| So, after all the nonsense with the bees, after all the speculation, misinformation and attempts to take over Internetshire, it’s here - Halo 2.
Don’t believe the hype. (Are the Guardian Angels making a comeback? - Ko)
By now, you’ve already formed an opinion. Chances are that, if you’re an Xbox owner with reflexes honed by years of practice on the original, you’ve already completed it. Twice. And if you’re not an Xbox owner then you’ve heard all about it from those who are. Its short and the ‘last defence of Earth’ thing was a red herring. It’s good, but it’s the same good as the first game. Half Life 2 is better* It’s only the Live features that save it. Yada yada yada.
And, y’know, the Internet naysayers are right. But they’re also wrong. Dead wrong.
 "Hahahahhha dance for me piggeh!"
You see, what everyone seems to either forget or possibly take for granted is this - Halo 2 is fabulous. Bollocks to impartiality, this game is every bit the sequel that Halo deserved, even if it’s not the sequel we were expecting. It’s kind of hard for us to accept but the story of Halo just isn’t about Earth. It’s not even about humans. It’s a story about a bunch of fucking great rings which have been floating in space for millions of years with the express purpose of wiping out all life in the galaxy.
Which only serves to highlight humanity’s sheer arrogance. In the first game, Bungie set up this incredible universe for us to explore and we sit here floating around our pathetic yellow sun imagining that sometime in the next millennia our planet will still be worth enough for a galaxy-spanning civilisation to care about crushing.
Our planet. Tomorrow.
So, having dispensed with the Earth invasion plot within the first hour, we’re free to sit back and enjoy the ride through what is not only among the finest Sci-Fi of the last 20 years, but is also home to many of the best videogame moments I have ever experienced. Everything has been leading up to this. Bungie have watched it all, read it all, played it all and then, in the finest traditions of PWEI, have sampled it, looped it, fucked it up and eaten it. What emerges is everything from War of the Worlds to Half Life, through Invasion of the Body Snatchers' ghastly green things, Star Trek’s benign federation and even the Little Shop of Horrors (taking a side swipe at Robotron’s Grunts as we pass through the eighties) and onward to the Culture and beyond. All the while making knowing glances towards that dusty piece of Fantasy that the brothers Gideon keep leaving in hotel rooms… Yes, it’s derivative and formulaic and you’ve seen it all a hundred times before. But it’s got style pouring out of every orifice and it knows enough to add in enough of it’s own substance to keep you hooked.
"Alright, alright, have the fucking parking space then."
But it’s those fifteen levels that will keep you coming back for more. Only fifteen? I’ll have no talk of brevity on my watch. Those fifteen levels are varied, imaginative and beautiful in equal measure. They’re also home to some of the finest shit-fights you will ever have played through – while simultaneously managing to advance the plot (no mean feat in itself) - and they contain set-pieces that you’ll still be dreaming about when your grandchildren send you off to a new home with nothing but a packet of incontinence pants to keep you company.
I’ll see you on the Zanzibar beachfront…
AHCHAY, November
2004.
RODENT CASH RATING -
£40
"She cannae take no more cap’n"
*This one might actually be true
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