Halo 2 Build-Up/Discussion Thread

[Mysterio2000X]

It just said "Coming February 9th", which could mean 2005, 2006, or hell, 2010.

2005 is a possibility, because Bungie could have worked on the two games at once, but on the other hand, I'm sure they'd save it for Xenus as one of the launch titles, meaning that 2006 is also a very strong possibility. (That's around the time Xenus is coming out, IIRC)

There have also been rumors that Microsoft forced Bungie to end Halo 2 like that so that there would be enough stuff for Halo 3, and thus, more money. There's a lot of information that backs up this claim, but nothing has been confirmed.

[Big Tuna]

I think February 9 will be when the first wave of downloadable content will become avaliable.

[Godfatha]

Halo 3 will be released with Xbox 2. Without Halo 3, the Xbox 2 has no flagship game to help people buy it.

It could be the day for downloadable content, but I wouldn't get excited as it's all multiplayer maps, no single player stuff, that and I read somewhere you have to pay.

[Scott McFly]

Yeah, it'll probably be premium content, they'd be stupid to not make it premium. Project Gotham 2 had that, but it was still relatively cheap at £2.99, so if Halo 2's is the same price for extra maps then it should be worth it. There's also an unlockable multiplayer map called 'Foundation' I think, if you look up any cheat site it'll tell you how to do it (it's actually not a cheat, though).

And on the special edition, there's a bonus disk with a lengthy 'making of' documentary, which really gives insight into the making of the game. In short - they fucked up the design early on (by their own admission) - they were too ambitious - and that's why it's taken so long to make. Hopefully they've learned by their mistakes and it won't take 3 years to get Halo 3 out.

Oh, it also shows most of the voice actors, except Master Chief. All we see is a blonde moustache looking like it belongs to a middle-aged hunting fanatic.

[Big Tuna]

Oh, it also shows most of the voice actors, except Master Chief. All we see is a blonde moustache looking like it belongs to a middle-aged hunting fanatic.

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[abundant]

There’s already an update. It makes it easier to find a game in Matchmaking and everyone will get the Foundation map.

[Pepsi]

I love the music.

[Godfatha]

Yeah the soundtrack for the game is certainly badass. If you want to hear a sample of all of the songs (and I highly reccomend the Mjonlir mix with Steve Vai) click here: http://www.nilerodgers.com/HTMLversion/Live/Index.aspx#

It's his official site and he was the music producer. From the main Halo 2 part of the screen you can see him and Steve Vai (fucking amazing guitarist) work on the Halo theme as well as sample all of the songs in the game.

[The Kraig]

I completed it on Sunday, but I've been busy since then so...SPOILERS~!

The game fucking rules. At first, I didn't like it so much, but when I realised I got to play as The Arbiter I was like the w00t smiley until I feel asleep. And Gravemind (the big Flood monster) fucking owns. Also, keep watching after the credits roll, like in Halo. In Halo, you see Guilty Spark floating around in space. But at the end of Halo 2, Cortana seemingly agrees to answer Gravemind's questions. But we won't find out until Halo 2, those utter bastards.

And people are asking why this is better than other FPSs, it's because of the storyline. I've read the books, completed Halo on Legendary and Halo 2 on Normal. It just rules. For a full summary look below:

MC (Master Chief) and lots of other highly cool children are abducted by the UNSC (space military) and raised to be super fighting soldiers with the best armour, weapons and combat education ever, and the children were good at certain things. MC was the best at leadership. Other were good at speed, but that's a different story.

They were trained to fight the Covenant (led by the three Prophets, Elites, Grunts & Jackals) and they've had many many successful battles on ground but have ultimately lost most of their battles from space. The Covenant eventually 'glass' the human planet of Reach using their plasma cannons but Master Chief and the crew of the Pillar Of Autumn escape and end up at Halo #4 (one of 7 Halos created by the 'Forerunners' which may have killed all of the Forerunners before Covenant and Humankind evolved from tiny beings), which is where Halo the game starts off. The Covenant unleash the Flood on the Halo (parasitic creatures which the ring was built to contain and kill by starvation) accidentally which activates the Sentinels, robotic protectors of the ring, built to control the Flood should they escape. After MC realises that helping the Sentinels would mean firing the Halo (and thus killing any living being big enough for the Flood to possess) he blows up the ring.

Between Halo and Halo 2, it's basically him and the few survivors of Halo fighting Covenant and the Covenant finding the human homeplanet of Earth. Brutes appear, as well as Engineers (small pink aliens, who love technology and really just want to help anyone, good or evil).

Halo 2 introduces two new types of Covenant (Brutes and Drones) which resemble Gorillas and Bugs. The Prophets grow tired with the Elite who was to blame for Halo #4 being destroyed (Halos are considered Holy to the Covenant) and becomes the Arbiter, who is pretty much the Covenant version of Master Chief. He kills the Heretic Leader (someone who knows that if Halo fired, they'd all die and nothing miraculous would happen and has been amassing a small army of believers). One of the Prophets sends in a weak army to Earth, to help speed up the process of firing the newly found Halo (apparently Earth has something to do with the Halos) but the invasion obviously fails, as they may have believed Reach was the humans homeplanet. The other two Prophets get pissed at the Prophet who ordered the attack and he is later killed by MC (nothing to do with the other Prophets being angry at that Prophet). For that, the Elites and demoted as they are the Prophets protectors, and the Brutes are put in their places. This pisses off the Elites and the Grunts (Grunts admire Elites for some reason). Meanwhile, Gravemind, what seems to be the massive organism where all the Flood take their victims' minds to be dumped is enlightening the Elites about the truth of the Halos and that they are not Holy, just machines of death. At around this time, one of the last two remaining Prophets is killed by the Flood.

The Brutes, Prophets, Jackals and Drones turn on the Elites and the Grunts. The Hunters (massive walking tanks) then pledge their aleigiance to the Elites so there's an alliance between Humans, Elites, Hunters and Grunts against the last remaining Prophet, the Brutes, Jackals and Drones.

The Elites then get revenge on the betraying Brutes and kill their leader Tartarus before he could fire the new Halo (which would kill them all).

And while all this is happening, Master Chief is back on his way to Earth in the 'Ark', what many speculate is what the Forerunners used to keep away from the 'Flood', get it? Anyways, it appears the Ark is going to have a big part in Halo 3 and this new alliance is so cool. I always wanted a Hunter to be on my side.

A small tidbit, is that the Prophets and Elites used to hate each other before the Covenant religion existed. And I don't know why. But it's just another question to be answered in Halo 3.

Anyways, that's pretty much all the more important things since the fall of Reach until the end of Halo 2.

[Mysterio2000X]

That's pretty much correct, but to clear a couple of things from Kraig's summary -

Reach was where the Spartans were trained, and was also the last great military planet Humans had.

There have been many artifacts (Rocks and crystals-like objects, mostly) found around the planets that are from Forerunner decent. (So far, there has only been one on Cote D'Azur, and I think there was one found in Reach, not sure.) Anyways, these objects fucked up the slip pace travel in the book "First Strike", which takes place between Halo and Halo 2. That little screw up allowed the original Halo survivors to make it to Reach and save Dr. Halsley (The mother of the Spartans, pretty much) and some other Spartans, by making Slip pace Travel into a Time Travel type of thing - meaning that when they get out of it, they are around a month or two before they initially went into it.

At the end of First Strike, the remaining Spartans (with the exception of Linda, I think. Either Linda or Kelly, who is taken by Dr. Halsley for a secret mission of hers) manage to destroy a whole Covenant armada which was gearing up for Earth. Out of the odd 500 covenant ships, only around 14 were left undamaged - the single greatest human space victory in history.

[Guest Bluesman]

This should be interesting, as tomorrow there is a tourney on campus, and I'm going to be the 4th member. I'm not particularly skilled, as I haven't played either game very much, especially Halo 2. The best out of our group is unable to play, so I end up replacing him. We're going to get slaughtered...it'll be fun, but still...

[Gongsun Zan]

Personally, I think it isn't just the storyline that makes Halo great. Alot of people don't notice it, but the AI on Heroic and Legendary is awesome.

Groups of enemies work together to take you down, they'll use suppressing fire on your posistion, while sheilded elites will jump in front of unsheilded ones to protect them. Heck, even the flood infection forms have become alot smarter...they'll try to lure you towards the combat forms, and strike from the shadows when your sheilds are down.

Once, I once playing on Delta Halo, trying to clear the landing zone with the ODSTs. Instead of attacking us head on, one of the blue elites took the grunts and acted as an distraction by the main entrance, while the red elite took the jackals and went round the back, killing us from behind.

Of course, there are alot of other things, but these are just the first few that came to mind.

[Pepsi]

Legendary is actually a lot of fun to play. It's hard as hell but I love that it almost feels like your playing against a bunch of player controlled enemies rather then computer controlled. But watching Elites and Grunts have a fire fight on Legendary just kicks ass.

[Godfatha]

Agreed. I'm replaying it on Legendary and holy shit the AI is intense.

*SPOILERS*

When the Hunters and Elites are taking on the Brutes and Jackals its a fucking gong show on Legendary. Just trying to sneak past them won't work and you have to watch where you step as you'll get hit by your teammates as they're just blasting, then dodging.

[Gongsun Zan]

Whee! I got XBL! Been playing a couple of games, trying to raise my level so I can get some decent competition. >_>

If anyone wants to add me to my freinds list, my tag is Gongsun Zan.

[Big Tuna]

I'll add you when I go on next, which should be quite soon.

Found this story, it has to be false, but it's still hilarious

The small town of Stalybridge was in mourning yesterday after schoolboys John Francis, 20, and Rupert Youngblood, 15, were killed after re-enacting a scene from the latest killing simulator, called Halo.

The two copied a scene from the best-seller by turning John's father's car into an alien tank similar to the one found in the chilling game. They crashed the 'tank' into a wall after simulating destroying surrounding vehicles with energy blasts from the makeshift turret they erected, and both boys were killed.

'This game is a blueprint for murder,' stated barrister Edmund Woolf QC, representing the distraught parents of the boys. 'Players are encouraged to kill each other with "energy swords, "plasma grenades", and other weapons easily reconstructed with common household materials.'

The game was released last week to a general public outrage- video games are thought to be responsible for 50 deaths a week across the country. In the game players control a superhuman android who is trying to murder an entire race, something that is all too easy for youngsters to relate to.

'It's a disgrace what these companies get away with these days,' said Rupert's mother, bravely fighting back tears. 'Everybody knows that these games turn children into bloodthirsty maniacs, so why don't the government step in and stop me from buying them for my children?'

The tragedy is the latest in a long line of shocking incidents related to video game's insidious grasp on British youth. Two months ago Imran Patel, 14, made a 'Mario' plumber suit and imitated the game character with tragic results- three fellow students were killed as a result of Patel bouncing on top of their heads and eating mushrooms.

'Something must be done to control these games companies,' added Mr. Woolf. 'Their irresponsible depiction of extra-terrestrial war and encouragement of "deathmatches" ensure the corruption of our youth.'

Bungie, the creator of Halo, declined to comment.

Edited November 21, 2004 by Mortified Penguin