Review Halo 2 Anniversary: ​​The return of the legend

After a while, PC gamers were finally able to enjoy Halo 2: Anniversary when the game was officially launched in The Master Chief Collection. This is the game that is considered to be extremely important in the series, because if Halo 1 and the Evolved Combat Evolved upgrade start for the legendary Master Chief, Halo 2 is the one who brought the Halo series to the top with Dramatic storyline, engaging gameplay, and multiplayer improvements that affect the world.

The Halo 2 legend continues

After playing through Halo: Reach and Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary on Steam, I entered the Halo 2 Anniversary excitedly because before The Master Chief Collection was released, I was one of the most experienced gamers. play through another version of Halo other than Halo: Combat Evolved on PC. After going through all 14 levels of the game (including a tutorial), we must say that the game deserves the reputation it earned from its first release 16 years ago.

The plot of Halo 2 continues right after what happened in the first version of Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, but the game also expands the Halo world by exploiting events that occur within the Covenant species through the eyes. by Arbiter, a character that gamers can control. By giving gamers the Covenant's internal factions, the struggles between the leaders of these factions and their motives, Halo 2 gives the Covenant the necessary depth, makes us realize that Covenants are also intelligent creatures with purpose, not just Master Chief's shooting targets.

Meanwhile, the human army is celebrating its victory. After destroying the first Halo structure, Master Chief was given a new armor by UNSC forces and they planned to hold him a tribute ceremony to encourage the morale of soldiers at the Cairo Station space station. However, the event was quickly destroyed when a Covenant fleet appeared just outside the range of Cairo Station, signaling the arrival of the Covenant. The battle between humans and Covenants broke out immediately and from this point on, the game cleverly twisted the story of Master Chief and Arbiter together, giving gamers the excitement to look forward to the moment that both two meet.

Improved gameplay

As a gamer who has never experienced the original version of Halo 2, I find that the appearance of Arbiter as a playable character is a very interesting experience. Although the game itself does not bring much change compared to Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, the environment of Halo 2 appears to be greatly improved. It has overcome one of the things that make gamers complain the most in the first version of Halo is the monotony of the environment, when Master Chief has to go through long gray corridors or rooms like identical.

The diversity in the environment of Halo 2 Anniversary is also accompanied by interesting gameplay. The use of vehicles, weapons (such as the Scorpion) gives a feeling of the driving or chasing driving in jeeps in Call of Duty. Meanwhile, the gun battle now requires more creativity in the use of weapons, skills of the main characters.

The ability to hold weapons on both hands is also a plus point worth mentioning. Although it's neither revolutionary nor new at the moment (as Max Payne did it three years ago), allowing 'two-handed guns' gives gamers a chance. feel that he is a special character, a skilled gunner, a powerful warrior compared to the ordinary mortals around.

Multiplayer

These gameplay elements are very well transferred to the multiplayer part of the game. Developer 343 Industries has brought the familiar game modes, many famous maps and weapons that gamers have been acquainted with in the single player mode to play in multiplayer mode so that gamers can comfortably 'stuff' 'to each other in matches.

One interesting thing that I want to mention is when learning about the original version of Halo 2, I realized that Halo 2 is the game that made the matchmaking system become the standard for game titles. Modern multiplayer level. Prior to Halo 2, multiplayer games often required gamers to enter the lobby manually before the game began, but Microsoft completely changed that with Halo 2's matchmaking.

Thanks to this feature, gamers can choose the type of game they want and the game server will automatically take them to an appropriate waiting room. Combined with a reasonable ranking system, the game's multiplayer modes have caused gamers to cling to it for such a long time that even after Microsoft closed the Halo 2 server, there were still hundreds of gamers trying. Try to 'hang on' by not turning off your Xbox to continue the multiplayer battle!

Graphics, sound and bugs

As a adaptation of a 16-year-old game, of course gamers cannot expect that Halo 2 Anniversary is a game with graphics that break the limits. When looking at objects or characters in the game, you will easily recognize the blocky or a little bit of jaggies, but thanks to being an Xbox game that had the best graphics at the time, The image of Halo 2 is still enough to bring gamers the pretty frames, satisfying the imagination. Besides, for many gamers, graphics are not the most important thing in a game.

The sound of the game is another problem because the hardware is usually not the problem. I can't compare the current PC version with the original version on the Xbox because I have never played the Xbox version, but the magnificent music and heroic chorus of the game proved to be very suitable for the situation. situations in the game The sound of the weapons of the game is also very impressive, so when combined with the image and recoil, they contribute to creating a feeling of 'hands-on' and powerful that gamers will love when playing.

During the game experience, I encountered some minor issues such as the sound did not match the picture (including voiceover) in the cutscenes, the game occasionally changed the pronunciation source if you installed it. both speakers and headphones, etc. Some other more serious errors, such as defective checkpoints, textures of objects flashing and displaying incorrectly, short stuttering occur in singleplayer and multiplayer, etc. The most important occurs in the Gravemind screen when a lot of stuttering situations occur even though the nerd computer is used to experience the game with quite a configuration.

The multiplayer section of the game also has a lot of graphics bugs, while the game's frame rate is limited to 60 FPS when playing Theater mode even when the frame limit is turned off. Sometimes the items on the Warthog chariot are left behind and hovering in the sky looking very uncomfortable! By the time I made the Halo 2 Anniversary review, the developer 343 Industries said it was aware of the above issues and would release a fix in the near future.

Epilogue

Overall, I think Halo 2 Anniversary is a fascinating game, especially for those who have never experienced the original version. Although the game still has a lot of errors affecting the experience, the price is extremely cheap (120,000 VND if purchased individually, 310,000 VND if buying all 6 games) that Microsoft assigned to the game proved worthy of what which it brings to our gamers.

Advantages:

1. Fascinating gameplay
2. Graphics, sound okay
3. Dramatic plot

Defect

1. Too many miscellaneous bugs