October 29, 2004 - Halo 2 is seeing a near simultaneous release worldwide -- a big improvement from the original where gamers in Japan were forced to wait over half a year for the greatness of Bungie´s landmark first person shooter. A Japanese release means Japanese reviews, and today we spotted the first one on the pages of Famitsu Xbox, Japan´s largest ( and only) Xbox exclusive magazine.
In an issue that included reviews for two Japanese titles, Dead or Alive Ultimate ( 10, 9, 9, 8) and Fatal Frame 2 ( 8, 7, 8, 9), Halo 2 was given the most favorable rating of the month with a 10, 9, 9 and 9.
The magazine´s editor-in-chief scored the game a ten and had this to say: " The battles are totally intense. It´s been a while since I´ve forgotten about sleep and food to this extent while playing a game." We´ll skip the bit about the campaign mode in order continue the trend of avoiding spoilers, but the review finishes off with " Xbox users who play this will be truly happy. Seriously."
And those punks who gave the game a 9? Well, they didn´t really have anything bad to say about the title, although some admitted to not being big on first person shooters. One reviewer, admitting his distaste for the genre added, " A game that´s well put together is of course fun," and " This is too fun!".
As posted in this public service announcement from earlier in the week, IGN´s Halo 2 review will go live at noon PST on November 7. Turn back then to see the opinion of IGNXbox´s editor in chief, Douglass Cool Perry.
