November 14, 2004

By VICTOR GODINEZ / The Dallas Morning News

Halo 2 is a great game, superior in nearly every respect to the original.

Bungie Studios Photo Marines do battle with an alien bent on conquering Earth in Halo 2.

But the first game set the bar so high – and anticipation has been so great – that some gamers are bound to be just a little disappointed.

Where we left off: This is basically the same Xbox game you remember from three years ago, and in fact the plot picks up almost immediately after the events in Halo. Once again, you're doing battle with the Covenant, an alien race bent on conquering Earth.

New for 2: There are a few new moves, such as the ability to wield two guns at the same time or kick enemies off their vehicles and hijack them in mid-attack, but the controls are essentially the same and the heads-up display on the screen is as intuitive as ever. Graphically, Halo 2 is almost a complete upgrade from the original. Your character, Master Chief, looks far more detailed, as do his companion soldiers, the alien invaders, and all the weapons and vehicles.

Online play: A first for the franchise, it's superb. You can fight online against or with other human players, and action is incredibly intense.

Weaknesses: The plot gets too convoluted and pretentious, the human weapons still feel underpowered and weirdly low-tech for a game set so far in the future, and it isn't clear on some of the levels where you're supposed to go next.

Bottom line: Halo 2 is one of the best games out there right now and will sell a lot of Xboxes this Christmas.

Sony PSP update

There's good news and bad news about Sony's PSP handheld.

The good news is that you won't have to take out a second mortgage to pay for it. Sony said the PSP will sell for about $195 when it goes on sale in Japan later this year, which probably means a $199 price point when it arrives in the United States in 2005.

On the other hand, battery life is going to be a major problem, at least for early adopters.

GamesIndustry.biz reported recently that the PSP's battery will only last the official four to six hours on less graphically intense games.

For many games, battery life will be closer to two hours.

While that's not a deal-killer, since the PSP battery is rechargeable, it does give Nintendo major bragging rights with their DS, which is supposed to last closer to 10 hours.