 So after countless amount of team kills, grenade deaths, and constantly getting run over by a tank, I completed Halo 2 on normal difficulty. Before I start spewing verbal garbage about plasma balls and ampedexter's talents, I should give thanks and recognition. I could make a joking insult about how you spend your time watching an irrelevant kid who talks about movies and video games, but I do truly appreciate those who support my content. I don't make the best videos, nor will I ever, but the feedback within the last two weeks have been gracious and motivating. It's a relief to not be talking to a wall with no response, and I genuinely appreciate anyone who's been combating and sharing my videos. I usually just go into the video without an intro like this, but as we get closer to 100 subscribers, I feel you should know I'm very grateful. Thank you. And to the folks who are new, welcome. I don't bite, but I got teeth, and this is the second video in the series. But in summary, I'm reviewing all the mainline Halo games because I'm a loser with too much free time. Now, with discussing Halo 2, this video is going to be more dialogue focused, so I recommend you let this video run and do something productive, like clean your room, do your laundry, or rot your brain away at a digital wasteland while your ears focus on me. But leave the video on because it helps me. Halo 2 is a sequel to Combat Evolved that was released on November 9th, 2004 on the original Xbox. I could spend more time talking about the origin of Halo 2, but I'm going to assume you don't care, which benefits me because I don't care either. Halo 2 isn't an indie game and definitely wasn't looked over. Even if you didn't grow up with an Xbox, you know about Halo 2, and anybody who says they don't must be from the UK because they're lying from their teeth. Halo Combat Evolved was the angel of gaming to some, then Halo 2 is the devil in disguise. In context, this sounds bad, where the angel doesn't want you to use naughty words around elders, the devil dual wields and shreds the guitar. I played through Halo 2 with my friend Alex, and by the gameplay you could tell it's me playing because of the Activate Windows watermark. Trust me, I understand it's awkward, but if I have to deal with it, you have to deal with it too. Welcome to my world. I wanted to play through with Alex so I could have a different perspective besides my own. Believe it or not, I have a ton of nostalgia when it comes to Halo 2. Not possibly, but definitely making me bias. But Alex didn't grow up with an Xbox and has never played Halo 2, so his experience is definitely going to be different to mine. We played on the anniversary version of the game, and to break the ice this game is just really pretty. I can't even count the amount of times I would switch between the original remastered version just to see the difference in comparison of them. It's the globe I never had. They fully rebuilt the game from the ground up and polished everything from the soundtrack to the mountains. Naturally, kids are stupid. You could put Toy Story 4 next to Ice Age and they won't be able to tell the difference. So seeing the clear difference now with an adult brain, or at least I hope, was very eye catching. Also credit to where credits do. This remastered was made in 2014 and still looks better than most game titles today. And having the ability to switch between both versions of the game for comparison must have been very tedious to implement and definitely deserves praise. But when it comes to the remastered this game, as much as I love and respect the effort of making Play Dome to a statue, I can't say this game is completely faithful. I love Halo Reach, but Reach Guns should stay in Reach. The game came out in 2010. I don't understand why assets are still being used for Halo 2. Some Reach assets are improvements to its original counterpart, like the new Needler in the Spunker Rocket, for example, but the Reach Sniper has no reason to be in this game. They don't even look anything alike. They're two completely different snipers. Blur was the studio to remaster the cutscenes and sound effects in this game. They added the Halo Reach Sniper sound effect as well. And there's no excuse when it comes to the Energy Sword. It's smearing shit on a clean canvas. The cutscenes that include the Energy Sword and even the multiplayer remastered version of it have the same style with new effects, but in-game it's just a Halo Reach sword. Yes, I'm bitching about pixels, but the old Halo 2 sword was clean. It looked like ice and made the most satisfying noise when you pulled it out. Now it's Crip Blue and makes Star Wars shield noises. But where it gets confusing is when you see the remastered shotgun. Halo Combat Evolved just used all Reach assets, including the shotgun, but why remake the shotgun and not the Energy Sword? This is an issue with the remastered and is extremely nitpicky, but I'm a whiner and I'm whining. Deal with it. The campaign of Halo 2 in comparison to Halo 1 is a great improvement. Halo's 2 campaign is objectively better than Halo Combat Evolved in terms of story. But I subjectively found it more engaging than Combat Evolved. Halo's 2 story starts with a perspective of the Covenant, which now makes the game have more depth in Combat Evolved instantly. You learn from this intro that the Covenant have a government with the judicial system and hierarchy. Covenant Commander Thalva Dam, who later becomes the Arbiter is the Deuteragonist in Halo 2 and is on trial for letting the Halo Ring in the first game be destroyed by the human race. For letting it fall, he's labeled a heretic in his sentence to public torture and execution. From this cutscene, you also learn that the Covenant are brutal and that its hierarchy leaves in similarity to a dictatorship. These three old, lazy shot collars are known as the Prophets, similar to leadership in most modern countries. The Covenant now has death and complexity because of this intro, a system of brainwashed soldiers who put their lives and purpose in faith, just like the civilians in most modern countries. The game takes place moments after Halo Combat Evolved, and the UNSC are celebrating after blowing up the Halo Ring in the first game and proceed to hand out fancy medals until they're attacked by a Covenant fleet. Oh no, spooky. Then the Master Chief gets a strap and goes to town. Pop here, pop there, Suplex City, smack down. Then you find some stupid bitch who actually left his bomb, and the Master Chief respectfully returns it back to the address in the box. Playing through this mission, you notice a lot of new weaponry. The Battle Rifle and SMG were two new weapons added to Halo 2 with the Assault Rifle being removed. I don't know why it was removed, but its replacement is not disappointing. The Battle Rifle is fun to use and has become so iconic in Halo since being added. Before being molested and butchered, that is. Also, the sound effects for the weapons in this remastered version are beautiful. Blur Studios remade the audio for this game and the guns sound like they're shooting bullets and not pebbles. I should also state that the score for this game is amazing as well. The guitar shredding goes hard for sure, and those vocals, ooh. Not only did his armor get a glow up by upgrading to Mark 6, which now gives him shields in combat, the Chief can now use his left hand, allowing both his choppers to sing. Deal-Wielding was a fun gimmick that flayed the gameplay. Also, I had that Alex really liked how the Crosshair is mixed for different weapons. But following that mission, you discover a message announcing that the Prophet regret is looking for something on Newman Bossa. This is interrupted as a scarab blows up your Pelican transitioning to the start of the mission. A Snipea or Snipe there, vroom vroom, and holy shit, it's a scarab. You hop on that motherfucker and blow it up like a badass. The Covenant got what they were looking for and about to blast off through a wormhole. You board a UNSC ship and a Pelican and catch the portal before the Covenant closes it, glassing the city. If you're wondering what glassing is, it's simply a nukba 20 times larger and wipes out everything. I doubt you'll be a ghoul after this. We go back to the Arborist perspective who has been tortured and scarred but still remains loyal to the Great Journey. Instead of killing him publicly, the Prophets wanted to become a sacred arbiter and do their dirty work, seeing it as a win-win because the arbiter gets to keep his life while the Prophets set him on suicide missions for their game. A revolution has started with a group of rebels calling the Prophets liars and sitting at their Great Journey as a death wish. So the Prophets send the arbiter to silence those who go against the Great Journey, just like some human religious figures. And for the first time in Halo history, we play from the Covenant's perspective in-game. God, I fucking hate this energy sword. So as the arbiter, you play alongside cute grunts that you don't have to kill for once. Nevermind, fuck me, I guess. Slash here, slash there, everywhere, everywhere, slash, slash. Oh shit, the flood is here. You kill a lot of them until you find the heretic leader. He tells the arbiter that his belief in the Great Journey is bullshit and that the Prophets are liars. Then the oracle appears to confirm it. The heretic leader cuts off the conversation and does some mysterious shit as you go into the hardest boss fight ever. The arbiter drags his corpse as evidence for the Prophets, but then the oracle is snagged by Tartarus. The asshole who torches the arbiter in the beginning of the game and the mission ends. Playing as the arbiter is almost identical to the Master Chief but with some gimmicks. You get an invisibility feature that is limited and was useful time to time but not greatly effective. The flood is more detailed and complex in comparison to Halo 1's flood, but still very tedious to kill, especially in waves. We then switch back to the UNSC's perspective. The ship barely made it through the wormhole and after making it through we discover a new Halo ring that the Covenant have set along. So with a bunch of odious tees, the Chief is sent down to hut and kill the Prophet of Regret. The chute here, a tank here, a bridge here, and a whack, whack, whack. Ooh, we're underwater now. Master Chief finds the Prophet of Regret and clubs him to death. After that we get to see the iconic scene of Master Chief doing the dash into a body of water. He's then abducted by a tentacle and the scene ends. The missions leading to killing the Prophet of Regret were very lengthy, going from land to bridge to water to land multiple times. The pirate boat part was tedious but had nice scenery so it wasn't completely dreadful to play through. Also, the Scorpion portions were fun when I wasn't being team killed every second by Alex. We then switch back to the arbiter's perspective and the elites are being replaced by the Brutes as the Prophet's protectors because of the elites failure in protecting the Prophet of Truth. This leads to the elites threatening to leave the Covenant. In the next mission, the arbiter is sent to find a relic that activates the halo ring, with Tartarus assisting him in a phantom. After countless checkpoints of killing Flood over and over again, you discover that the humans are after the relic as well and arrived before you. This is noticeable by the Flood's corpses in use of human weapons. Miranda Keys and Sergeant Johnson retrieve the artifact and moments later they are engaged by the arbiter who incapacitates both of them. Their deaths are postponed when Keys is snatched by Tartarus along with the relic, with him stating that the relic is now his responsibility. It's also revealed that the Prophet's ordered Tartarus to kill the arbiter. The cutscene ends with Tartarus practicing his Thorne pressure and sends the arbiter down a big hole to his death. But he doesn't die because he's saved by the tentacles just like the Master Chief. After this cutscene, we have all three parties drink tea and exchange numbers for the first time. I praised the opening cutscene in this game because it gave more depth to the Covenant and this cutscene does the same for the Flood. In Halo 1, you have no idea who the Flood was or why they cared enough to attack you. They were essentially just a species that didn't want to die to the halo rings just like the humans. In this cutscene, you still don't know why they want to kill everything, but you learn that the Flood is a parasite and is connected through one hive mine. And this hive mine is called the Grave Mine and is an embodiment of all Flood. This cutscene is straightforward and simple when looking at it through a microscope, but it still has more depth to the Flood since we were first introduced to them in Combat Evolved. The story of the cutscene is that all three parties have a common interest in survival, and they want to put aside their differences to find the artifact and prevent a galactic-wide annihilation. But the depth, as I stated, comes from the dialogue. The Grave Mine describes the Master Chief as machine and nerve with his mind concluded and describes the arbiter as a delusional loyalist who puts his false trust in his hierarchy. The idea of Master Chief being more machine than human doesn't fully get explored into Halo 4, but the seeds have been planted and now require sun and water. And for the arbiter, he learns that the profits are full of shit and that his great journey is a lie. The Grave Mine states he's been around forever and knows everything. There still isn't much explanation for what the Flood's purpose is, but as an audience, we now know the Flood has an identity. The Grave Mine sends the Chief and Arbiter to different locations to search for the relics so they can prevent the activation of Delta Halo. We play as the Master Chief first and get to see this funny cutscene where he scares Alex and takes his weapon. Within the mission, the Covenant are in full civil war with elites and grunts rebelling in the Covenant. But the Chief doesn't believe in politics so he kills anything that breathes. The missions come down to kill everything until you reach a checkpoint, rinse, repeat. Okay, it's not that linear to be fair. You have to rescue Marines and take floating slides, woohoo. After those missions, we see Tartars preparing to activate the Halo Ring after being given the artifact from the Prophet of Truth. And the Prophet will regret and mercy are getting ready to go back to the rest of the fleet until they're attacked by a swarm of Flood. A Flood squid thingy latches to the Prophet of Mercy and like the power hungry fuck he is, the Prophet of Truth lets him die, stating that the great journey waits for no one. Making the Prophet of Truth now have full control of the Covenant. We switch back to the Arbiter's perspective after the cutscene. He's been sent to an aftermath of a battle where dozens of elites have been slaughtered by Brutes. You kill through Brutes until you find your allies. You also learn that Tartars is going to activate the Halo Ring so you pursue him. We then switch back to the Master Chief and the Prophet of Truth is gone, but the Prophet of Mercy is still dying on the floor. You let him die and pursue the Prophet of Truth as he attempts to go to Earth. You leave Cortana behind as a safety measure before you abort a Covenant transport ship in pursuit of Truth and the mission ends. Going back to the Arbiter's perspective, you free rebellion prisoners and find Marines being attacked by the Flood in front of a Scarab. Turns out that the driver of the Scarab is a now free Sergeant Johnson who makes a treaty with the Arbiter to stop the activation of Delta Halo. Tartars has locked himself in the activation building and Sergeant Johnson has to blow the door down with the Scarab, so you protect him until he does in a Banshee. After blowing up the door, you hop out of your Banshee to find Tartars attempting to make keys activate the Ring. Then the Arbiter and Johnson intervene, telling Tartars that the Great Journey is a lie and that the Prophets have betrayed them. Tartars being completely loyal sees the Arbiter as being jealous that the Brutes have replaced the elites, so he activates the Ring and fights the Arbiter. After this annoying boss fight, the Arbiter kills Tartars, then keys does some crazy parkour and deactivates the Halo Ring saving the day. Then Johnson keys and the Arbiter discover that there are multiple Halo Rings with a way to activate them all at once. We then cut to the Chief who is still inside of a Covenant transport ship and states that he's going to finish the fight and the game ends. The ending of this game is a cliffhanger and a poor resolution but the last mission the game was made but never put into Halo 2. This was because there's just no space for it back in the day, so people in 2004 had to deal with this cliffhanger until 2007. And in context to its own campaign, it's an abrupt ending. Also, after the credits, you get a cutscene of Cortana being abducted by the Gravemind. Halo 2 was a fun game to play through. I would be a liar though to say that it holds up to what I thought of it as a kid. In truth, Halo 2 isn't a complex campaign. It's a linear story but that's not necessarily bad, considering the time it came out. In truth, this game doesn't have an incredible world or character building like modern games. Okay, I take that back. It's a simple fun story with stakes in action. Other notes I want to state is that the AI in this game have been improved since Combat Evolved. But every flood enemy was still very tedious to deal with. They were tanky and did a shitload of damage. And after dealing with the same enemy for 10 plus waves, it got really boring fast. The Brutes were also very annoying to deal with, especially when they were in their overpowered Gorilla mode. And the Jackal Snipers on Legendary mode are a nightmare. The side characters in this game had charm but they were just in the background for most of the time. If it wasn't for Halo 3, a lot of them wouldn't be iconic. Except for you, keep offin' that cigar. When it comes to Halo's multiplayer, it's clear the different dev team did their remaster. The anniversaries, models, sound effects, and map designs are very similar to 343 styles in Halo 4 and 5. The elites are brutish and the Spartans are futuristic and they're aesthetic. Also, the gun designs are different to the campaign. Look at the shotgun and energy sword compared to the campaign's version of them. This energy sword is so much cleaner, though. I don't know why they didn't put in the campaign. But the multiplayer still uses the Reach Sniper. What the fuck? Normal 2 Halo multiplayer revolutionized the world being the first Halo to use Xbox Live. It was more dynamic and competitive with better map designs compared to Halo Combat of all of it as well. This is all I have to say about Halo 2. It's a fun game and a great sequel. Bungie created something excellent and memorable, unlike their two newest projects. Halo 3 is coming to PC soon so that when that comes out, I'll do that. If you enjoy the video, please like and share the video. Everything helps when I enjoy making these videos and all support is appreciated. Also, I have a Twitter and I'll post future updates on there, so please follow. Goodbye. Thank you. Bye. Bye.