One more cup of coffee

Halo 2

I finished the Halo 2 single player campaign. Good fun. I've read lots of complaints on the web about the ending. The ending wasn't nearly as definite as the ending of Halo, but it didn't bother me that much. It clearly sets up a Halo 3 at some future date, which doesn't seem like a bad thing.

The AI is definitely better, for both enemies and allies. The Covenant will leap over obstacles to get to you, they will flank you, they will regroup. The Marines you fight with now live more than 3 seconds. Also, they can drive now. In Halo 1, you could drive vehicles, the Covenant aliens could drive, but Marines would never drive. Now you can hop on the gunner turret of the Warthog and let the Marines drive you around while you shoot things up.

Multiplayer is clearly where Halo 2 will get its staying power. Being able to play online on Xbox Live is great. The matchmaking system they have for joining a game is really nice. Basically, you can pick what kind of game you want to play, and it finds one. As you play more, your level goes up, and the system tries to match you against people that are close to your level. It's that simple. Almost every other online game I've ever played has had some kind of server browser, where you scroll through a list of available games and pick one. That system works, but NOT having to do that is great. After all, you're trying to play a game, not search for one.

Posted by Mike at November 15, 2004 09:27 AM