October exploded with new game releases and November is even more insane. Between a new Call of Duty, Dragon Age and two Assassin’s Creed games, there’s quite a lot to choose from; but one of the titles emerging on November 11th is partly a re-release of one of my all time favorites. So sit back and let me talk about why Halo 2 is the greatest multiplayer game ever made… in my humble opinion of course.
Back In The Day…
Halo 2 was originally released in 2004, ten years ago, and it’s easy to forget what console gaming was like back then. The PC market had a slew of multiplayer focused games long before with Quake 3: Arena, Unreal Tournament and Battlefield 1942 dominating the market.
Halo: Combat Evolved was the game that showed developers how a first person shooter on a console should control, but at that time online gaming was still in its early stages. Xbox Live released in 2002 with games like Unreal Championship, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon and MechAssault. All of these games were very popular but Xbox Live was still looking for that killer app, especially since it required a monthly subscription to use and their rivals at Sony also had online support.
Everyone knew ahead of time that Halo 2 was going to feature online multiplayer and seeing as how Bungie revolutionized console shooters with the first game, a lot was riding on them to do it again.
OMGWATDAFUKHAX
Just as Halo showed developers how to make a shooter on a console, Halo 2 showed developers how to make a complete multiplayer experience. Console shooters at this point were still playing catch up to their PC counterparts and some games had a few of Halo 2’s features, but not all of them simultaneously.
Constant voice chat was standard, but the ability to start clans, send and receive voice or text messages, a built in friend’s list feature, notifications for messages and invites, proximity voice chat, pre-game lobby groups, competitive matchmaking and ranking system made for an online experience that far surpassed its competitors. Many of the things we take for granted these days on modern day Xbox Live and Playstation Network were started by Halo 2.
BXR
Then there’s the game itself, the maps, the guns and the glitches (unintentionally) were seamlessly combined with one another. Since I mentioned maps, there were so many great ones! Ascension, Lockout, Zanzibar, Midship, Ivory Tower and the DLC maps, Sanctuary, Relic, Turf, Containment, I could go on all day!
On top of all the levels, each map played widely different depending on the gametype. Tactics that worked well on one game type would prove to be ill advised in another. Team Oddball on Lockout would play much differently compared to Team Slayer on the same map.
This is just one of the things that gave Halo 2 its unmatched variety and thanks to Halo’s enormous community; they even came up with their own game types.
Go on Green!
Tower of Power was a popular one that I knew some people would play for hours. If selected in options, the main tower on Ascension could have a turret added to perfectly overlook the base’s entrance. Normally people avoided using the turrets in matchmaking since they were easy targets for snipers but in TOP, both the defenders and attackers would only get a shotgun, with no energy shields for their character. The result was a party game where the minutes would roll by as you threw yourself at the tower until you coordinated an attack great enough to defeat your enemies.
Many players that started on Halo 3 could be forgiven for thinking that the infection/zombies game type started there. In reality, Halo 2 did this long before. It was just a little more… cumbersome.
Humans were on one team color with a shotgun, pistol and no shields; meanwhile zombies would also have no shields but be armed with an energy sword. Having a pistol that could one hit kill the zombie if used properly meant that games always started out easy for Humans, until they started to run dry.
When done properly, matches would typically end in an epic standoff with some players even moving boxes on the Foundation map to block an entrance from the zombies. Only problem is that people had to switch to the zombie team manually in the options menu and you would get plenty of assholes that wouldn’t switch. Not that it ruined the mode completely, because it ended up appearing as an official gametype in every Halo game since.
Strongside-ing and Gandhi Hopping
Then there was the competitive community, specifically, Major League Gaming. MLG tournaments were held for Halo: CE but MLG really didn’t grow into something big until 2006.
This is the year when spectator numbers grew, as well as cash prizes for winners. While Halo 2 never did receive an MLG playlist, Team Hardcore featured settings similar to MLG. Not only that, but in Halo 2, the MLG settings weren’t all that drastically different from the base game. If a match type featured Battle Rifle’s as a starter weapon, it wouldn’t be too different from MLG’s settings.
The most successful competitive games out there are ones that use identical settings whether you’re a pro or a casual. In Halo 3, MLG would have customized game settings with their own boosts to damage and movement speed and Halo Reach would go even further with this customization, almost to the point where MLG settings were a completely different game.
Halo 2 did not have this problem and I believe it’s one of the main reasons why competitive Halo 2 was so successful, that and it was just the most fun. It may be arguable that Halo 3 took more skill, but Halo 2 was by far the smoother experience, with more exciting fast paced gameplay that took a lot of skill to play when competing against the best players.
I Believe I Can Touch The Sky!
Thanks to all of these modes, Halo 2 was a great game no matter what kind of player you were. The party games were fun for those who enjoyed kicking back on the couch while charging a base with their shotgun wielding friends. The competitive games were for those who wanted to join a match with the same friends to communicate and strategize a victory with team-shooting, map and weapon control.
Of all the casual modes though, my favorite was where we gave everyone a rocket launcher, a sword and 3x shields. There are many names for this game type but mine was always called “finding secrets”.
This is one where none of us would run around killing gangsta bitches. This is the one where we ran around barrel rolling, sword lunging and super-bouncing our way around the map, finding areas where we weren’t supposed to go.
For those that don’t know, super bounces were these infamous glitches in Halo 2 where if you jumped and landed on a certain part of the map, it would send your character up in the air, hence the name. Some maps had bounces that weren’t so high; others had ones that would literally throw you up entire towers.
These might have been disruptive in any other game but for Halo, the super bounces rarely ever ruined a serious match for me. Super bounces were not easy and (obviously) no weapons ever spawned in these out of bound areas. If once in a blue moon somebody was being a bastard in a super bounce location, there would most likely be a sniper rifle nearby on the map that would kill him in two shots or less.
I Wanna Be The Very Best!
This was the beauty of Halo 2’s multiplayer; it was the perfect fusion of hardcore and casual gaming, fun and intense, serious and pants-on-head-retarded.
When the game’s servers finally shut down in spring 2010, there were people keeping the game alive one month after the servers officially shutdown. If that doesn’t show how much some people were dedicated to this game, I don’t know what does.
Those memories of playing old-school Halo 2 back in the day will never be fully recreated. Even with the re-release of Halo 2 classic in the Master Chief Collection, the world of online shooters has changed. Halo is no longer the most popular online game; everything it did has been implemented in most other online shooters.
Now, with that said, Halo 2 still holds up and if we’re able to get even a little of that magic back, we’re in for a real treat.