Familiar mayhem with some twists

Two SMGs is better than one!

The gameplay hasn't changed much from the original Halo. Weapons have been slightly rebalanced and the same is true for the Master Chief's force field. The health bar is completely gone - you can take a few hits after the shield is depleted before dying, but there is no actual bar showing you this. All in all, these changes are minor and don't really change things.

The most visible addition is the ability to dual wield two one-hand weapons for some extra firepower. There is a drawback - dual wielding blocks you from tossing grenades, diminishing the usefulness of this feature. Weapons are also displayed prominently on screen and when using two, an annoyingly huge percentage of the display area is covered just by your guns. When playing as the Arbiter, there is also the added ability to use a personal cloaking device. It's power cell drains quickly and needs time to recharge, but it's useful for pulling off some nice moves with the energy sword.

Vehicles are limited to specific sections of levels, and although it's good fun to stroll onwards in a tank, these bits are almost fully on-rails combat. While the levels in general only present one path to advance, it's nowhere as blatant as during the vehicle levels.

Chief, you called for a Scorpion Heavy Tank?

Sometimes you need to pry open the canopy and remove the pilot to secure a ride.

Instant Action

One new feature stands out in Halo 2 - you don't need to wait for it to install to the hard disk. Halo 2 is the probably the first PC game to offer 'instant play' which starts the game from the DVD and then proceeds to complete the installation of the rest of the files as you play. The idea is pretty good, and it truly works in Halo 2, but I don't see it getting popular due to the fact that any heavy hard disk access during play tends to cause stuttering in PC games.

Automatic patching - a feature of Games for Windows Live that actually works well.

Halo 2 also shows the good side of Games for Windows Live - patching is a breeze. As there are already couple of small updates out for the game, when you start up the game for the first time you are immediately prompted to patch, and it's just as easy to do as on an Xbox. Every PC game developer should take note - hunting around patches online for a bit older game can be a tedious task, and every game should offer similar functionality.