Before I started playing Halo 2, I decided to look up its development history, and I found out some pretty interesting stuff.
The folks over at Bungie wanted to not just improve on what had been established with the 1st game, but also to bring in a lot of new ideas and concepts to the table. To triple everything!
But the devs bit off more than they could chew, and the game went through a bunch of changes during its dev time, with a lack of focus during most of it. The game suffered many delays as a result.

With all of that being said, it's a fucking miracle Halo 2 turned out as great as it did!
Now, it's not free from issues, but I had a lot of fun with this title, and it improves on everything that Halo 1 offered!

The plot tackles many more themes than last time, ranging from politics to religion. We see more of the Covenant alien species this time around, and hear them interact with each other.
And this also adds to the fact that there's a 2nd playable character who's from the Covenant, the Arbiter!

And that leads me into the gameplay. You'll alternate between Master Chief and the Arbiter throughout the game, especially when you pass the first third of the game. They don't play much differently from each other, except Master Chieft has a flashlight, and the Arbiter has a temporary camoflauge system.

The biggest new addition to the game, however, is that you can now dual-wield weapons! Of course, if you wanna use a grenade, you will have to put down your left weapon to throw it, but you can easily pick it back up afterwards. Not all weapons can be dual-wield, but many of them do.
It's crazy how such a simple addition can make a game more fun!

There are also some new weapons like the Spartan Sword, which are really fun to use! And the vehicles are also back, and they control better too! The Warthog didn't feel as slippery as before, and the new vehicles are just fun to use... except the tank, that one was a bit too slow for my liking.
At least you only use it in one level.

The overall level design has also seen a significant boost! I criticized Halo 1 for having a lot of empty space, and Halo 2 fixes that by being very no non-sense.
Sometimes you do have to stop for some enemies to appear, and at the beginning of the game, it was a bit annoying. But as you go through the game, you find less and less of those situations, which I appreciate.
The variety of environments, too, is also a big step up from last time! There's a lot to see and to explore, and there were some part where I found the game to be gorgeous!
And this is from 2004!

On the topic of presentation, this game also very much improves on that. Human character models are way more detailed and expressive, and don't feel as dated as last time. I will say that the Alien character models weren't super great, but I do appreciate some of the detail on their models.
The voice acting is also stellar, with the Arbiter being voiced by Keith David, who does an excellent job!

I do think that the game's lighting system is not the best. Like, most places that have light in them are just fine, but when it's dark, it's really dark. The few times that I did get lost, it was because I couldn't see shit. The Arbiter not having a flashlight made it worse.

Although since I was playing Halo 2: Anniversary, I could temporarily go to the modern graphics, and see that the lighting was better. Then I would switch back to the old graphics, once I found my way, so that the game would run smoother on my PC.

All in all, while Halo 2 is not perfect, it was a really fun first-person shooter, that I'm glad I got to play!

Not sure if I'll be able to play Halo 3, but I want to, one day, finish the fight!

A throwback to brawlers like War of the Monsters and the Godzilla games of the PS2/Gamecube era. Just a total blast, so fun to play something this well put together. It plays better than what inspires it, even. The single player is short and sweet, only took me about an hour and a half or so. I think some might see that as a detriment considering it's roughly $25 at this time, but it has a robust multiplayer. After all, it's a brawler! My only real gripes are that unfortunately it's not very alive online. It would make for a killer couch game though.

That one bit in Brooklyn Nine-Nine where Diaz talks about what she'd do if anything ever happened to Arlo the puppy - that's me with Gigaman!

Grabbed this with the DLC in the Steam sale and am pleasantly surprised by it. It's obvious that this was made by people who really love the old Godzilla PS2 games and love giant monster stuff in general (and Power Stone. They love Power Stone). It's not going to be winning any awards for technical depth, but Falcon Punching a kaiju into the nearest skyscraper and then meeting them on the rebound for seconds feels good and that's what's important. Lamping a giant robot with a radio tower should look and feel satisfying, and it does!
The original characters are all pretty fun and have a ton of personality. Gigaman and Pipijuras are my good friends! The DLC characters are all excellent - it's probably in their implementation that the team's commitment really shines through. I played a little bit of Ultraman and couldn't stop smiling at pretty much everything he does. Godzilla's dash attack is the Godzilla vs Megalon dropkick. Gigan is here and does stuff!! Gigan!!!
About the only complaint I have about it is that the amount of content is pretty thin even with the DLC (although the number of arenas is actually pretty good) - a very short story mode and then a handful of other modes like arcade, survival, etc. Not really too big of a deal, though - the game is clearly meant for playing a few matches with your mates. Get on it. Pipijuras vs Alien Baltan only, go!

Did I mention the music's good, by the way? The music's good.

If you are sad that bloober team is going to stomp on everything that Silent Hill 2 is all about with their eventual dogshit remake than don't worry because the best silent hill game made since 3 is right here! Enjoy this game while you can before people try and tell you it’s overrated or nothing but annoying people talk about it and get you mad

After losing my save when the game came out and putting off replaying back to where i was 2 years later i am happy i finally did it. I knew i would love it, i knew it would be amazing and still it blew me away.