Halo 2 is a game I both respect a ton and wish it was brought more disrespect.
It's both equal parts a dated simulacra of early 00s fps wrapped around a campaign strained to its maximum with melodramatic soap opera military galore, and also simultaneously one of the best multiplayer accidents of the century to this day. It is monstrously awful to play through, majorly due to how Bungie course corrected the design constraint to where almost all projectiles now act as hitscan (and true hitscan weapons are FAR FAR more often used against you now), and also because the story is really not great. Reevaulating it is hard though, because this was the particular entry that made me fall in love with the Arbiter and the elites as a whole and kind of stuck me into the series. This crap made me pick up the books and I still stan a few of those so I really have to pull back my punches here. But I can't in any decent degree of earnesty say that this story is anything above poor taste schlock, bar the scene with Gravemind (although Gravemind itself is to blame, like the ending with Cortana is fucking questionable on multiple levels that requires more time talking in the scope of Halo 3). The levels are "mostly" bad, with threads of mechanical intrigue that lead to mostly nothing. It's so self-aware of its shortcomings that they had to put in so much more cover than you ever had in CE, with so many walls that block line of sight that AIs slowly move their ass around so that you can quickly recharge your busted new health system. Vehicles do feel at their best here, and while the soundtrack pulls sooooo much weight it can't assist the Library 2.0 design that a good third of the levels follow to an uncomfortable degree.
Despite this rough unpolished side though I can still reconcile that Halo 2 was one of the greats of my childhood because even on a re-re-re-visit to Halo 2's multiplayer the shocking amount of competence on display there still exists. The maps are absolute ace, some of if not the best in the series with quite a few technical but simple to pick up knowhow that makes gunfights more risk-reward heavy. The BXR defines the game but it also formulates the meta, where now before being close up in Halo was only a two hit risk that costed a weapon slot at worse, is now a constant one hit nightmare that forces you to take up specific space. You have to really consider the routes you take, and the way you flank in and come together on an enemy. The new weapon design really feels crafted for the whole experience but it 'really' isn't. In some ways the ending result is luckier than whatever Master Chief ever pulled out of his ass in the campaign. It's wonderful, still a champion of fps multiplayer design to me that is only moderately replicated, fully riffed off in 3 because it worked just that well.
So is Halo 2 worth anyone else's time? Probably not honestly. I feel like most people who try to join 2MP are going to get wasted because it's reaching Quake 3 player amount levels, skill required at the door included. But if nothing else, it's worth throwing on the tv with a buddy post-covid on the couch and loading up custom games, because that's constantly fire.
It's both equal parts a dated simulacra of early 00s fps wrapped around a campaign strained to its maximum with melodramatic soap opera military galore, and also simultaneously one of the best multiplayer accidents of the century to this day. It is monstrously awful to play through, majorly due to how Bungie course corrected the design constraint to where almost all projectiles now act as hitscan (and true hitscan weapons are FAR FAR more often used against you now), and also because the story is really not great. Reevaulating it is hard though, because this was the particular entry that made me fall in love with the Arbiter and the elites as a whole and kind of stuck me into the series. This crap made me pick up the books and I still stan a few of those so I really have to pull back my punches here. But I can't in any decent degree of earnesty say that this story is anything above poor taste schlock, bar the scene with Gravemind (although Gravemind itself is to blame, like the ending with Cortana is fucking questionable on multiple levels that requires more time talking in the scope of Halo 3). The levels are "mostly" bad, with threads of mechanical intrigue that lead to mostly nothing. It's so self-aware of its shortcomings that they had to put in so much more cover than you ever had in CE, with so many walls that block line of sight that AIs slowly move their ass around so that you can quickly recharge your busted new health system. Vehicles do feel at their best here, and while the soundtrack pulls sooooo much weight it can't assist the Library 2.0 design that a good third of the levels follow to an uncomfortable degree.
Despite this rough unpolished side though I can still reconcile that Halo 2 was one of the greats of my childhood because even on a re-re-re-visit to Halo 2's multiplayer the shocking amount of competence on display there still exists. The maps are absolute ace, some of if not the best in the series with quite a few technical but simple to pick up knowhow that makes gunfights more risk-reward heavy. The BXR defines the game but it also formulates the meta, where now before being close up in Halo was only a two hit risk that costed a weapon slot at worse, is now a constant one hit nightmare that forces you to take up specific space. You have to really consider the routes you take, and the way you flank in and come together on an enemy. The new weapon design really feels crafted for the whole experience but it 'really' isn't. In some ways the ending result is luckier than whatever Master Chief ever pulled out of his ass in the campaign. It's wonderful, still a champion of fps multiplayer design to me that is only moderately replicated, fully riffed off in 3 because it worked just that well.
So is Halo 2 worth anyone else's time? Probably not honestly. I feel like most people who try to join 2MP are going to get wasted because it's reaching Quake 3 player amount levels, skill required at the door included. But if nothing else, it's worth throwing on the tv with a buddy post-covid on the couch and loading up custom games, because that's constantly fire.