Multiplayer is what sealed the deal with the living-room format, and all the old arenas and downloadable content resurface here -ready, willing and able for you to strap yourself into MS's bulky LIVE system and an undeniably giggle-packed game, despite a marked variation in quality as you pass between the 23 maps. All getting in the way of action you can't help but feel affection for despite it all. The dull, obtuse and nonsensical storyline (the low point of which is a Flood hive mind ripped straight from Little Shop Of Horrors), the sudden ending, the cop-out that was the Earth invasion, the crap bits where you play as an alien Arbiter, the endless retread of gameplay already done to death in the original.
But due to the 'OMG - online multiplayer on Xbox! This is the future!' effect of its original launch, people tend to forget its multitude of sins. The bare bones of Halo 2 are great - its shooty, hidey gameplay, amusing physics and some genuinely excellent set-pieces (notably jumping onboard the giant spider mech in an otherwise barren attack on Earth) still get the adrenalin pumping. That is, at least until the advent of DX10 and the whine of a million gamers opening their wallets and pouring coins into the cavernous maw of Bill Gates.īut whatever you think about Vista, and whether you consider MS a risen messiah or a ruthless hijacker of fun, I think that while we're still holding hands (and we are still holding hands), we can all agree that releasing the ancient Halo 2 as a flagship title for both Vista and Games for Windows LIVE is a f***ing stupid idea. A conversion too that now appears dull and ageing, and what's more can only be run on a Vista platform bereft of anything else worth playing apart from Geometry Wars.
Something you can say, though, is that there was no need to keep the PC community waiting three long years for a conversion.
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