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I’ll give it one thing: after playing for a while and switching to the old graphics, I legitimately thought “it can’t have looked this bad, can it?” In fact, I was so convinced that they had downgraded the graphics of the classic version that I booted up my old copy of Halo 2 to check. But nope – my mind must have just smoothed over the old versions, perhaps because I was less familiar with Halo 2 than I was with CE.
The remaster of Halo 2 is far more of a success than the remaster of CE. Textures, shaders, and lighting are vastly improved (mostly), and the feel still matches that of the original game. Though they still “adjusted” the soundtrack, you can swap to the old sounds along with the swap to the old graphics. There are two problems here, however. First, you can’t swap independently (and since the original Halo 2 soundtrack is probably my favorite, this is a problem). Second, they muddied and lowered the volume of the original soundtrack for some unfathomable reason. This means swapping back and forth gives the impression that the original soundtrack was encoded by monkeys, which was most certainly not the case.
Nevertheless, the graphics, cutscenes and sound effects are almost entirely a direct upgrade from the original Halo 2. Almost. Take a gander at this pair of screenshots:
The first, unlike the other galleries, is a screenshot of the original graphics. The second is from the Anniversary Edition. You might notice that the second appears to have been taken from the perspective of a blind man. It’s no graphical glitch and it’s also not a unique incident. The whole game feels quite a bit darker (lighting-wise), and not in a good way. “But Lepcis,” you say, “didn’t you complain that they made CE too bright? There’s just no pleasing you.” Well, yes. I did say that. Except, in CE, you always have a flashlight. On the level I took those screenshots on? You don’t have a flashlight. There are other instances where the lighting is just too dark for the circumstance (your starting area is a workshop that was lit by a single 40 Watt bulb, apparently), but for the most part they are forgivable and sometimes even better.
One final note to round out the review is on the multiplayer. I’ve played quite a bit of Halo multiplayer, with one important difference: I played on PC versions and almost exclusively with small groups of people (8 or less). Halo 2 multiplayer is probably the best technically (granted, I’ve only played a bit of Halo 3 multiplayer), though I have a definite soft spot for Halo 1 and its more streamlined experience. The remaster multiplayer seems quite good, allows for crossplay, and even has new maps. There’s one problematic feature of the remaster, however: controller users have aim assist while playing against keyboard and mouse users. This significantly alters balance in certain circumstances (melee and sniping in particular) – it’s not pervasive, but it is noticeable. Honestly, I only noticed it while playing with a very small group – and even then, I had to look it up afterwards.
After all that, however, I do still put Halo 2 Anniversary into Tier Two. The campaign was never the greatest (admittedly, I didn’t even finish it this time, having gotten a bit bored), but it’s still serviceable – and the multiplayer should keep things going for quite some time.