Halo 2 review

An unusual choice to spearhead gaming on Windows Vista, this three-year-old Xbox game is a first-person shooter that hasn't aged well.

Much of this is because it was always a rushed and unsatisfying sequel to the groundbreaking Halo. With no significant changes, bar some graphical spit'n'polish and an option to use mouse and keyboard controls instead of a gamepad, Halo 2's faults are even more obvious now than ever.

While there's certainly entertainment in shooting aliens with a variety of fun weapons, it's a textbook implementation of the chokingly linear corridors and respawning enemies that haunt this kind of game. The vehicle sections - be they in 4x4 buggies, huge tanks or light aircraft - are especially dreadful. All they amount to is going slightly faster in something that can't aim quite as well as when you're on foot.

The only real highlight of the game is the unexpected flipping of perspective from Halo's main man, the Master Chief, to one of the aliens he usually fights. The Arbiter, as he's called, may play almost identically to the Chief, but gaining an insight into a formerly faceless foe makes for some interesting storytelling. Unfortunately, apart from this the plot is overly complex sequel fodder. Even Halo 2's developers have admitted that the cutscenes weren't what they should have been.

Halo 2 rarely descends into actual awfulness. It's just so crushingly average, even in its oft-lauded multiplayer mode, when compared to the best shooters on the PC. Granted, most of them are a few years old, too, but Halo 2 doesn't even have better graphics, in case that was tempting you to pick it over a £5 Far Cry or £10 Half-Life 2. The higher resolutions available on the PC don't mask the crude character models from the Xbox engine, and it looks blocky and dingy. If you must buy it, bear in mind that it's inexplicably Vista only.