Smallville

"Smallville, USA" is also a generic term to describe a relatively small American town. Many gamers even credit Halo CE with single-handedly propping up the Microsoft Xbox's image and sales through its first generation of games. The name "Granville" comes from the 2000s television series Smallville; Smallville is filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, which was called Granville until it was renamed in 1886, and Granville Street (a major arterial road in the city) as well as Granville Island (a small, man-made island and tourist attraction) still retain the name. While Halo 2 has won many awards and raked in colossal profits, debate has risen over the merits of such success, especially when faced with comparisons to the immense impact on the console market that the first Halo had. In issue #13 of the Superman/Batman series (2004), Smallville is mentioned as being adjacent to the (equally fictional) town of Granville, Kansas. The update also fixes a teleporter glitch on the map, Relic. Comic writer and artist John Byrne also placed Smallville in Kansas in his 1986 rewrite of Superman's origin. Any players who are detected using modified content would be automatically banned from Matchmaking on Xbox Live.

Superman writer Elliot S! Maggin incorporated the Kansas location into the DC Universe in his 1981 Superman novel, Miracle Monday. Modified versions of the downloadable maps would allow people to use cheats such as 'autoaim' and 'automatic reload' during matches on Xbox Live. Smallville was first placed in Kansas in the 1970s and 1980s Superman movies. The update added a detection tool that would automatically detect and ban 'modders' using modified content on their Xboxes. The Maryland location was supported in the actual comics with a map of Smallville and the surrounding area that was published in New Adventures of Superboy #22 (October 1981), which situated Smallville a few miles west of a large bay very similar to Delaware Bay (the same map placed Metropolis and Gotham City on the east and west sides of the bay, respectively). Another update was added in July, 2005 (a week or so after the release of the map pack). All-New Collectors' Edition #C-55 (notable for featuring the wedding of Legion of Super-Heroes members Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl and published in 1978) calls Smallville "a quiet town, nestled in the hills just inland from the eastern seaboard." In Amazing World of DC Comics #14 (1977), a magazine with articles on DC Comics characters and series, Smallville was stated to be in Maryland. For further information on the map packs and their contents, see the list of downloadable maps.

Smallville's location varied widely throughout many stories, most of which placed Smallville close to Metropolis and Midvale, home of Supergirl. The Map Pack disk (below) was also released on that date. The actual location of Smallville, like those of other fictional DC Universe cities, originally was never specifically stated in the comics. On the 5th, 5 new maps were made available in a pack for $11.99, and were similarly made free to download on August 30th. In the original Superboy comics, a billboard outside of Smallville greets those driving into and out of town; the billboard features a picture of Superboy waving, with words next to it reading: "Welcome to Smallville, Home of Superboy.". Two of these were immediately free to download (the "Bonus Pack"), while the other two (the "Killtacular Pack") had a charge attached (US$5.99, £2.99) until July the 5th (in actuality, late June), when they too became free to download. Smallville receives its television and radio broadcasts from a larger nearby city. Four maps were made available to download on Monday, April 25th, 2005.

In terms of media, Smallville has had several newspapers mentioned over the years, including the Smallville Sentinel and Smallville Times-Reader. Halo 2 also supports downloadable content, with Bungie making various new multiplayer maps available. Clark, Pete, and Lana attended Smallville's sole high school, Smallville High School. This brings Halo 2 up to Version 1.1. In the original Superboy comics, the Kent family sold their farm when Clark started school and opened a general store in town; the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths comics, where Clark never had a Superboy career, show the Kents as still residing on their farm when Clark is an adult. A full list of changes can be seen here. Smallville's economy seems mostly to consist of various locally owned businesses, along with various farms surrounding the town, including the Kent family farm. The battle rifle is now more accurate.

Currently, Conner Kent, the current Superboy, lives in Smallville with Ma and Pa Kent, though he doesn't quite enjoy it. For example, the melee attacks and grenades are now far more powerful. In the original Superboy comics, other noted residents included Professor Phineas Potter (Lana's uncle) and a younger version of Lex Luthor. 30-50, reducing the number of players who play matchmaking at that level), slimmed down split-screen HUD information, and rebalanced various weapons to promote use of single-wield weapons, grenades, and melee attacks. Noted residents of Smallville include the Kent family (Jonathan and Martha Kent, or Ma and Pa Kent as they were often called, and their foster son Clark Kent), Lana Lang, Pete Ross, and Smallville police chief Parker. In response to these complaints, Bungie released an automatic update for Halo 2 (a mandatory patch) on Monday, April 18th, 2005, which fixed many of the various bugs and cheats in the game (though some inevitably persist, most of the time among the MM levels i.e. Its residents are generally very friendly, although for a relatively minor civic center its crime rate is unusually high. Users exploited bugs in the game and vulnerabilities of the network to win ranked games and thus increase their matchmaking rank.

Smallville is usually portrayed as an idyllic small American town, with an atmosphere resembling the settings of the paintings of Norman Rockwell. A common complaint regarding Halo 2's online play has been the widespread cheating which occurred almost immediately upon the game's release. . Halo 2 Soundtrack: Volume 2, will be available in Spring of 2006. The town first appeared as "Smallville, USA" in Superboy (volume 1) #2 (1949). The song Blow Me Away is considered the most popular of these contributions, however, Incubus's contributions better reflect the overall mood of the game. It is also the town in which the young Clark Kent grows up before moving to Metropolis to begin his career as Superman. The bands Incubus, Breaking Benjamin, and Hoobastank also feature on the official soundtrack and to a certain extent, in the game.

Smallville is the fictional town in the United States said to be in the State of Kansas which Superboy protects and in which most of his crime-fighting adventures take place. "Halo Theme Mjolnir Mix " is the signature theme tune for Halo 2. Additional tracks were also provided by various outside musicians, such as Joe Satriani (for the remixed theme song, which includes new guitar solos). Steve Vai provided guitar backing for many tracks. The Halo 2 soundtrack was mostly composed by Martin O'Donnell, who had also composed the music of Halo.

The stage is set for the final battles of the Human-Covenant and Covenant civil wars in Halo 3. The game ends with a cliffhanger, with the last cutscene showing the Master Chief about to enter the battle to save Earth while Cortana meets Gravemind on High Charity for unknown reasons. Meanwhile, the Forerunner vessel arrives near Earth, with the Master Chief on board. However, a letter, found in the extra booklet in the special Limited Edition, from a member of an archaelogical dig on the planet Reach that has uncovered a large alien object suggests The Ark may be on Reach.

However, the Halo and its counterparts across the galaxy are left on standby alert, awaiting a trigger signal from "The Ark", whose location is yet unknown, but is believed to be on Earth. Uniting the separatist faction of the Covenant on Delta Halo, and with the help of Sergeant Johnson, the Arbiter succeeds in preventing Tartarus from activating the installation. However, at the end, Cortana not only fails to destroy High Charity, but she also chooses to answer the questions of Gravemind. This will destroy Delta Halo and High Charity, stopping Tartarus from activating it, while preventing the Flood's escape across the galaxy.

The Master Chief stows away on board, but Cortana stays behind in order to detonate the In Amber Clad's engine reactors as a last resort. The only remaining High Prophet, Truth, escapes on a Forerunner vessel. After capturing the In Amber Clad, the Flood, led by the Gravemind, arrive on the city and begin to try and capture it. The Master Chief finds himself upon the nearby Covenant Holy City, High Charity, a gargantuan space station, and pursues the remaining Prophets.

A mysterious Flood creature called the Gravemind sends the Arbiter and Master Chief in separate directions to prevent The High Prophets from activating Delta Halo. The Master Chief and the Arbiter meet upon the release of the Flood and the discovery of the Prophets' true objective: driven by their ancient religion, they seek to activate Delta Halo, which would cause the death of every sentient being in the galaxy. His first mission, to silence a heretic who doubts the Prophets' teachings, starts him on a path which will make him question his beliefs. Meanwhile, the fleet commander who led the Covenant forces in Halo is stripped of his rank, only to assume the role of the Arbiter, the greatest of the Covenant warriors.

There, the Master Chief kills one of the Covenant's three High Prophet leaders, which ultimately triggers a civil war inside the Covenant. It continues across another ring world, Installation-05, dubbed "Delta Halo", as the crew of the UNSC vessel In Amber Clad attempt to discover the reason for the Covenant's incursion. They then head to Earth where the Covenant attack the city of New Mombasa, repelled with the assistance of the Master Chief. Master Chief finds and disarms the bomb with the help of Cortana, then sends it to one of the Covenant ships and detonates it.

These boarding parties are carrying heavy explosives designed to take out the MAC (Magnetic Accelerator Cannon) guns capable of destroying the Covenant flagships. This ceremony is cut short when a Covenant flagship jumps out of slipspace and sends boarding parties towards the weapons platforms. Halo 2 opens with an awards ceremony on the Cairo weapons platform orbiting Earth. Halo 2's addition of dual wielding will defeat most powerups if used correctly..

One common mistake for new players is to mix the overshield and the active camo: this creates a faint halo around the player, caused by the overshield, even though they have active camo. Gametype Settings: In some gametypes, the overshield and/or active camo are always active on one or all of the players, and if disabled, will recharge over time. There are two types of powerups available in Halo 2 Multiplayer. The player has a regenerating shield, but now has regenerating health as well.

The damage system in Halo 2 is slightly different from that in Halo: Combat Evolved. (see "Xbox Live updates"). Another common criticism is the dominance of dual-wielding weapons over single-wielding combined with grenades, although attempts have been made to address these issues with the April 18th automatic update, however these updates were inefficient on dealing with the power of dual wielding. This primarily affects team games and one-on-one games; in free for alls, a player with a "power weapon" will become a priority target for the other players, meaning that the weapon will change hands frequently.

Much game time may be consumed attempting to seize the weapons in question from the opposition to shift the balance of power; in some cases it may not even be possible to do so. Should a team acquire these weapons, it becomes more difficult for their opponents to score kills or attain objectives. Many players feel that game strategies are too dependent upon controlling the "power weapons" in each map such as the Rocket Launcher, Sniper Rifle, Shotgun, or Energy Sword, which leads to the overshadowing of the other weapons in the game. Regular players have expressed concerns regarding the game balance of Halo 2.

Bungie keeps these stats for several hundred games per player at a time, then games begin to be purged to save space, and they are used as evidence when banning suspected cheating players (see "Xbox Live Updates", below). For example: for each kill, the attacker and target's locations and the attacker's weapon are displayed, and the paths taken by flags in Capture the Flag games are shown. This presents an image of the level that was played from the player's choice various angles, superimposed with a summary of the crucial game events. If a player logs in with a Microsoft Passport, they can also access the "Gameviewer".

Bungie.net records every single statistic that is displayed on-screen in the end-of-game "Postgame Carnage Report."(if mods were used in that game and were reported the game will not file correctly) Anyone can visit Bungie.net and look at any Xbox Live player's stats. Players may still choose to set up games for their own party to their own specification, and invite others into that game from their Friends and Clan lists, however these games are not made publicly available. Parties can also play in "Rumble Training" games, which is an unranked version of "Rumble Pit" If the Xbox console hosting the game drops out, the Xbox Live service automatically selects a new host from among the remaining players so the game can continue. Players can create small "parties" with their friends and enter games together as teammates in Team based games.

The Xbox Live servers create games automatically from the pool of players that have chosen each playlist, choosing a game type and map automatically and selecting one player to serve as the game's host (it is a common belief that this person has a bit of an advantage over the other players, which can be true in some gametypes, leading to a method people use to get host called bridging). Other playlists allow head-to-head play and matches between different clans. For example, the "Rumble Pit" playlist offers a variety of "every man for himself" game types, primarily Slayer or variations thereof; "Team Skirmish" offers a number of 4-on-4 team games, which are primarily objective-based games like Capture the Flag; "Big Team Battle" is similar to Team Skirmish but allows teams of up to 8 players. Instead, players select "playlists" that are geared to different styles of play.

In Halo 2, Xbox Live players do not choose to host public games, and they do not get to specify individual maps and options to search for. The game software then uses a service like GameSpy to advertise the game to the world at large; other players choose which game to join based upon criteria such as the map and game options each host is offering as well as the ping times they are able to receive. Traditionally, one player sets his or her computer or console up as a game server (or host), specifying the game type and map and configuring other settings. Halo 2's Xbox Live mode offers a unique and, some would say, innovative approach to online gaming that is intended to alleviate some of the problems that have plagued online first-person shooters in the past.

Unlike its predecessor, Halo 2 allows players to compete with each other via the Xbox Live online service, in addition to the original's support for split-screen and System Link multiplayer. Of the preset variations present in the original game, only Race is missing. All of these modes can be twisted and changed in many unpredictable ways, resulting in incredibly varied multiplayer gameplay. They are:.

There are varying modes, several of which have returned from the original Halo game. The Legendary difficulty also allows skilled players to find hidden "skulls", which activate special abilities. An increase in difficulty will result in an increase in the health of opponents, an increase in their accuracy, a reduction of duration and an increase in recharge time for the Arbiter's active camouflage, and a reduction of health in the player. There are four levels of difficulty: Easy, Normal, Heroic and Legendary, the latter of which has been described as "suicide" by the game's developers.

Additionally, the story line while playing as the Arbiter changes to one of fighting an internal faction within the Covenant, with the elites, hunters and grunts forming one team and the brutes, jackals, prophets and drones forming the other. Another possibility is that the Arbiter was designed to be less of a battering ram than the Master Chief, which subsequently requires different tactics. His shield is also weaker than the Master Chief's. Aside from variations caused simply by switching sides in the conflict, most notably The Arbiter is different from Master Chief in that his armor lacks a flashlight and is equipped with a short duration rechargeable form of active camouflage that will drop if the player attacks or is shot.

Some of these episodes require the player to compete as a Covenant Elite called The Arbiter, while some, but not the majority are still played as the Master Chief. When playing in this mode the player(s) must complete a series of episodes. This mode follows the story to the Halo series and is the second of the three games (the third and final part of the series is still not published). The game is playable in campaign mode either single-player or cooperative.

Since Halo 2 was a successful killer app for the Xbox and its Live online service, Microsoft took advantage of Halo 2 to ban modded (modified) Xboxes from the network when they tried to log on for online gaming. It also won "Game of the Year 2004" at GPhoria, among other awards (Best Boss Battle, etc.), including different award shows.. Some observers saw this as another milestone in the emerging dominance of the video game industry; a few years earlier, the video game industry had surpassed the movie industry in total revenues for the first time and had never relinquished its lead since then. According to a contemporary Wired Magazine issue, Halo 2 had a more profitable opening day than did the then-highest-grossing Hollywood film, "Muffin-Man.