Well, by now many of you have read the news that all titles for the original xbox will be discontinued from the live service in April of this year.

While there are other threads that have announced this, this thread will serve to provide our final words to H2, from the perspective of fun, nostalgia, and general overall experience - so its not just a stupid thread about an old game.

Furthermore, anyone who comes in here and posts something along the lines of "Big deal, old game, blah blah" etc, will be banned on the spot. No exceptions. If you think its a foolish endeavor then ignore the thread and move on. Theres no need to be insulting to those of us who want to reflect on good times that possibly will no longer be accessible.

So I guess I'll start.

There is alot of negative stuff I could say about Microsoft's decision to take the action of ending live support for Halo 2. Some of it would be true, and some of it would simply be frustration and rage about a decision I dont agree with. But Id rather just talk about the positive views I hold towards the game itself.

Halo 2 is the reason I came to this site. Ive never utilized a myspace, facebook, twitter, or any other social networking website besides www.halo2forum.com

The simple reason for this is because Ive never had a substantial reason to network with people outside of my "real" life except for to find association to share in my absolute favorite form of electronic entertainment.

Like many of you, Ive spent countless hours on Halo 2, and like some of you, that did not reciprocate over to Halo 3. While I really tried to enjoy Halo 3 to the degree with which I liked Halo 2, the fact is that it did not come naturally. It was quite simply like trying to force something that isnt there, but for some reason you feel like it should be. Then ultimately once you have accepted the reality of the situation, you disgustingly move on.

When I try to navigate through the endless debate of Halo 2 vs Halo 3, I think back to something that was said earlier in the series.

There was a time where I was devouring every single piece of Halo info I could get, and during this period I watched a documentary featuring Bungie employees. One of the comments that one of them made was concerning Halo 1, and what he basically said was that Halo 1 had about 30 seconds of fun that kept repeating itself over and over again. But it was that fun factor that kept bringing people back to the game.

Even before the xbox live factor, people recognized the importance of having interactive fun within a game with others, to the point where they would travel to the next city with their xbox and tv in tow, to lan and enjoy it. I do think for console games, this was a new thing.

Halo 2 was able to continue this (not so much in the campaign), and by introducing the live element, made it possible to easily connect and play with many others. And while there were those who definitely did not appreciate the gameplay over Halo 1, no one could argue the vast effect of the online element.

Quite frankly for me, Halo 2 was the last game Ive played that contained 2 key features:

1) The 30 seconds of fun that kept repeating over and over. No matter how many times you got screwed by lag or cheaters, no matter how many times the shotgun was electronically nerfed, and no matter how many times you got beat very badly and vowed never to play again, something kept you coming back to this game. It was quite simply the fun factor. Its not without reason the Wii can kick so much ass despite being an inferior system on paper. Its because it basically harnesses the fun element. This is something that H1 and H2 also tapped into that so many in the video game industry forget about these days, and why we have a constant release of titles that are dead within a few months.

2) Sheer versatility amongst gamer styles. Maybe you were a dedicated MLG player, or maybe you were a member of Halo Grid. Maybe you were a premier montage player, or maybe you were like me and loved to drive the warthog. This game simply had something for everyone. If you were in it for the competitive factor, you could face others like you to dominate online. If you just wanted to make a hilarious piece of machinima, you could do that. And if you wanted to drive around and splatter people, you could do that. And if none of that appealed to you, and you just wanted to sit around and watch videos of other people that did, you could do that. Almost anyone who liked console Fps's could find something about Halo 2 to like.

I personally have not experienced this with any other game since then. Others may have, but I haven't.

In 2007 I made a video. Many in the online gaming community call these fragvids or montages. By gameplay standards it was not good (perhaps one of the worst), and by editing standards it is even more terrible. However, to this day I will occasionally get messages from random people saying they appreciated and could relate to it just because of their parallel experiences with the game. But honestly that was probably the least I could do for a game that bought me so much fun. Since then Ive been holding on trying to occasionally find other things and games that can give me a similar fun factor experience such as H2. While other things have been fun in other ways, none of them are like H2 for me.

Im one of the weirdos in this world. The guy that many people just cant comprehend. I dont like things because of their new factor, or their popularity factor, or what some consider to be their general value. I like things because they strike a certain chord with me, and I find great appreciation in them - even so to the point of where one could move on to the newer, but the newer quite simply doesnt feel like the better. I cant do what the masses do just because the masses do it. Most people are out with the old and in with the new. I recognize that there is a reason why the old is regarded as classic in the first place. Obviously, many others dont share my difficulty. Good for them.

In conclusion I will say on the eve of the final day of Halo 2 I will be doing something special. On my recent trip to the Caribbean, I was able to acquire a rum that I cannot buy easily here stateside, known as Pyrat Cask 1623. This bottle is the most expensive in my rum collection, and I have been saving opening it and trying it for a special occasion. New Years day simply wasnt good enough, but on that day - the final day of online H2 play (provided Im still living and able) I will crack open the bottle, fill my glass, and attempt to engage in some old fashioned BTB style games. Hopefully you will join me for one last event of appreciation of this game.

Thank you for your time.

Love the idea, Midpoint. I'm going to have to put some thought in to what I want to say, there's a lot of things I could cover. Too many good times on H2 to just throw out a thirty second post in remembrance.

I'll edit.


EDIT: I wanted to keep it short and sweet.

I originally bought Halo 2 because it was the cool new game everyone was talking about. I had no idea that the 30 second thrill of getting a kill in that game would be so addicting and continue to be more than that. From being obsessed with pushing the game’s limits with tricks and glitches on High Impact Halo, to joining H2F and becoming part of the MLG movement, to talking sh.t to kids in matchmaking, to being addicted to Lockout 1v1, and to making friends with people I don’t know if I’ll ever forget, it’s been a hell of a ride. I never would have guessed that Halo 2 would define a noticeable part of my sense of humor and personality.

All my friends I met on H2 – you guys know who you are. You made the game that much more awesome to be on.

Halo 2 truly is a timeless game. The memories of next day fatigue, frustration, excitement , laughter and obsession will never die.

heres my try at this

The halo experience for me started when I met 'deathenator' in middle school, he played h1 on xbox and after playing through campaign like 50 times at his house I decided I'd better get myself an xbox. next 1st of August I had myself an indestructible black object, the most amazing LAN parties with our school friends ensued.

H2 came and we had 'elite' and 'spartan' teams, include the huge amounts of drinking and you have yourself some f..king rivalry. Robin, Lucas, Niek, Chiel, Kevin and me, 2 teams of 3.. some seriously great memories. I wasnt even that much better than anyone, deathenator owned nubz. The next.. 5 months or something I must’ve played campaign of both games more than anyone..(too much) and after seeing deathenator on XBC I thought I'd up my game and go for XBL.

That moment changed how I was going to be spending my time for the next 5 and probably more years. I remember my first game, I know its weird, it was on Burial mounds, team slayer level 1. I had a rampage.. and one kid said 'wow slater ohm, you should be like a level 20!'.. I was so proud haha. I got my level 24 and stayed there for a while, in the mean time deathenator had joined the xbl community, this was probably the main reason I got to playing a lot and eventually got hooked. Deathenator being my best friend but living a sh.t end away (we bike distances here) made the online communication a way to hang out besides coming over.

Level wise I dont think I ever went over 38 in slayer... I got high in rumble pit before it went down too, something close to 40 as well. I think I went through all the faces: noob going for his 24, decent player owning with friends in team slayer, ranking up. MLG type player, having a team, entering Euro tournaments. 1v1 player, I'm not great, but I'm aggressive and that makes for fun and unexpected sh.t. Then above all I think I’m the guy in team training sitting in the warthog with the flag guy in my driver seat but Ill never bring him to the place to score. Betraying marruk before he betrays me, chatting with dudes about Chinese people taking over the world and just pretty much having a blast with the damned SMG.

H2 gave everybody what they needed in a shooter, it's sick how good you can get at it.. I've been playing for 5 years.. people still rape the sh.t out of me every once in a while. The feeling of a community was especially strong in this game, the Dutch community was very tight, everybody knew everybody and Dutchy was a noob.
Best dutch players team as far as I know included twilight, kamachi and airwave, as you can see in 'deathenator slater ohm dual tage' I raped them which was a big deal.. for me at least.

When we started recording, mostly inspired by phalanx & ephrum and ABUSEDGOAT, I got this legendary kill which still owns anything. the bomb, stuck, bomb.. it was the first thing I've ever recorded and I was ecstatic, thought it was the best thing ever and wanted to make it the prime clip of our montage. (I had the bomb, somebody br'd me no shield, dropped the bomb, stuck him, picked the bomb up and scored).
In the end it took us over a year before releasing anything, getting new cards and sh.t, none of the older clips have ever been used.. and they're probably gone.

In every montage I've made I want it to be as entertaining as possible, f..k trying to impress or capturing the feel of playing(which I think is impossible).. but as long as its f..king awesome then I guess it's close. using different music, basic editing techniques and a sh.tload of devotion I think me and deathenator entertained a select group of people thoroughly.
Now for the last time I'm putting clips in my vegas timeline.. It'll take a few months to finish as I am a busy little f..ker and this will be the final tribute to this game, just as all my other montages were tributes.

Community; thanks for making this game as awesome as it had potential to be. I have enjoyed it thoroughly and will continue doing so for the next few weeks. The chats I've had with people have taught me quite a bit and I think I've done the same for others. It's weird how I became an online gamer, nobody really expected me to spend so much time behind a TV. I wouldn’t take it back for anything really, h2 f..king rocks balls.

Where to begin?.. I'm going to start with my first online experience..

I remember seeing that episode of True life: I'm a professional gamer, with Tsquared on it, I saw them playing a game on Sanctuary, he was in his room while his GF just sat and watched. I thought that was kind of sad, then I saw when he went to an MLG event, there was a lot of screaming between him and Ghandi, I found that very hilarious.. Within a month I ended up picking up Xbox Live and H2, I got on, searched BTB, keep in mind I had no idea what was going on, the map was Headlong, and I spent the whole game exploring the map, I think I got one kill or two, but I had more fun exploring. After a few games, I went on youtube and searched "How to get better at halo2", and I saw some things about BXR and double shotting, I tried this, and it took a long time for me to get it down, eventually I got some friends at school who played too, and I showed them how to BXR, and they were completely baffled at the "one-hit-BR-kill"

Oh, the endless fun in BTB I had after that, especially after I was introduced to the art of tea-bagging. I swear, I spent hours just doing that to piss kids off, and it worked very well.

I saw a video called "10 ways to spot a n00b" and in it, one of the ways, there was a warthog driver who said "Let's just take the shortcut through the water" I adopted this method very fast, Every game that involved a warthog, and water, I would announce "We're taking the short cut through the water" and proceeded to do that.

Although im dissapointed with microsofts decision i can accept and see the logic in their choice. Over the last two years of trying to enjoy halo 3 like midpoint said, i rarely managed to convince friends to get out the Halo 2 disk to re-live the nostalgic nights of halo 2. Its sad, but the community is 99% dead, but i still feel bad about neglecting a game which was so good to me. I know some of you still game h2v alot and still crank out nice 1v1 montages but its nothing like the old hay(lo) days.

This video game was what drew me into montages and this forum where Ive met lots of good friends and ultimately found a possible career path. It is incredible to imagine how my life would be different had my friend never bought an xbox almost 8 years ago.

anyways, i will keep my xbox and h2 until im 80 so i can show my great grand children how to double shot like a pro.

I will never forget you halo 2, the greatest video game ever created.

Soooo much to say..... I'll write it up in Word and edit this after.

I think I am still in shock. The halo 2 experience from beginning to end has captured me like no other.
From the 'i love bees' arg i followed every thing halo 2 did and watched it evolve. Its hard to describe my feelings for the game - Ive been on this forum before even midpoint joined and I remember fondly watching your montage as it captures nearly everything i feel towards the game. After watching it again I remembered laughing at the lyrics at the end thinking how that will never be me - im playing this game for a long time to come.

5 years down the line and those words are starting to hit close to home now - "your days will fly by but when your years are through, believe me - you have to grow up too" wisdom that i secretly new was inevitable, until now i have been in denial but i think my time has come. its truly a sickening feeling.

anyways...

The amazing thing about this game is how right it all feels, the pace of the game, the maps, scale and height tweaked to the of perfection.
To this day i can throw perfect grenades in h2, maneuvering with ease to navigate jumps like second nature - halo 3 leaves me walking off edges and falling to the grave.

H2 went through many stages, and the discovery of bxrs and later the double shot gave the game a new life long after launch. you can literally see the progress made by most of the community in tactics & game play styles -
people found inventive ways to gain an advantage over the opponent. the nade launches and the skills required to pull of fast button combos was a feat that would have been imposable were it not for such a passionate community. 'Combat Evolved' in every sense of the word.

Halo 2 stumbled accidentally into what should have been the genre defining reinvention of the FPS, the 'next level' of first person shooters.
Button combos should have been the turning point in the genre - the new era of reaction time and the ultimate test of speed and skill.
Instead the gem that was hidden in halo 2 was buried deep - developers turned to gimmicks to breath new life into a stale and largely unchanged formula that had been around since goldeneye.

Halo 2 shaped xbox live and without its influence the online gaming scene of today would be very different indeed.

As sad as it sounds i now realize that i will never feel the same about any game ever again. It provided an experience so personal I will never get to re-live, it is so dear to me that I simply couldn't describe it - oot maybe but it has given me some of the best memories of my life - I just never thought it would end like this.

RIP halo 2 - you will be sorely missed.

Ahh. Expect a text wall from me tomorrow.
All I can say for now is that I agree 100% and I feel you bro.

It feels like I just learned one of my old best friends I used to hang with every night a few years ago was just diagnosed with cancer and is going to die on April 15.

All those memories I had with it will be gone, I'll be unable to ever relive them. If I ever play Halo 2 again it will be live visiting a lifeless body, a grave.

I can write 100,000 words describing my memories of playing this game with my friends both on this forum and in my life and it won't come anywhere close to the immensity of the actual experiences...

...glitching to get out of all the maps...

...capture the flag on Headlong and Waterworks in Big Team Battle...

...Sniping on coagulation...

...the modding community (the non cheating one)...it's like all their work was in vain...

...the music in ivory tower...

...the sketches in the reflection of the water when you glitch to get out of Zanzabar (no one but me and a few of my friends are aware of this)...

...the countless matches on Lockout...

...this list can go on forever.

I won't ever be able to watch another Halo 2 montage I have saved on my computer for nostalgia, I'll just feel depressed and lonely. I never thought a video game would ever have this much of an affect on me after all these years.

So many memories...

All gone... ;_;

Well, I guess I'm going to have to say a lot. Okay, so i use to play xbox original at my friend Patrick's house and we use to play H1 all the time, we would spend countless hours at sleepovers just having fun all night. After playing H1 at his house every weekend, me and my brother Billy decided to go buy our own Xbox and Halo 1 copy. He saved up his money and I saved up mine. We both went to Best Buy and split the cost of the Xbox and he bought the Halo 1 disc. That night we hooked everything up and had a blast, until our parents called us up stairs for bed time. Let me remind you this was when we were in Elementary school, we were just little kids that still had bedtimes and played in the basement. Okay on with the sory... So we had a blast that night, and the next days we played non stop every day after school and on the weekends. We would play campaign over and over and just play 1 on 1's on every map. We had some friends that were brothers also in the neighborhood and we would invite them over to play 2 v 2's all day untill they had to go home, we would have so much fun! That Christmas they got an Xbox of their own and also played H1 together, so they had no need on coming over anymore, because all we needed at the time was our Xbox's and H1's. Later that year H2 came out. We got it the day it came out also at Best Buy, but not the midnight release, because we were too young to be up that late. We went home from Best Buy and my brother and I put in the H2 disc and saw that there was this new thing called Xbox Live. He knew about it already so he made an account for himself. The next day after school he would play all night until like 11 o clock. He was in middle school at the time while i was in like 4th grade. I would always want to play Live with him, but he would only let me play campaign and stuff with him. I would always go tell on him and cry to my mom because he wouldn't let me play and my mom would make him let me play. It was the greatest thing ever. After a while he would still not let me play, so my mom let me make an account of my own. His account was named hockeyfan27777 and mine was bam adio19. I thought of my name because at the time i liked "Viva La Bam" and I liked the shoes adio's, and my favorite hockey players number was 19, so i was at my neighbor Shawn's house and i thought of a split screen name called bam adio19, so i went home and decided to make it my Xbox Live gamertag. That night i played a ton. After a while my brother got bored and rarely played. That is where it hit me where i became addicted to this game i guess you can say. I would play non stop after school and on the weekends, because it was the most fun thing in my life sorry to say. Sometimes i would get off to play football in the neighborhood, but rarely. My two friends that i would play h1 with that lived in my neighborhood also got h2 and played with me on live. We decided that we would do 2v2's on live so we couldn't screen peak lol. His brother Robbie would come over with me, and my brother Billy would go over there and we would do 2v2's on Coag over live. Usually my team would loose, but it was still insanely fun! My other neighbor Shawn had an xbox at the time and me and him and our 3 other friends would switch off on splitscreen at his house and i would ALWAYS win, because i had live and the most experience. They would always get mad at me fro owning them. That year Shawn had a birthday at this go cart place called Andretis, and his mom got him a 12-month. He got live and named his gamertag a mother f k, because we couldn't think of anything else for him lol. He added me and we played all the time together after school, and on the weekends. The year went by and everyone that i knew in my neighborhood kinda stopped playing except for me, because i just loved it so much. Later on i was getting made fun of by my brother saying i have like no life and stuff, but i didn't care. Now the time period was when all the hacking/modding/cheating/bouncing came in. And i wanted to do all of that. So one day my dad came home with a new modem, the Motorola modem with the standby button on it. I was so excited! I knew that i could use that to cheat, so i told my brother and he was like omg, and we tried it out, i wasn't host so i lagged out. We did a custom and made sur ei had host and tried it and it worked! I was so happy. Later on i would standby sometimes and mostly play legit, but if i needed to i would barely do it. This was when tea bagging and stuff came along too. I would tea bag and trash talk all the time. When i got to the 6th grade i modded my Xbox, and played only customs, because i heard you couldn't get banned like that. So i just kept playing my modded customs with everybody, and they loved em. All thanks to my big brother for actually getting the mods to work while i was upstairs eating and him and Shawn were getting it to work downstairs. I went down and they worked i was excited. So yeah i tried to go in matchmaking and noticed i couldn't it said i was banned. I was like wtf!? But yeah after a while i got bored of halo, because i was banned and didn't care. Ohh yeah and before all this my two neighbors Robbie, and Rory got there xbox modded by a friend. So that inspired me, and also if any of you remember Hot IceCube, he came over one time and helped me out. So yeah i quit in 6th grade for a couple of months i guess, and one day i got bored of skating, because that was the thing at the time. I went down stairs turned the Xbox on and Un modded my xbox. I got on live and had a blast! So 6th grade and 7th grade i loved the game and the years before that. Amazing game. 7th grade i got into the montage community, and joined this site. Montage made it even more fun and were exciting. Hot IceCube, Walshy, and the Ogre's inspired me to make tages by the way, and in 7th grade i believe was when H3 came out, i was dissapointed. Well i pre ordered it and my mom picked it up and checked me out of school early to play and i hated it, just everything was so different. I kept on playing h2 and sometimes h3, but mostly h2, it was still alive then. The next few weeks, people at school would always be like "why do you still play that old game?" I would be like, "because it's amazing, and why do you play that new gay game?" The next year i still played which was 8th grade. I played, but not as much. I started playing h3, because h2 was slowly dieing, but i still played h2 here and there. By the way my brother moved on to h3 and got his own xbox 360. I forgot to say i went and got my Xbox 360 on my birthday with all my b day money before halo 3 came out just so i could play halo 3. And also i had a whole ton of different accounts with weird names, and the reason i thought of my name is because of kLoaKz another montage maker, and i wanted my name to look like his so i thought of something that looked similar on my way to the dentist in the car. I saved up all my money after Christmas and bought my own computer, so i wouldn't have to record in the basement or play in the basement anymore, so i brought my xbox and capture cards and setup my new computer and now 2 years later here I am. And for h3 i just wanna say i had some fun getting like 5 40's and above in MLG, that game is way too easy. And my highest rank in h2 was like a 36, and for as long as i've been playing i still get dominated. So now I am in 9th grade and rarely get on Xbox anymore, but when i do it's always been for h2, or CoD with my hockey friends, but h2 is going to be gone soon, so there won't be anything else to do, so please everybody please get on for these last couple of weeks just for the remembrance of the best game ever made of all time please, just please get on. And i would like to say, i have met some amazing people on this game, that i will never forget, and i will hope to meet someday, so guys i love you and i will miss every single one of you, bye bye now. -kLicKz