I actually bought the game and i played all the way through the campaign i'm not really into the multiplayer, also i don't really see why people expected more, yeah it would of been nice to see it in DX10 and all but even if they did that im sure alot of people would still bash it and say why did they make it in DX10 it is a game that is 4 yrs old, what a waste i guess you can't make everybody happy.… Expand

Great best-selling gameplay formulae that havent changed abit since its first release. Improved graphics, decent but not as good as some of our 2006 and 07 previous ones. The exciting and epic storyline havent changed. New online features for live and map making are what really catches my eye. Summarizing this, Halo 2 vista is just an improved version of the best selling game, even though it lacks some of the graphics of our new ones. Get this game if you barely/never played it and still enjoys the game play formula. Do not get this game if you played it to death on xbox, and is a big stickler on graphic and new titles. -just telling you guys the new fps games realesed for 2007 are mediocre, there is only 2-3 out and the fps realeased in 2006 have similar graphics to halo2 and most games' gameplay and online multiplayer wont match up with this bestseller.… Expand

Halo 2 Vista is definitely a great port of a great Xbox game. Though Games for Windows LIVE could work much smoother like its Xbox counterpart, it still offers many important and useful features. The graphics are improved massively, especially when running higher than 720HD (1280x720). The game plays very smooth, but does not include any of the major fixes the xbox does. Because of this there are still many problems that need to be worked out. Though the release date was very grey (esp. w/ delays) and there are some quicks with GFW Live, the game is still extremely fun and well worth playing.… Expand

As I read down the comments, I find that complete idiots are posting, including the "I find that xbox 360 players have an unfair advantage". This would be true, if the game actually had the capability to play with xbox 360's.... If you want good graphics, go to a different game, the game is as lackluster and repetitive in the campaign mode as Halo 2 Xbox was (gee, seeing that this is a direct port, that shouldn't be surprising). Multiplayer is what makes halo. It always has, and always will. Rating it on its campaign is like saying you bought CS:S just to play against the bots, or Unreal expecting some sort of story line. I would also like to point out that it includes a map editor... which is quite powerful if you know how to use it. Bottom line, if you like halo 2 xbox, and have a gaming PC, its a definite buy. The control scheme is actually quite pleasant,. I personally was wondering what they would use for dual wield, and I think the 'q' key is an excellent choice. The reviewers are also missing another feature... you can play it straight from your dvd drive, no installation is required.… Expand

My favorite Halo game of all time. It introduced dual-wielding and showed the true power of the Xbox at the time. The story is second best to Halo CE. But in this Halo you go through the story of Master Chief and the Arbiter. Very good game, a must play for Halo fans. Sadly, Microsoft has recently cut off the Online to all Xbox Originals so no online on this one. But my only complaint is the extremely hard difficulty that Legendary offers, very unfair, very punishing, and NOT recommended. Overall, good story and fun game-play, check it out ;D.… Collapse

How does this game get an average score of 5.0? I had it for the xbox and i could not find an xbox review. It had a great campaign and a great multiplayer. Yes it did have a bad ending but it had a great story with the elites getting involved. Multiplayer was extremely fun with tons of maps and game modes. Maybe not as good as the first game but i give it a 9.1

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. halo 2 for the president… Expand

I don't understand the negative comments of this game or ports of other games that come out later. On the Xbox, this game had 20 Games of the Year awards. This port comes with all the features of the the Xbox version, plus achivements, exclusive multiplayer maps, a customization mode like an advanced form of Forge, the use of the Xbox 360 controller to play it, and currenlty the only way to play the Halo 2 multiplayer experience. Sure it doesn't meet current PC FPS standards, but it's not supposed to. It's for nostalgia sake and it's a little unfair to put one of the best selling games of all time to the standards it was not originally supposed to meet. The game is a classic game that deserves a little more respect.… Expand

Halo 2 has now made it's way to the PC. It is Halo 2, just like it was on the Xbox (with a few improvements), and although this is not a bad thing, it would have been a much more successful release if they had upgraded the graphics significantly more, even though they aren't terrible, they could be better. Still, the intense multiplayer and singleplayer can be a blast, and although a lot of people report bugs in the game, I have actually found more on the Xbox version. The game still has a decent sized multiplayer community, and you can always find a game to enjoy.… Expand

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I must confess to being very dissapointed with Halo when I finally got it on Xbox all those years ago. It was an xbox exclusive, a game that had originally been planned for PC release and was going to be a large open world game where as the masterchief you roamed the Halo hooking up with ragtag bands of marines and took the fight to covenant while trying to uncover the secrets of the halo, no 2 playthroughs would play the same if you made different decisions and they even hinted at allowing "drop in" co-op in the early interviews.

What we got was fairly much that story but on rails and towards the third quarter of the game it was quite repetitive. Sure it had all the beauty we knew to expect from the early videos but the single player was just... ok. Co-op was great fun 2 plyayer on xbox and if not for that I probably never would have completed the game on the console.

Then halo 2 arrived and it started off very cool, it let you play as the MasterChief to begin with fighting the covenant on earth in some very memorable battles. Then you got to play as the fallen Arbiter on the Covenant side which was also cool.

**SPOILER AHEAD**

Here the game took a turn for the worse, back in the master chiefs shoes you are transported to another halo like the first one... ugh. It was at this point in H2 on xbox that I stopped playing, recalling how horribly repetitive the areas in the later halo game had been. Being that I do not like the concept of paying my ISP and then paying for Xboxlive service I never took either game online.

Since then Halo 1 came to PC and was since upgraded to Halo CE or the Halo Custom Edition which is a lot of fun, the fact that the CE allows custom maps and mods (theres even a halo 2 weapon mod and the community is still active with new maps) has kept it alive far past where I though it would exist and the Vs gameplay with vehicles is actually a lot of fun.

Eventually Halo2 also appeared on PC but only for Vista users. I bought it a year or two back for about $10 in the clearance bin at JB Hifi alongside copies of Shadowrun (that other Vista only games for windows launch title) with the intent of seeing if the online community was any good for it. I installed it and sat down to play a little single player to tweak my settings and get a feel for the weapons.....

OMFG the mouse even at speed 10 (Max) felt like I was trying to turn in a tub of concrete, keyboard was permenantly mapped and you couldnt edit it (not a big deal I guess if you like WASD standard settings) and general game performance was pretty lousy. I stopped playing the game but didnt uninstall it.

Recently I was reading some gufff about the next Halo installment in passing & one of the user comments was that Halo 2 is hard to surpass as the best of the series which I found surprising, more surprising were other comments by quite a few people who agreed that Halo 2 was the best of the series thus far. Hmm I thought, maybe I should give it another chance ? ugh but the controls were horrible and the game performance terrible.... well sort of.

After a bunch of tweaking in nvidia control panel & maxing out all my halo 2 graphics options the mouse is actually quite responsive and the gameplay not choppy. Turns out the game tries to limit itself to 30fps capped, if your system exceeds this (especially if you have vsynch off and are pre-rendering frames) then the game starts dropping frames which makes it look choppy and interferes with your mouse control. long story short I am 90% happy with how it feels now.

So I played through the first Masterchief section & the Arbiter section, and arrive back on the fourth Halo where I abandoned the game on xbox. Oh dear how wrong I was, after a slightly slow start to this section there are some extremely exciting shootouts and vehicle gameplay to enjoy. The environments look a little dated (low res textures by todays standards) but the player/creature/vehicle models were always incredibly detailed in the halo games & got a lot of love to the point they still look exceptional IMHO.

My recommendation, if you havent tried Halo 2 on PC and you can find it someplace cheap grab it. The Story and single player gameplay are well worth it (sadly no co-op in PC version), multiplayer seems dead with Halo CE being the far more active title for multiplayer (no doubt due to the modding options). That said the Ingle Player portion of Halo 2 is really good and worth a look for FPS fans, though I am not sure how available it is in 2012, a recent stroll through some local games retailers showed me they are still stocking Halo (probably because people need the game keys for Halo CE) for PC but no sign of Halo 2.… Expand

Well, Halo 2 for PC is a fantastic game although with a few minor setbacks. I don't know why people say "It's the worst game ever!!" Its just like Halo 2 on Xbox, just a few things missing. Its odd how it only got a 5.2 score.