Three years after the original essentially made the XBox, Halo 2 was released. last November marked it's release, for which I was waiting to pick up the Limited Edition version of the game. Essentially this is the same Halo 2 as everyone else bought, except in a metal tin with a bonus DVD concerned with the making of the game. Personally, I also got a free poster and strategy guide for my extra money, and I don't regret shelling out the extra cash.

The story of the game really cannot be delved into too deeply without giving away a lot of details. But a brief synopsis is that the alien alliance known as the Covenant has found another Halo, and they are once again set on switching it on to destroy everything. It once again falls down to Earth's Cyborg hero, the Master Chief, to put a stop to the threat.
But all is not well in the ranks of the Covenant, their lead troops, the Elites, are being systematically replaced by new recruits to the Covenant known as Brutes, this is causing disruption amongst the Covenant ranks, and everything is adding up to one big showdown on this 'Delta Halo'...

The story has come under quite a bit of stick from reviewers, partially due to the misleading advertising which made it look like the entire game would take place on Earth, and mostly due to the ending, which I won't reveal, but let's just say it leaves off for a sequel. The story does introduce some unusual and unexplained elements (the plant?), that I can only assume Bungie intend to resolve in a sequel, and while I was a little annoyed that the final stage was played with the Arbiter and not the Chief, on the whole the story is pretty good, and helps keep the gamer involved with proceedings. This game doesn't have any levels such as the library in the first game where if you didn't have a story you would have just thrown the disc out, but the story is certainly entertaining and pulls the player in.

To further those points, there are of course some more guns and vehicles for the player to wield. We now have the Covenant laser equivalent of a sniper rifle, the Beam Rifle, their all-purpose rifle the Carbine,the Brute's grenade launcher style Brute Shot, the Brute's unique Plasma Rifles, The devastating Fuel Rod Gun and the funky Earth gun that is the SMG. Best of all the aditions is the Lightsaber swords the elites use though, which kill most enemies in a few lethal blows. The Assault Rifle has been replaced by the Battle Rifle, which is less machine gun-like, and the pistol has lost it's zoom capabilities.
In terms of vehicles, you can now pilot the Wraiths (Covenant Tanks) and Spectres(Covenant equivalent of Warthogs) as well as an alternate Warthog which has a rocket launcher in place of the chain gun. The vehicle system has been improved, with the control of the enemy sky-fighters the Banshee now being far more useable. Also, the vehicles now take on visible damage and blow up in an impressive manner, although vehicle destruction doesn't necessarily mean the driver is dead.

For the most part, the single player experience is excellent. While it may not have any great variety of gameplay styles and there arent all that many missions in the Campaign (15), it still just has that special something that keeps you playing. It's good story isn't enough to keep you playing independantly, and the game just plays great. There isn't any one singular thing about it that can be pinpointed as being what makes it great, just generally everything that isn't bad(those few things I'll get to in a minute) is great. The level where you fight in a destroyed city and end up taking on the Covenant's giant Scarab robot is possibley one of my favourite experiences in gaming so far.

Graphically, the game isn't light years ahead of its prequel, and isn't the best looking XBox title, but it certainly looks good and is a lot slicker than the normal XBox title in terms of look. The Chief, when we see him, has undergone a little bit of tweaking on his armour, and he now looks more Robocop like. The character models are all well created and animated, the stages large and well rendered, and special effects like gunfire still superb in execution. On the whole a very good graphical show. There has been a lot of talk about the pop up and texture issues in the cut-scenes, but personally I only once encountered pop-up in the entire span of the game, possibly this was fixed for the PAL release (I doubt it) possibly Im just lucky.

A:Jump
B:Melee Attack/Bomb(Banshee)
X:Reload/Swap Weapon/Enter/Exit Vehicle
Y:Change Weapon/Dual Wield
L:Grenade/Fire(Dual Wield/Tank)/Boost(Covenant vehicles)/Power Slide(Warthog)
R:Fire/Fire Primary Weapon(Tank)
White:Torch(Master Chief)/Stealth(Arbiter)
Black:Change Grenade Type
Left Thumbstick:Move(Press in to crouch)
Right Thumbstick:Look(Press in to zoom)

As for the Extra DVD, it's contents aren't exactly world shattering, but they are interesting enough. We have a making of documentary, early footage of the first game while it was still a Third Person title, how Halo 2 appeared at E3 and some of the team members looking at concept art for characters and vehicles that didn't make the game. Like I say, I could have lived without seeing this, but it's still a nice little bonus for a great game. And the funky box was worth the extra money alone. My only complaint about the Limited Edition is that both Disc have to be held on the one peg, and while this has been designed to hold 2 DVD discs, I would certainly have preferred a double DVD case, Im sure it is designed to avoid scratching the disc, and Im just being paranoid.