, or to go out and buy a new one, until Halo 2 is released, and Gamestop calls me with my Pre-ordered Collector's Edition copy.

[Zeta]

After playing the game for about an hour, I am not as happy with it as I thought I would be. There is choppiness I guess you could say in the cut scenes. Controls are a little sluggish in my mind, especially when piloting a ghost. I was hoping for an improved version of the assault rifle, though I guess you could say the battle rifle is this improved version, I just don't like the burst fire of it. Granted I have only played about an hour of the game, that is what I feel so far. It probably does get better as you go along, but right now I am not playing the game that I was waiting years for. I guess some could say I am being too hard on it, but they delayed this thing like a good year, I was expecting the best game I had ever played. Unfortunately it isn't. Narurally these are just my opinions, heh.

[Guest CurseOfPhoenix]

[SIZE=2][COLOR=DarkRed][FONT=Arial]While Halo is a good game, I do want to mention how [B]OVERRATED [/B] this game is. Halo has only 2 reasons for being liked by a lot of people: it had good graphics and horribly simplistic gameplay. It requires little skill to be good at the game, so everyone was like " Look at me, I roxorz!" This utterly disgusts me, because there are little tactics involved in the gameplay and none of the concepts of the game coordinate. When I say the concepts don't coordinate, I mean the fact that 5 shots from the assualt rifle does damage near that of one shot from the pistol (not to mention the assualt rifle only hits you enemy 5 times when you unload your whole clip of 30 on them). Why would it be so weak, or why is it so innaccurate if he is in a 2 ton suit? Burst fire won't increase your accuracy either. Not to mention this is the future, so they might even not have recoil for the marines, let alone someone in a Spartan. These flaws make me not as fond of the game like the whole world seems to be.
I, personally, have not played Halo 2, nor do I plan on buying it any time soon. The reason for that is I do not see enough new things coming from it that I can't experience with the original Halo. The biggest difference between the two, IMO, is the fact that 2 has Live support. The small increase of graphics isn't anything great (gameplay>graphics, so that means even less). They have added some more multiplayer features, which is great, considered the game revolves around it. They also added some weapons and balanced some which were already there. While improving some of those things, they have also come at the cost of glitchy gameplay. It all sounds like the single player levels are somewhat reminscent of the problems many players had with the level The Library. I am not sure how repetitive the levels actually are, I've just heard from multiple sources. These small improvements do not attract me in enough to feel hyped about the game, since it was never insanely great in the first place. I hope to play it myself in order to find out how the game is first-hand.[/FONT][/COLOR][/SIZE]

[Attimus331]

[QUOTE=CurseOfPhoenix][SIZE=2][COLOR=DarkRed][FONT=Arial]While Halo is a good game, I do want to mention how [B]OVERRATED [/B] this game is. Halo has only 2 reasons for being liked by a lot of people: it had good graphics and horribly simplistic gameplay. It requires little skill to be good at the game, so everyone was like " Look at me, I roxorz!" This utterly disgusts me, because there are little tactics involved in the gameplay and none of the concepts of the game coordinate. When I say the concepts don't coordinate, I mean the fact that 5 shots from the assualt rifle does damage near that of one shot from the pistol (not to mention the assualt rifle only hits you enemy 5 times when you unload your whole clip of 30 on them). Why would it be so weak, or why is it so innaccurate if he is in a 2 ton suit? Burst fire won't increase your accuracy either. Not to mention this is the future, so they might even not have recoil for the marines, let alone someone in a Spartan. These flaws make me not as fond of the game like the whole world seems to be.
I, personally, have not played Halo 2, nor do I plan on buying it any time soon. The reason for that is I do not see enough new things coming from it that I can't experience with the original Halo. The biggest difference between the two, IMO, is the fact that 2 has Live support. The small increase of graphics isn't anything great (gameplay>graphics, so that means even less). They have added some more multiplayer features, which is great, considered the game revolves around it. They also added some weapons and balanced some which were already there. While improving some of those things, they have also come at the cost of glitchy gameplay. It all sounds like the single player levels are somewhat reminscent of the problems many players had with the level The Library. I am not sure how repetitive the levels actually are, I've just heard from multiple sources. These small improvements do not attract me in enough to feel hyped about the game, since it was never insanely great in the first place. I hope to play it myself in order to find out how the game is first-hand.[/FONT][/COLOR][/SIZE][/QUOTE]

You are very annoying and obviously very ignorant. You can't just go to a forum and start bashing what everybody loves otherwise everybody is going to call you a d**k. Like me for example. To me it just sounds like you're another little kid who keeps getting beat by your older brother so you don't like it. Well guess what, it's an awesome game, all the things you mentioned were totally off. You're crazy. You haven't even played halo 2 yet and you're bashing it. Well, i just got done playing it for about 5 hours and believe me, it's awesome. You need to go back to your crapy a** ps2 and leave us all alone.

[Desbreko]

[quote name='Attimus331']You are very annoying and obviously very ignorant. You can't just go to a forum and start bashing what everybody loves otherwise everybody is going to call you a d**k. Like me for example. To me it just sounds like you're another little kid who keeps getting beat by your older brother so you don't like it. Well guess what, it's an awesome game, all the things you mentioned were totally off. You're crazy. You haven't even played halo 2 yet and you're bashing it. Well, i just got done playing it for about 5 hours and believe me, it's awesome. You need to go back to your crapy a** ps2 and leave us all alone.[/quote]
[color=#4B0082]You also can't just go to a forum and start flaming people; otherwise, someone might ban you. Like me, for example, if you keep it up.

So first off, CurseOfPhoenix wasn't even "bashing" Halo 2. He cited some reasons why he disliked the first Halo, along with his impressions of Halo 2 gathered from the information he has about the game so far, as reasons why he hasn't bought Halo 2. And because of this, you seem to jump to the unwarrented conclusion that he thinks Halo 2 sucks. Even though he goes on to say that, "I hope to play it myself in order to find out how the game is first-hand," implying that he's willing to give the game a fair chance. And there's absolutely no reason to call him ignorant, crazy, or a "d**k" because of that.

Also, if you want to be taken seriously, you might want to give some examples to back up your claims. Saying, "Well guess what, it's an awesome game, all the things you mentioned were totally off," and then not providing any evidence for why it's an awesome game and why he was totally off, makes that an entirely baseless claim. Not that it's actually breaking any rules, it's just not going to make very good impressions.[/color]

[natetron46]

Oh halo 2 is a great follow-up to Halo 1 so far. I guess if you didn't enjoy Halo very much or weren't involved with it, it may seem overrated. But so far I have found that the story is much more a piece of the game, happily. In addition, the graphics are great in the sense that small details to the environment were upgraded but also the visuals of outside (like through windows) are immense and beautiful. The gameplay hasn't been buggy at all (as far as I have seen). The weapons are hot and cold... I liked the earth weapons but in the 3rd level (I don't want to spoil), I was hard pressed to find a weapon I enjoyed.

So to be honest, I enjoyt he SP, but the biggest press forward for Halo 2 is the online play just like bungie said in their development documentaries. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to do that yet.

[Xyandar]

I am still waiting to play thius game. i payed the first one billions of times. me and a bunch of friends would hook our xboxs together and have 16 player battles. man is that ever fun. i also have it for computer so i play it online against alot of people throughout the world. Halo 2 looks outrageous though. i cant wait to see it on my tv screen. im hoping to get it for Xma3s. that would make my day!

[Sol-Blade]

I really LOVE Halo II. No really, I think it is quite possibly one of the best games I have ever played. And I really wasn't a big fan of the first one either. Halo: Combat Evolved was a great game, but the story was sort of lacking and the multiplayer was a blast but was missing something. No not online play, Live wasn't out then. I can't explain it but multiplayer felt imcomplete. Anyways, Halo II is by far superior in every aspect. Better gameplay mechanics to start off. Hijacking people is the best and funnest new addition. It's a real sense of accomplishment when you get near that guy in a Wraith, break the hatch open, and lob a grenade in, then jump off and walk away. Easy frag. Or when that guy in the Ghost is running you down, and you do a little jumpkick to knock him right out of the driver seat, then running him down with his own Ghost. Lots of fun. Dual weilding is no gimmick either. It adds a whole new level of gameplay. At first glance, it may seem like just more firepower. Which, yes it is. But granted, if you look past that there is a strategic use to dual weilding. Considering how hard it now is to take down an opponent's shields, mixing of a plasma weapon with a human projectile weapon is a deadly combination. My personal favorite combo is a SMG in my left hand, with a plasma pistol in my right. Easy, easy, easy kills. :D

One thing you might either like or not is the vehicluar combat. There is lots more of it, single player and multiplayer. Some missions are focused just on vehicles so get used to it fast or you'll have a hard time. The controls stayed the same for most of the vehicles. But what is really neat is the fact that all vehicles are now damageable and even destructable. You will see all vehicles taking damage and will see them fall apart (Literally) in front of your eyes. It's really neat.

Now im sure you've seen all the reviews state that this is the best Live experence you'll ever see. They ain't lying! Online play is amazing! I can't stop playing it...but this is coming from someone who plays Unreal Tournament religously. So I love online matches. But Halo II's online play is unlimited in the amount of fun you'll have. By far, the maps are all made for more than 4 players. So if you don't have Live, you'll be missing out on some fun. You might even feel robbed, since 4 players on some of the maps can be more of a pain. Well, if you haven't heard already...there is no bot support of offline play. So you can't be playing offline with bots for your enjoyment purposes...sorry.

Now the singleplayer campaign. Let me state this, I give Halo II a 10 out of 10 over all...but the campaign gets a 6 out of 10. Why? Well for one, it's way too short. Way...too...short. Not only that, but the ending...that damn ending...

All I can say is that...biggest...disappointment...ever. :(

The ending: You will either love it, or hate it. Nothing inbetween. Period. One thing is for sure, there WILL be a Halo III.

[Guest Con.Iroas]

I had recently got Halo 2. First of all, I must say it's a very sweet game. I love the graphics. All New weapons very sweet. Double weapons. But the thing i like the most is the swords. Also love the new vehicles. Very cool. But anyways. I would say the campaign is a bit short. I beat the game within 8 hours. prob less than 5. but all i can say is it's a really cool game. Good on X-box live too.

[NorykoAngelcry]

[SIZE=2][COLOR=darkred]I must say that I am really dissapointed in the campaign mode. I was REALLY expecting more! I wanted somewhat of a feel to that of the first game. .

Some of my complaints:

[SPOILER]The game starts off at Earth, and after two levels, you leave Earth never to return >_< I wanted to protect Earth, instead, I ran down some backstreets like a Tom Clancy terrorist game, and then I'm shuttled out of the planet. What was that all about?![/SPOILER]

[SPOILER]Playing as the Arbiter (sp). . Umm, this was all great, but I picked this game up because I wanted to kick some alien butt with Master Chief!! I don't want to see that the Covenant, the grouping of aliens - supposedly the strongest union ever - is breaking up because the new kid in town (Brutes) is having a little scuffle with the weathered oldies (Elites) . . I mean, the whole soap opera thing with the Covenant was just a tad hard to handle -_- Also, what was up with the way the game ended?! First of all, I don't want to end it playing an Elite!! I want to finish it how I started it, with the man in green, Master Chief. [/SPOILER]

[SPOILER]The overall feel of the game. This felt like a basic platformer. . lots of guns, lots of enemies (if not WAY too many. . ), close quarter levels (all hallways, no wide open spaces). The thing about Halo that got me was that the level design, while overused obviously, it's huge open spaces just felt really cool to play. The whole Halo thing felt new, and was curiously interesting to want to run around. Halo 2 had everything set in hallways, and seemed to have way too many things in the way, for cover to fire from / or / obsticles to get in your way. . Either way, it was just not the same game. . [/SPOILER]

[SPOILER]I really didn't notice much of the story REALLY getting answered from the books. . I wanted to know what this artifact was! The little side book that they gave you even talked about the artifact. . . the game doesn't even touch it. I'm happy to know how Halo finally works, but I would have liked to know about the other Spartans. . read the books people![/SPOILER]

I suppose that's enough for now, I could go on complaining, but the simple fact is this:

I got caught in the overhyping of the game. . and am paying as a result of that decision. For as much as I was complaining, I love the multiplayer. I was really upset that they took out all but two of the original maps. I don't know why they couldn't just have added them!! I miss my Sidewinder and Longest Hall. . I REALLY miss Hang 'Em High. . If they would have kept Shotguns the same, then it would have owned, but . . can't have it all! ^_^

I give the game a 6 out of 10
I give the multiplayer with X-Box Live an 8 out of 10. . [/SIZE][/COLOR]

[Brasil]

So, for someone like Yours Truly, who didn't really enjoy the original at all, and who found it pretty dull and cliched, and who's going into Halo 2 with more or less indifference, will I have a good time?

[Gavin]

[SIZE=1]I happened to see a kind of preview of Halo 2 on MTV during the day, I only ever got a preview chance to play the original Halo game and as such I couldn't exactly form an exact opinion of it. On Halo 2 I thought that the graphics look fairly nice though again all I saw was about a 3 minute preview thus I can't be exactly sure of the overall graphics. If you're big into the FPS or TPS genre then I guess you'll enjoy the game however from what little I played of Halo I thought it seemed a bit repetitive and a bit mindless. I may be wrong but since I'd have to go out an buy an X-Box and a copy of the game to see if it's any better I couldn't really be bothered.[/SIZE]

[Sol-Blade]

[SIZE=-3][CENTER][B]~Must-Read for those of you who are interested in the story!~[/B][/CENTER]

This is for those of you who didn't quite understand the story. This is my basic summary of it. If you got the Limited Edition (It was like an extra $5...lol) lots o' story cleared up. Also, if you didn't catch "The secret that would change the Galaxy...forever", I'll tell you much about that. Anyways, obvious spoilers...

[spoiler]Okay, for one, yeah the ending was a bit confusing. Yes, some of the dialogue in the game was hard to hear/understand. But after going over some of the boards at Bungie this is what the game was basically about.

First off, you are wondering why the Covenent came to Earth with so little a force? I mean, (If you read the books...which are great by the way) they attacked Reach with over 300 ships, completely overwhelming it. Here, they only deploy 30 or 40 to assault Earth. Well, the reason the Covenent even CAME to Earth is not because they were looking to destory the rest of humanity. There is a deeper reason...They did not expect us the even be near Earth, and are rightly pissed that we are. The Covenant are not focused on destroying all life in the Galaxy. They simply wish to fulfill their religous "Journey" but the Humans have gotten in their way. How? Well every race the Covenant has come across as succumbed to the might of their military forces. But the Humans, no matter how many losses, no matter how many battles, no matter how many "glassed" planets...have continued to fight the Covenant and will not give in. This makes them angry that a race inferior (In their eyes) to them is so stubborn.

Second, Halo [i]is[/i] an ancient artifact. All of them, infact if you finish the storyline you can confirm at least 7 of them. 343 Guilty Spark (The monitor of Installation 04) mentions quite hundreds of them scattered throughout the galaxy. Anyways, what happens in the last mission is that Installation 05 (The new ring in Halo II) IS activated and IS ready to fire but at the last minute, Miranda pulls the index out at the very last second. This throws Installation 05 into chaos. It fires something, not the almighty shockwave that would have taken out life but a beacon. A beacon to call for help from other Halos. All the Halos are now active and ready to fire, no index required. 343 Guilty Spark tells the Arbiter, Miranda, and Johnson that all the Halos can be [i]remotely fired[/i] from a single location, a location that is safe from the Halos destructive power. This is where we learn of the Ark and it's location. The Ark, as it is called, is a Forerunner (The race that built all the Halos and whose technology the Covenant base their technology on) facilty where the Forerunners planned to fire the Halos from to starve the Flood successfully. Well, you learn (From books and various stories in the LE) that the Forerunners never achieved this dream. They detonated one as a last resort against the Flood, taking them in the process. Forerunners were decimated by their own weapon. 343 Guilty Spark mentions this himself, he says "After exhausting every strategic option, the Forerunners actived the installations." The Flood was consuming them and they had no choice. The very one that killed them is now the ring you find in the second game. 2401 Pentinent Tangent (The monitor of Installation 05) mentions that this Halo has a service record. He says, "This station has an activation service record one trillion times simulated and one actual". So Installation 05 WAS fired before, where as all the other Halos were not. Now the Ark, the only thing left unanswered, lies somewhere...waiting.

You want to know where it is? Do ya? The Ark, the Ark of the Forerunners...their mightest achievement...is located on Earth. Yep, you read that right. EARTH. Very few Forerunners actually made it back to this facility, and lived their lives out on Earth. Meaning, the Humans, are in a sense, decendents of the Forerunners. This can also be proven when the Monitor(S) refer to Master Chief as a reclaimer. Now it was speculated that his armor resembled the Forerunners, but the monitor also called Captain Keyes a reclaimer. So in turn, the humans actually do resemble the Forerunners. Also, the monitor talks to Master Chief like he was an old friend on Two Betrayals back on Installation 04 (The first ring). He said, "You always asked me what I would do if I could do things differently. Well I've come up with several theories and..." he is cut off there. Furthering that idea. The Covenent look at Earth as a Holy place, and are enraged to find us humans [i]living[/i] there. If you think about it, this Ark could be what the Covenent was looking for, making it the...Ark of the Covenant? Interesting...

Now onto this Ark, which you now know is located on Earth (Actually, some people think that the Forerunner ship Master Chief is on at the end of the game is the Ark). Well, if you look at it from a religous perspective, it can actually go pretty deep (It also blows away any of my other theories but be open-minded). This shall go on for awhile:

Thinking about the Ark, I'm debating with myself about what the Ark is. Planet Earth makes sense as it is a home and safe haven away from the flood (or after the flood, in the biblical sense) that was taken up by Noah's descendants i.e. Human beings as we are. The religious parallel Bungie has drawn here is quite intriguing. Nothing really mind blowing, but definitely thought provoking. If the ship that Truth and the Chief were on is the Ark, that makes even more sense: the vessel which brought the descendants of Noah (and in this case the Forerunner) to their salvation.

Let's consider some religious anecdotes for a second (and by no means am I imposing any religious beliefs on anyone. This is for sake of parallels). The Forerunner, due to the way the Monitors react to the the Chief and any other humans, would appear to be human in appearance at least. Let's consider this: In the bible, Adam (the first man) while very human, had an incredibly long lifespan (he lived to be 900 years old). His son Cain also lived quite long and I believe his son founded the first civilization. It's also been believed that Adam could use the full 100% of his brain power/capacity. With an accelerated rate of intelligence, who is to how much they could have built in that time before our time? This seems far fetched, but... [B]The whole Noah herding the people and animals onto his Ark to save them from the Flood thing is pretty eminent.[/B] Noah is one of Adam's descendants. Human beings are all of Noah's descendants. It is quite possible, that the blood of the Forerunner dwindled over time, but the shape and nature of humans never changed.

They find a land of salvation after the Flood. Who's to say that mankind, their reclaimers, weren't brought to a place with no technology, to start over? The covenant of course, were on the other side of the galaxy and had a much accelerated technology than the humans on earth. Of course they would find the rings and find devices to help enhance their own technology. In that, they would also interpret the Forerunner as gods, and humans as their bastard children, a heresy. Hence the attacks on various human structures while trying to locate the remaining Forerunner artifacts.

As for the Forerunner taking their lives? Their descendants and genetics were passed on? What use was left for them? Take their own lives to attone for their sins and to be certain no one has to make this mistake again. Unfortunately, time has a funny way of working out.

Also, consider the fact that Gravemind (The Flood King/Overmind) was hell-bent on boarding High Charity. He obviously has plans of his own, and can be seen interrogatating Cortana in the final cutscene. He tricked Master Chief and the Arbiter by telling them to search different places. That may sound harmless, but inturn he was able to manifest himself on the the Human Cruiser (Sorry, I never could catch the name of it) to take him off the ring. Now what do the Flood use this new found source of transportation for? They crash right into High Charity. The quickly infest all availible vehicles and assault the remaining Covenant alive in the City. What they were after? Who knows...my guess is that Gravemind knew Cortana was there and was after her.

Lastly, if you didn't quite understand why the Covenant was falling apart...it's actually quite interesting. I found it adding a whole new level to the storyline. Anyways, after the destruction of Installation 04, the Elite in charge of the Covenant presence there was to be persecuted for his failure to protect the Holy Ring. Because of this, the Prophets lose their faith in the Elite's ability to protect the causes of the Covenant. Also, the Brutes see this as their chance to step up, and they do. Replacing the Elites as the main footsoliders in the army. Now this throws the army into dissention. The Covenant is pitted against one another. Those still loyal (And blinded) to the Prophets, and those who see the truth and are rebelling. The army is split like so: The rebels: You have the Elites, Hunters and Grunts. And on the Loyal Army: You have the Brutes, Jackals, Prophets and Drones. The Prophet of Truth is the main leader of the Covenant. He is the only Prophet left standing at the end of the game. He boards the same Forerunner ship that Master Chief is on. The other two Prophets, Regret and Mercy are killed. Regret is killed by Master Chief, and is later infested by Gravemind. Mercy is following Truth when a Flood Infection Form leeches onto him and kills him. Truth leaves him to die, stating that he was blind to the cause anyways.[/spoiler]

I really, [i]really[/i] enjoyed the story. But as for what all of this will envelop to, we shall have to wait until Halo III. :D[/SIZE]

[Japan]

[COLOR=Navy]Halo 2 is awesome!!

I just played it yesterday, and I also played it on XBOX Live. CO-OP is also really fun. The things that I like about the multi player is that there is an online option. There are a bigger and better selection of vehicles. I love the banshee. ^_^ (Twirling in it is fun! lol)

I also like the option that you can choose the main weapon for the game instead of the usual rifle. Rocket Launcher!!! w00t!

I also like that game where the only weapon you have is the sword. I love to lunge at my enemy. You can also blow up the vehicles, and also hijack them.

Anyways, I also like how you can make your character either be an alien or the master chief. You can personalize your character even more with a logo type and color and secondary and main colors and all that good stuff. My logo is of the good ol' triforce symbol from Zelda.

Halo 2 is the best first person shooter game in the world!!!!! [/COLOR]

[Guest ScirosDarkblade]

Man, Sol, that's some interesting stuff. I haven't beaten Halo 2 yet and I haven't looked through my LE stuff, but I don't mind a few spoilers... and that was good reading. I guess there could be a lot more to the Halo story than meets the eye.

[_Kiba_]

I think that Halo 2 is an awesome game, it still doesnt get old, the storyline is once again great the graphics r even better, the weapons r all the old ones plus new!
i give it a 10/10 it earns that score easily... I got to play it extra cuz i was :sick: on the day it came out and the rest of the week i have been playing it constently(except for eating AIMing ad sleeping [a little] and to check the boards)