i love halo 2. it's not that much different than halo 1, but all the differences are improvements.
i love not having to worry about a health bar. instead, the shield seems to last longer, and it just makes it more frantic when you have no shield - rather than thinking "oh well, i've got full health, i can still take a bullet," it's more like, "oh crap i'm defenseless, run away." makes for much better strategy and less "run into every room with guns blazing."
i love how the pistol is now crap (they call it "laughably weak" in the booklet). i was really fed up with people pistol-sniping me from the other end of hang 'em high or sidewinder (?!?) in halo 1, so it really evens the playing field. also the rocket launcher, while it now homes in on vehicles, is almost useless against people, as the blast radius has been severely reduced. no more people thinking they're good at halo because they can use the rocket launcher.
the variety of multiplayer games, and the improvement of some of the existing multiplayer modea, is awesome. blood gulch (now coagulation) is much better, especially with banshees and more places to hide. the new maps are great, if a bit large (really pushing for the many-player XBLive games, i guess.. not everyone has broadband, guys). storming the fortress in zanzibar is fun too. but probably our (group of friends) most favorite game is oddball. it's just better now. i'm not sure why. but rocketball and swordball.. oh dear lord, are they fun.
i can't say much for the 1-player aspect for the simple fact that i haven't played it. i played through co-op with one of my friends through the first level, but that's it. i really want to see more of the story though (that's what the game's all about
).
i guess i have a real respect for halo because it's one of the things that really brought me closer to my friends, in a way. before halo, i didn't really get together with my friends outside of school.. but now i always want to hang out with them, even for things besides halo.
"when it's done" means "we have no idea, we forgot to do that; we were hoping you would all forget we promised <insert exotic promise here>"