On the Xbox, Halo 2 introduced an innovative server finder, known as matchmaking. With matchmaking, you'd create a party, select a game type, and hit go. It would then match you and anyone else in your party up with similarly skilled players. The PC version of the game maintains a few of these concepts, but it also offers a standard server browser, which works better and faster when it comes to quickly selecting a server and getting into a game. Additionally, the game doesn't appear to keep track of any player rankings.
Halo 2 is the first game out there with support for the PC version of Xbox Live, the console's pay-to-play online service. There are two levels: a free silver level and a paid gold tier. The game comes with a free month of gold access, or if you already have an Xbox Live account, you can log in using your e-mail address and password. The split between silver and gold on the console makes some form of sense--if you pay for gold, you can play online games; if you're silver, you can't. Of course, that sort of tactic wouldn't work on the PC, where the standards for free online multiplayer are firmly entrenched, so Microsoft has made some seemingly arbitrary limits for silver members on the PC. Headset-based voice chat is available to all users, which is nice. Silver members are limited to using the server browser to find games, while gold members can hit a "quick match" button to get into a game quickly. This button has a habit of throwing you on empty gold tier servers, and the server browser works better anyway, so this is hardly a reason to sign up. It's also worth noting that one of the gold tier abilities will be to play against Xbox 360 players in select games, but Halo 2 does not have this sort of cross-platform support. Lastly, the game will only let you get multiplayer achievements if you have a gold account.
Achievements were an unexpectedly popular feature on the Xbox 360 that give you a "gamerscore," and each retail game supporting the service has up to 1,000 points to earn. Halo 2 one of the first PC games to offer achievement points, and they'll go right onto your Xbox 360 Live account if you already have one. In Halo 2, you'll earn points for completing each level in single-player, but most of the better achievements are on the multiplayer side, where you'll get points for ending someone's energy-sword killing spree, killing four people quickly, running someone over, jacking a vehicle, and so on.
The Halo 2 multiplayer offers a lot of options, but it's apparently missing the one option that matters: disabling auto-aim for gamepad users.
The visuals in Halo 2 aren't going to win any awards. Yes, it certainly looks better than its Xbox counterpart, but that's mostly due to antialiasing and support for resolutions up to 1680x1050. On a fairly modern machine that bypasses the minimum requirements, things like fog in the single-player will have a pretty heavy impact on the frame rate. The multiplayer is also much more demanding than the single-player, which can also reduce your frame rate. But beyond the technical limitations involved in trying to make an old game look, well, less old, the game does have a sharp art style that still works. The early battles on Earth look nice, and your time spent on alien ships and worlds reveals a great attention to detail, making each environment look like a cohesive part of a sci-fi universe and not just a thrown-together clump of vaguely futuristic textures. The sound effects also do a good job of driving this point home, with plenty of good ambient sounds and quality weapon noises. The single-player campaign uses music in specific situations, usually around plot points, and the music is dramatic and appropriate in all the ways you'd want a sci-fi movie's score to be.
While the game has maintained a great deal of popularity on the Xbox, Halo 2 feels like something of a relic when you put it out as a 2007 PC game. The single-player campaign is interesting, and the cliff-hanger doesn't feel so horrific when you consider that Halo 3 is going to be hitting consoles to finish the story in just a few months. The multiplayer side is fun, too, but all of it feels overshadowed. The PC has more than its fair share of amazing shooters that blow Halo 2 away in every possible way, making this one best suited for Halo fans that want an easy way to play custom maps. However, even those fans are just as likely to be put off by the imbalance between the game's two controller options, making it a bit of a no-win situation, despite its high production quality.
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Where to buy
Halo 2 (PC):
$27.99 - $49.99
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$44.99 | Yes |
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$29.99 | Yes |
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$27.99 | Yes |
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Directron.com
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$29.98 | No |
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