There couldn’t have been that many – if any at all – people who didn’t buy their Xbox back in May 2002 without a copy of Bungie’s seminal shooter Halo. The thing was a system-selling monster, clocking up insane sales and hugely high praise from critics across the globe, which quite rightly made Microsoft sit up, take notice and start to treat the franchise as something crucial to the future of their fledgling games console empire.

Some three years later and after months of seemingly endless hype, it’s time for the big one to land. The game really needs no introduction, but here one is anyway: Halo 2 sees the continuation of Master Chief’s epic struggle to save the world from the Covenant and the Flood. Offering 15 levels of hectic conflict across a number of vibrant sci-fi locations, the game also offers a comprehensive Xbox Live multiplayer mode for players to hone their skills in a competitive environment.

Does it all live up to the hype though? Could it ever live up the hype? It certainly has a bloody good go at it, that’s for sure. It takes the essence of what made the original title so good – Bungie’s ’30 seconds of fun’ – and expands it outwards vastly, with battling being more intense and invigorating than ever before. Numerous enemies swarm your way at every opportunity, leaving you to get trigger-happy and indulge in some larger-than-life scraps for survival.

But Bungie have also been a bit clever, too. In these days of prolific internet rumour-spreading and press leaks, they’ve managed to cover up something in the campaign mode so big that it’ll suck the breath from your mouth when you realise what’s happening. It goes without saying that there’s no way in heck I’m going to trample on your fragile brains and spoil it for you, but it genuinely is a fresh, exciting difference which will change the way you think about the story and Halo universe.

The biggest compliment you can pay to Halo 2 is that it feels like a tuned, more exciting version of the original. Whilst the two lesser difficulty levels will see you bulldozing your way through each section without too much trouble, Heroic and Legendary will have you employing all sorts of defensive tactics to see off your foes. Weaponry has been given a tweak for the game too, with a few new rifles on both sides of the war available to be picked up during progression, alongside the chance to finally get your grubby mitts on one of those Covenant energy swords.

Another new ingredient in the cake is the ability to dual-wield certain weapons, although in reality this does little to affect the game in any way. Having two weapons does offer that little extra firepower, but the downsides are slightly longer reload times and slightly lessened accuracy so it’s not the complete advantage over single-wield that you may initially believe it to be.

Along with the new weapons on show, Bungie have chucked in an impressive bundle of vehicles for you to plough around in. The much-loved Warthog makes a return and has two flavours to taste; one has a standard gun, whilst the other makes use of a Gauss Cannon. The Ghost and Banshees are also back too, and this time you can use a Wraith to fly around at certain points of the game. This is great fun, but not quite as much fun as when you get behind the wheel of a tank for the first time and go on a massive destruction derby, crushing and blasting anything within distance. It fully justifies Bungie dedicating a whole portion of one of the chapters to it, and changes the pacing and structure of the battling to great effect.

Criticisms? A few, perhaps. Many people – including myself – thought that the original Halo game tailed off pretty badly about midway in, leaving the player some rather dull stretches of levels to trek through. Whilst Halo 2 doesn’t suffer from such a dramatic decline, there are still the occasional moments where the action does verge on getting a little monotonous, with some vast locations meaning some pretty hefty run-and-gun sessions. Another point of debate is the story, which ends rather abruptly and leaves the players hanging on a knife-edge. Whilst this would be okay, the way the game starts as a bit of a slow-burner with the plot and then only really gets going midway means that it kind of feels like getting the rug pulled from under your feet a little bit when it suddenly comes screeching to a halt at the end.

Perhaps in these respects, Halo 2 is a victim of its own publicity. People expecting a genre defining moment are going to be disappointed, as the game offers what amounts to being a polished version of the original rather than a complete overhaul. Likewise, people expecting a fantastic story that will answer all their questions will be left scratching their heads at the rather hurried ending, with a rather painful wait ahead for the third game in the series. Heck, with the amount of competition out this year, Halo 2 might not even win any awards for game of the year.

But, it’s a technically beautiful, exciting game. It’s also brilliant fun, and this is even more obvious on the Xbox Live side of things. From the simple, easy-to-use menu system which makes it a doddle to invite friends to match-ups it’s all geared up to make the experience as enjoyable as ever, and with a host of new maps joining some polished versions of the favourite selections from the original there’s plenty of areas to dish out some online pain.

What makes it all the better is that the weaponry seems really well balanced, with alien and human guns each offering a number of advantages and disadvantages over each other that make weapon choice a highly crucial tactical decision. With 16 players able to cram into a server and still have the thing running fairly lag-free, things are hectic and relentless, with teams pegging it around fragging people left, right and centre. As a bonus, after all the dust has settled you can check out your stats on the Bungie website too and compare them against any fierce rivals you have.

It’s more than likely that you will spend most of your time with the online portion of the game if you have the relevant facilities. Whilst being able to play through the campaign in co-op again is a joy itself, the draw of the deathmatch is too hard to resist once you’ve dipped your wick. Sitting on the side of a tank blasting rounds at the enemy whilst your mate fires rockets at their hidey-hole is one of those gaming moments that leaves a smacking great grin on your face, and it’s something that’s hard to shift.

Being honest with ourselves, Halo 2 was never going to be quite as great as we had hoped, was it? The amount of press buzz whipped up almost made Halo 2 seem like the second coming of Christ, so the chance that it would exceed expectations was slim to none before it even hit the shelves. Be it the rather hasty conclusion or the sections where interest wanes as you guide Master Chief through a slightly dull section of repeated waves of attack, there’s something lodged within the game that means it doesn’t hold quite the same place in your heart as the original.

But there’s no way this review should end on that kind of negative, as Halo 2 is still a magnificent title and chocked full of brilliant moments of gaming. That 30 seconds of fun which Bungie spoke of is still intact and challenging as it was before, and the new cast of vehicles, weapons and beasts flying your way will give you plenty of fresh content to get your teeth into. On top of all that, the implementation of a brilliant Live mode will not only see copies of the game being shifted, but quite possibly Xbox consoles themselves, as well as subscriptions to Xbox Live. At the end of the day, that’s all that any Microsoft exec could have ever wished for.