Halo 2 takes place in a futuristic science fiction setting, where humans, under the auspices of the United Nations Space Command or UNSC, have developed faster-than-light slipspace travel and colonized numerous worlds.
According to the game's backstory, the outer colony world of Harvest
was decimated by a collective of alien races known as the Covenant in 2525. Declaring humanity an affront to their gods, the Forerunners,
the Covenant begin to systemically obliterate the humans with their
superior technology. After the human bastion at the planet Reach is
destroyed, a single ship, The Pillar of Autumn, follows protocol and initiates a random slipspace jump to lead the Covenant away from Earth. The crew discovers a Forerunner ringworld called Halo.
Leading a guerilla insurgency on the ring's surface, the humans
discover that the rings are weapons of last resort built to contain a
terrifying parasite called the Flood. The human super-soldier Master Chief and his AI companion Cortana learn from Halo's AI, 343 Guilty Spark,
that activation of the Halos will prevent the spread of the Flood by
destroying all sentient life the parasite subsists on in the galaxy.
Instead, the Master Chief evades Spark and his robots and detonates the
Pillar of Autumn's
engines, destroying the ring and preventing the escape of the Flood.
The Master Chief, Cortana, and a handful of survivors race back to
Earth to warn of an impending invasion by Covenant forces.

I enjoyed playing the game. It was a different experience from the first Game Halo: Combat Evolved, but fun, nonetheless.

Never got to play it

I could give it to you. I have the DVD and the Patch

ok!

but i need vista

Bagpipes wrote:ok!

but i need vista

I do have an XP Installation file too - apparently, it will help make the game think you are using vista. I'm ready with every possible patch required, before I start my game. Joke is, even though I bought the original, I still used the patch file, instead of the Serial Key

I played Halo 2 few months ago.

Being a gigantic fan of the original Halo, I had some pretty big expectations going into this one.

And they weren't really lived up to.

For starters, the storyline. Halo 1 was fairly solid in terms of story, and did a good job of keeping things exciting. Halo 2 maintains that positive record for the first half of the game.
Second half though, the game starts feeling stretched out. The whole

Spoiler:

In the end, this ended up being like the seventh Harry Potter book- Increases your expectations a lot, but turns out to be just filler before the final book.
Thats what Halo 2 is. Filler, That exists only to get people excited for Halo 3. (Though is Does have a nice multiplayer mode).

And the problem with that is, they released the game at such a time so as to boost sale of Windows Vista. Being a Vista exclusive title means that fans like me were unable to play it until we switched to Windows 7 (Cause you KNOW we ain't dumb enough to get Vista)

Same problem with Halo 3. I'll probably never get to play it, because its a goddamn Xbox 360 exclusive. It's like Microsoft is squeezing as much money as it can out of its one really popular game franchise.

But it does have a few good points.
The graphics were good. Damage effects on the vehicles like the Warthog and Ghost really help to determine how much more punishment it can take, unlike the Halo 1 version.
Also nice were the added vehicles-Spectre and Wraith.

The surprisingly Australian/African/English/Asian accented voice acting of your allied characters was a nice touch that lended a bit of realism to things- Since its the United Nations Military, makes sense that there are people of all countries in it.