Halo 2: Anniversary is the third game in chronological order of the Master Chief collection, and this is the remastered version of Halo 2, which has been added to the Master Chief collection for the first time to play it.

Halo 2 closely follows Halo 1’s story: Master Chief goes back to a station around Earth, but the station and Earth gets attacked by the Covenant, so the war continues. Also, we will also play as a Covenant super commander named Thel ‘Vadamee, who was entrusted to protect the first Halo, which he failed and has to stand in front of the Covenant council who strip his titles, and Vadamee wants to take revenge on Master Chief and we can follow that journey.

It’s a really cool twist to play as another character from the opposite faction, which has different abilities then Chief, and that gives some fresh air to the game. Also, I must say that the remastered cutscenes look amazing and the animations are really good in general. The remastered graphics also look decent and on certain levels, adds some more to the environment, but in my opinion even the older graphics looked very good with it’s own charm, too. Halo 2 feels a much more action packed and faster paced game then Halo: CE, and for me it was just more fun to play than that. Still has those epic moments from the previous game, but I would say those got even better and that’s also thanks to the soundtrack, which is pretty good. Story overall is more deeper than the last game, you can learn more about the Covenant and how Halo works, it gets more characters involved, too. The dual weapon wielding is a cool thing to have, which adds more to the gameplay, just like the additional weapons and the rework of the older weapons compared to Halo: CE.

Campaign's playtime is around 5 - 6 hours this time with 13 mission to complete, which is a decent amount to get through.

Halo 2’s multiplayer has a little bit more activity then CE has and overall fun to play, but still hard to find any match which is not on Lockout playing Slayer. Not really strong, especially in EU, but at least there is something. I did not play the coop mode however.

In my Halo: CE review I complained about the difficulty, which in this game just got way harder because of a few new enemies and the dual wielding mechanic, especially the Vadamee levels are difficult, and I have to assume that’s part of the Halo experience, but this game is insane and unbalanced on lot of places, especially on Legendary difficulty. The newer graphics are hard on the system for whatever reason and also some textures have some floating elements to it, also sometimes the enemy models go transparent randomly which is very weird. Just like in Halo: CE the hitboxes still do not align well with the older models and the newer graphics are still taking away from the authenticity of the older graphics, however this is less frequent now and less annoying to see. For me, the default weapon alignment on my screen took up way too much space on my screen, so I had to change that in the settings, but this was not a problem in the previous game(s). The ending of the story is one of the biggest cockblocks I have ever seen… maybe that was the intention but this just feels weird to me.

I would be happy to say this game was amazing, thanks to the grander story, better gameplay mechanics and to the graphics, but the unbalanced gameplay and some of the newer graphical glitches and shenanigans make it less enjoyable. It’s not a bad game, this is even better than Combat Evolved in my opinion, but there was a really good opportunity to make a killing game. Still, I can recommend it to give it a try after CE, but get the whole collection on sale.

Halo 2: Anniversary is the third game in chronological order of the Master Chief collection, and this is the remastered version of Halo 2, which has been added to the Master Chief collection for the first time to play it. Halo 2 closely follows Halo 1’s story: Master Chief goes back to a station around Earth, but the station and Earth gets attacked by the Covenant, so the war continues. Also, we will also play as a Covenant super commander named Thel ‘Vadamee, who was entrusted to protect the first Halo, which he failed and has to stand in front of the Covenant council who strip his titles, and Vadamee wants to take revenge on Master Chief and we can follow that journey. It’s a really cool twist to play as another character from the opposite faction, which has different abilities then Chief, and that gives some fresh air to the game. Also, I must say that the remastered cutscenes look amazing and the animations are really good in general. The remastered graphics also look decent and on certain levels, adds some more to the environment, but in my opinion even the older graphics looked very good with it’s own charm, too. Halo 2 feels a much more action packed and faster paced game then Halo: CE, and for me it was just more fun to play than that. Still has those epic moments from the previous game, but I would say those got even better and that’s also thanks to the soundtrack, which is pretty good. Story overall is more deeper than the last game, you can learn more about the Covenant and how Halo works, it gets more characters involved, too. The dual weapon wielding is a cool thing to have, which adds more to the gameplay, just like the additional weapons and the rework of the older weapons compared to Halo: CE. Campaign's playtime is around 5 - 6 hours this time with 13 mission to complete, which is a decent amount to get through. Halo 2’s multiplayer has a little bit more activity then CE has and overall fun to play, but still hard to find any match which is not on Lockout playing Slayer. Not really strong, especially in EU, but at least there is something. I did not play the coop mode however. In my Halo: CE review I complained about the difficulty, which in this game just got way harder because of a few new enemies and the dual wielding mechanic, especially the Vadamee levels are difficult, and I have to assume that’s part of the Halo experience, but this game is insane and unbalanced on lot of places, especially on Legendary difficulty. The newer graphics are hard on the system for whatever reason and also some textures have some floating elements to it, also sometimes the enemy models go transparent randomly which is very weird. Just like in Halo: CE the hitboxes still do not align well with the older models and the newer graphics are still taking away from the authenticity of the older graphics, however this is less frequent now and less annoying to see. For me, the default weapon alignment on my screen took up way too much space on my screen, so I had to change that in the settings, but this was not a problem in the previous game(s). [spoiler]The ending of the story is one of the biggest cockblocks I have ever seen… maybe that was the intention but this just feels weird to me.[/spoiler] I would be happy to say this game was amazing, thanks to the grander story, better gameplay mechanics and to the graphics, but the unbalanced gameplay and some of the newer graphical glitches and shenanigans make it less enjoyable. It’s not a bad game, this is even better than Combat Evolved in my opinion, but there was a really good opportunity to make a killing game. Still, I can recommend it to give it a try after CE, but get the whole collection on sale.