Halo 2
I was really torn about writing this post. I mean, what I can I say that hasn't already been said? Halo 2 has received more press coverage, more reviews, and more hype than just about any game I can remember. It has an average review score of 98%, clearly trouncing it's predecessor as the best reviewed Xbox game ever. In fact, only one game has ever received higher review scores, and that was 6 years ago on a long dead hardware platform. (I'll leave the answer to that trivia as an exercise for the reader.)
Last night, 5 of us stayed late at work and hooked up with two more friends of mine at a nearby brew pub. (ranthorn, dmorg, Zabel, Lensherr, HowlerPS, and SamusGoo were all in attendance.) Much beer and food was consumed, and many tear jerkingly funny stories from my high school days were relived, thanks to SamusGoo's animated storytelling. Eventually, we all headed out to the local EB Games to get in line for our pre-ordered copies of Halo 2. We showed up around 11:15pm, and were probably about 50th in line. The line was really well behaved with the exception of a few random dorks that went running and screaming out of the mall with their game bags. That was enough to make me not want to be a geek, but that feeling passed. After picking up our games, we all went to our respective homes.
By 1:15am, we were almost all online, ready to try this baby out.
Honestly, I didn't think the launch was going to go smoothly. Network code is notoriously difficult to get right, and supporting a game launch of this magnitude was just asking for disaster. Surprisingly, everything went without a hitch. We created our new Halo 2 clan, "The Legion of Death", and jumped into our first Slayer game.
You know what? It played flawlessly. The graphics were as smooth as silk, and the game felt completely lag-free. The voice chat worked perfectly, too. If you just talk into your headset, people in your general area will hear you through the TV screen, with the voice emanating from your in-game avatar. If you tap the white button once, your voice will be broadcast over the headset to your teammates. After getting the hang of the controls, we tried out Capture the Flag, and my personal favorite, Oddball. (Think "Smeer the Queer" with a human skull replacing the football.) The whole time, it played for me without a hitch.
As we all said our goodnights and went our ways, I realized it was 3:00am. I felt obligated to play the single player game for at least a few minutes. I did, and it seemed as beautiful as I had hoped. I dragged myself to bed at 4:00am, knowing I had to be up at 7:00am, but I didn't really mind.
Halo 2 is all that.
Last night, 5 of us stayed late at work and hooked up with two more friends of mine at a nearby brew pub. (ranthorn, dmorg, Zabel, Lensherr, HowlerPS, and SamusGoo were all in attendance.) Much beer and food was consumed, and many tear jerkingly funny stories from my high school days were relived, thanks to SamusGoo's animated storytelling. Eventually, we all headed out to the local EB Games to get in line for our pre-ordered copies of Halo 2. We showed up around 11:15pm, and were probably about 50th in line. The line was really well behaved with the exception of a few random dorks that went running and screaming out of the mall with their game bags. That was enough to make me not want to be a geek, but that feeling passed. After picking up our games, we all went to our respective homes.
By 1:15am, we were almost all online, ready to try this baby out.
Honestly, I didn't think the launch was going to go smoothly. Network code is notoriously difficult to get right, and supporting a game launch of this magnitude was just asking for disaster. Surprisingly, everything went without a hitch. We created our new Halo 2 clan, "The Legion of Death", and jumped into our first Slayer game.
You know what? It played flawlessly. The graphics were as smooth as silk, and the game felt completely lag-free. The voice chat worked perfectly, too. If you just talk into your headset, people in your general area will hear you through the TV screen, with the voice emanating from your in-game avatar. If you tap the white button once, your voice will be broadcast over the headset to your teammates. After getting the hang of the controls, we tried out Capture the Flag, and my personal favorite, Oddball. (Think "Smeer the Queer" with a human skull replacing the football.) The whole time, it played for me without a hitch.
As we all said our goodnights and went our ways, I realized it was 3:00am. I felt obligated to play the single player game for at least a few minutes. I did, and it seemed as beautiful as I had hoped. I dragged myself to bed at 4:00am, knowing I had to be up at 7:00am, but I didn't really mind.
Halo 2 is all that.