The Invasion Begins: Halo 2 Reviewed

There's a level in Halo 2 called 'That Old Familiar Feeling', and that seems like a pretty good phrase to start with. But before you run away screaming with your fingers in your ears, don't worry. It's nigh-on impossible to discuss Halo 2's Campaign mode in-depth without chucking up spoilers. So we won't.

That Old Familiar Feeling. That pretty much sums it up. As soon as you begin playing Halo 2 you'll feel it. Remember? That satisfaction when you stick a plasma grenade on a Hunter halfway across the map, taking out him and the Grunts around him? The thrill of routing an enemy position then chasing down the stragglers with a vicious rifle butt to the skull? Or the sheer terror of getting stuck up Covenant creek without a plasma paddle?

Prepare to feel it again. Before we get into things too deeply, make no mistake about it: Halo 2 is the greatest FPS ever on a home console. It's every technical detail from the first game tweaked, tuned and polished, then stuffed into an upgraded battle suit and armed with powerful new weapons.

And before the PC crowd gets all uppity, we're not comparing. Halo 2 is designed for a console, not the PC. It's not Half-Life 2, and is a whole different ball game from Valve's forthcoming masterwork.

Being the Chief

So where does that 'Feeling' originate? It's certainly present in the controls. Halo 2's control system makes other console first person shooters look amateurish - and some PC games, too. It's steady yet sudden, precise yet sweeping, and it feels totally natural. The sensation is difficult to explain, but it's akin to abandoning the sensation of control itself, as if you're truly within the gameworld and every neuron twitch in your brain results in precisely the correct physical translation.

Combined with the impressive selection of new weapons the control system allows for some truly exhilarating gaming experiences. Wait until you've thinned out a pack of Covenant with the new Covenant Beam Rifle (a plasma sniper rifle), lowered the shields of massed Elites with your dual-wielded SMGs, then finished them off with a deadly slice of your Plasma Sword. Every weapon feels exquisitely balanced and thoroughly well though out, and there's a real sense of your skills developing as you progress. Wielding the Plasma Sword in particular offers a delicious sensation of combative chivalry as you square up to your opponent for a split-second duel to the death.

Chivalry? Indeed. Halo 2, like the first game, is shot through with a tangible sense of forlorn melancholy that heightens the intensity of the combat and invests your quest with a real sense of hopeless importance. The absolutely stunning score by Bungie's Marty O'Donnell - surely the finest original soundtrack ever to appear in a videogame - helps to reinforce this feeling, as do the epic visuals.

Masterstrokes

But these things are brushstrokes in the bigger picture. The mastery of Halo 2's single player game lies in its unceasing ability to confront you with action-packed, sweaty-palmed, stomach-churning set-pieces, then let you catch your breath, then snatch it away again almost immediately. Never before has a game made you feel so hopelessly outnumbered, and yet invested you with the tools and skills to feel like a total bad ass - the Master Chief himself.

The multiplayer component offers a similarly charged experience. This is it: Xbox Live's killer app. Online play in Halo 2 is not another bullet point on the back of the box, it's a sprawling wonderland of headshots, beatdowns, tactical domination and lucky victories. Trust us: if you don't have Xbox Live this is the single greatest reason to get it sorted. We guarantee it will become the essential online console game and people will be playing it for years. We're going to bring you a full online playtest on Wednesday.

So what about the much-discussed, much-anticipated storyline? We won't tell, and we're guessing you don't even want to know until you peel open the shrink wrap for yourself. But even though the action is fantastic and the set-pieces are stunning, we do have our misgivings, and we do have our disappointments. Given the importance of the title and the stratospheric production values that pervade the game it's galling to see glitches in the cut scenes. Gameplay issues are more pressing, though: there are moments when levels are dragged out a little too long, or similar conflicts occur again and again in similar environments, or things feel... well, a little too familiar.

Ascension

That Old Familiar Feeling. It has its advantages, and it has its disadvantages. If Halo 2's single-player Campaign Mode (you can play it offline two-player co-op too, which is exactly as much fun as it was in the original) was the only thing in the box then this would not be a ten-out-of-ten game. It would be a hugely accomplished FPS featuring solid improvements built upon a gilded foundation, but it would not be essential.

With the multiplayer component taken into consideration, Halo 2 is verging on sublime. It might not be everything you hoped for, but it's closer than just about any other game we've ever seen.

And when Halo 2 is stuffed so full of That Old Familiar Feeling, how on Earth could you resist?

Graeme Boyd