Upon reading the words “special interest project” on my latest packet in class, three words popped into my head: “anything”, “I” and “want” (or “anything I want”). No longer will I be forced to research something completely pointless or something so boring that it burns the eyes. For this project then, I will choose a special topic that interests me. Hence, the term “special interest.” I will not research a species of animal or a musical group or even certain types of French cheese. No, for this project I will research a video game; a really, really cool video game. But not just any really, really cool video game. I will research the mother of all really, really cool video games, Halo 2.

First you may find yourself asking, “Why would anyone spend time researching a video game?” Well, stop asking yourself that and start asking more important questions. Like, “What is this ‘Halo 2’ you speak of?” There, now that’s a better question.

For those of you with the sad misfortune to have never heard of Halo 2 (or 1 for that matter), it is an upcoming video game scheduled to be released on November 9^th of this year. How then, if the game isn’t even out, do I know that it’s a really, really cool game?? I’ll get to that later. First I’ll explain why anyone should care about this. The original Halo came out on Xbox (for those of you not knowing what an Xbox is, it is a decisive tool in Bill Gates quest for global domination. Oh, and it also plays video games) a few years back. It was developed by a somewhat unknown company (http://www.bungie.net/) and stayed fairly quiet for a few months. That is, until people started playing it. And they liked it. A lot. In fact, they liked it so much that it developed a cult like following. Probably one of the biggest followings a video game has ever had. People wrote books, made movies, drew pictures, basically everything that could be done, was. It was pretty cool. But why? Why was this game generating multitudes of devoted followers every day? I would have to say simply, because the game is freakin’ awesome. Halo is a first-person shooter, that is, the player takes the role of the main character and sees and fights through his eyes. The game is basically a low-budget Sci-Fi movie, but without the cheesy dialog. The main character, Master Chief, is a super soldier in the future. His ship crashes on a “ring world” (a giant, mysterious ‘halo,’ hence the game’s name) and he must fight his way through an alien race that is destined to destroy mankind. However, the story includes a fairly large plot twist near the end, that, I have to say, freaked me out. I won’t go into that here because I would take way to long to explain, and I’m sure no one really cares much about it. And besides, this is supposed to be about Halo 2, so I should hurry up and finish this paragraph. Anyway, where was I? So that’s the story of the original Halo. Of course, a good story alone doesn’t make a great game. There are multitudes of factors involved. I’ll explain a few. The game is relatively simple; there isn’t a steep learning curve. Heck, my 10-year-old brother is as good as I am. For example, the weapons and vehicles in the game are basically futuristic models of weapons and vehicles today, so learning each weapon takes fairly little time.  Master Chief can only hold two weapons, which is much more realistic then most games where the main character somehow totes enough firepower to destroy a small army. The game is also very immersive. Enemies will laugh in alien tongues after they have defeated you, or your allied marines will yell for cover fire, or curse when they get hurt. All in all, that game was really, really cool.

What I just explained, however, was only part of what made the original great. Perhaps even more important then all of that junk was this: the multiplayer. The multiplayer was what made this game great. First off, you could play the single player campaign in Coo-op mode with a friend, allowing you to beat harder levels and used advanced strategy and tactics. And it doubles the fun. But perhaps even more important then that is the system link multiplayer. “System link” is a feature on Xbox that allows two or more Xbox’s to be plugged together, and therefore allow twice as many people to play certain games. You may hear this referred to as an Xbox LAN party. Halo on system link became so popular, that people were devoting entire weekends to it. Competitions were held throughout the country, with the winners sometimes winning thousands of dollars. It was really cool.

So that’s the gist on the original Halo, now for the real topic, Halo 2. When Bungie (the company that developed Halo) announced Halo 2 several years ago, thousands of giddy and joyful Halo fans set their calendars for November 9^th 2004, wondering how they could survive the years of waiting. But (hopefully) most did survive, and the release date now creeps closer and closer after every passing day.

The story of Halo 2 follows the ending of the story of the original. Master Chief escapes and destroys the “halo” world and returns to earth, where he must now fight the Covenant (the aliens destined on destroying the human race, you know) as well as several other things that haven’t been revealed as of yet. Basically, the game premise is the same (why mess with brilliance?) only made several hundred percent better. I’ll try to explain this as best I can, since people who have never played the original Halo will not understand how cool the new features are. First off, the game graphics are infinitely better, and Halo 1’s graphics were some of the best, so that’s saying a lot. The game is also much more realistic. Master Chief (the main character, remember?) can “duel-wield” single handed weapons, such as pistols and different alien weapons, John-Woo style (again, if you haven’t played the original game, you have no idea how cool this is. And let me tell you, it’s pretty cool). There will of course, be new weapons, new vehicles, new aliens, and new settings in the game, all of which are destined to be really, really cool. Perhaps one of the more anticipated new features is the ability to use the alien, “energy sword” (Basically think of a lightsaber. It was in Halo, but unusable by the player) in single and multiplayer modes. Speaking of multiplayer, Halo 2 will, without a doubt, have the best multiplayer ever. And I’m not just saying that. This is where the game will shine. The multiplayer, as in Halo 1, is so simple, yet so genius. The basic concept is two teams (say, one red and one blue team), each with a base on opposite sides of a map. Each team will have a flag inside of their base; the objective being to steal the other teams flag. Like a big game of capture-the-flag, only with guns and tanks. And it never gets old. I bought Halo a few years ago, and I still play it more then any of my other games. Check any highest selling game chart; I can guarantee Halo will still be on there. And now with Halo 2’s introduction of online play, multitudes of people from around the world can take part in a constant battle of carnage and combat. Brilliant stuff.

But how do I know any of this? Well a few months back, the gaming world held their yearly “gaming convention,” if you will, called E3. This is where companies go to show off their new games and get extra hype before they release them. One game, however, caught most everyone’s attention, that game being, of course, Halo 2. The “E3 demo” as it was called, was basically one level of Halo 2 that the developers played through in front of a huge crowd of people. It was so good it seemed, that most people agreed, even by only watching someone else play a single level of the game, that it was going to be the best game of the year. So far it’s been living up to that title. Altogether, the game has pre-sold more then one million copies (only three million Xbox’s have been sold, that’s 1/3 of the Xbox community right there), a record for any video game ever. I just recently pre-ordered the “special edition” version (It comes in a shiny metal case, and includes a ‘making of’ CD) at the local Target. I think I can say that November 9^th has never been so close, yet so far away.