If you only play by yourself with Master Chief you can easily let go of this add-on. Only if you really want to see the short and interesting extras on the dvd, this will be worth buying. You get amongst others a movie that shows what happened with a drop ship that was shot down in the beginning of the game in the featurette "Another day at the Beach". Another interesting extra is the movie "Halo 2: Killtacular" where you can see how the maps were created.

For those that want more excellently balanced multiplayer fun, this is a must-have, I can tell you that already. Still, by now, already 4 of the nine maps are available as free download and the other 5 will become free on August 30th. If you've got a lot of patience or a small budget, you can wait a little but if you want to make one of the best games ever even better immediately, this is your chance.

I won't talk about Halo 2 itself anymore, you can read our review for that, and about the multiplayer aspect it suffices to say that the combination of tactical fights, the well-balanced weapons, vehicles and close combat possibilities, the variation in maps and game modes, the perfectioned controls and of course the revolutionary match making system of Halo 2 make is the best online shooter amongst console games.

The 9 new maps offer a combination of small, intense ones and bigger ones where you can work with the many vehicles. The quality also becomes clear due to the fact that they're all useable in all different modes, something that's an achievement in itself. Below a short impression of the new playing fields :

Warlock


Containment


Elongation


Turf


Sanctuary


Relic


Gemini


Terminal


Backwash


Some maps (like Backwash) will look somewhat familiar but that shouldn't spoil the fun. Some new pieces of soundtrack and new objects offer enough renewal to make sure the whole doesn't look like more of the same.