PC Games Review : Halo 2 Vista

Players:2 - 16
Price: $49.99

Platform(s):PC

Developer: Bungie

Publisher: Microsoft Game StudiosESRB: MatureWebsite:Microsoft.com/Games/Halo2

Why don’t I sum up this entire game experience by saying Halo 2 on the Xbox is one of the greatest console shooters for the Xbox. Despite issues with the story and single-player level designs, you have to admit that it contained straight-through solid gameplay features and one of the biggest multiplayer experiences of all time. So what does that make Halo 2 Vista? Unfortunately it’s a pseudo remake of a great game.

With a painless, almost too user-friendly installation and play-as-the-game-loads setup, there’s nothing burdening about getting Halo 2 Vista up and running. I mean, if you actually upgraded to Vista you’ve already jumped over a freaking boulder, so the games should be painless to install, right? Of course.

I won’t waste time about nostalgic experiences, etc., etc., so I’ll just get right to it: The story is the same space opera as its console counterpart, as Cortana and Master Chief return to battle the Covenant and the multiplying zombie horde, the Flood. If you honestly never played the game on the Xbox (or Xbox 360) I’m not going to give too much away, but I will say that playing the Arbiter in Halo always seemed a bit odd. Simply given that while it added new direction and focus to the story, it took away from the integral foundation of Master Chief as a lead character. That’s like Arnold in the movie Commando needing help from a British SAS soldier, fighting from within the bad guy ranks. See how strange that is? Yeah, well take that concept and apply it to Halo 2 and that’s how the story sort of feels. Regardless of peeves, at least the dialogue and plot consistency stays on track. It would have been nicer to still have more fleshed out stages on Earth, as opposed to jettisoning off into space to fight the Covenant once more. But then again, this is a remake not a redo.

The single-player gameplay (if you honestly don’t know) consists of first-person shooting, with the ability to independently dual-wield select weapons. And there’s several new vehicles...well, old vehicles in comparison to Halo 3, but new vehicles in comparison to Halo 1. The Warthog comes in two formats; one with a mini-gun and one with a gauss cannon. There’s the available Spectre, Wraith and a few other playable Covenant vehicles that can be manned and used against the enemy. Hijacking is something that never gets tiresome, and should be further exploited in newer games, despite being a feature that’s three years old. And the new weapons and modifications to old weapons are more miss than hit (the original M1 assault rifle should have stayed put, but that’s what Halo 3 is for, I guess).

I still can’t get over the fact that Marines can’t be directed or controlled on the battlefield. It’s a pain not being able to setup formations. But then again, the stages would require better designs to utilize tactics that you might execute in a game like Rainbow Six Vegas or Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter. Realistically, though, I always hated the single-player stage designs in Halo 2. You can rant and disagree all you want, but Ghost Recon, Half Life 2, Metroid Prime, Max Payne and many other shooters out there on the market have better single-player maps than Halo 2 and subsequently, Halo 2 Vista. That’s not to say that some of the stages weren’t fun, it’s just that I still find the Covenant level designs to be tedious and repetitive.

Now some people have been punching down hard on H2 Vista’s graphics. But truthfully, it doesn’t look much worse than Halo 3. Some of you can complain, riot and protest, but the model designs and some of the lighting, shooting and explosion effects aren’t very far off from the soon-to-be-released H3 for the Xbox 360. I’m actually convinced Halo games stopped being visual top-dogs after Halo 2 for the original Xbox. But that’s just my take on the matter.

As for the audio, one can’t complain. The sound effects are on par with being clean and most of the weapons have [fairly] appropriate kickback, as necessary. But look, I have to be honest, Halo has one of the best soundtracks around – and the single-player campaign, while shoddy in its creativity, at least has a veritable soundtrack with the sweet, sweet sounds of Marty O’Donnell. Say what you will, but I’m a sucker for a good theme song. This saved H2 Vista a half-a-star right here (and it brought Pirates for the PS2 down half-a-star for not having the original Hans Zimmer theme song from the movie...live and learn).

Even with the new multiplayer maps, Halo 2 Vista is a bit too constrained in its attempt to open up the series to PC gamers. There needed to be more weapons; there needed to be more customization tools for players to easily edit or change the characters they play and not just logos; there needed to be more vehicles; there needed to be better physics adjustment and there needed to be a slight redo of some of the single-player levels that suffered from sameness. Perhaps the map editing tools and user-content will widen the floodgates to ensure that the game feels more “PC oriented”. But by that time there will probably be flashier and fancier games already available and better suited for hardcore PC gamers.

I think, though, for the price in which it was released, Halo 2 Vista lacks the ingenuity to live up to its current retail tag. For anyone who never played Halo 1 or Halo 2 on the Xbox – or you just don’t fancy owning a console, but want to play console games – you might want to wait for this game to drop down to a budget price and then have a go at it.