No game will ever equal Halo 2's online experience. That's why we say RIP Halo 2, because it's online experience(and Campaign) were...words can't describe it. I have to say, I've never had more fond memories than in Halo 2. Ever since 6th grade I started playing Halo(I'm a senior). I use to always go to my neighbors house and we would all just play Halo CE, and eventually Halo 2 everyday after school until night. Then he got live...you know what happens next of course. Some may say, "It's only a video game", but if I could go back I would still play Halo 2 all over again. On April 15th, 2010 a piece of me died along with Halo 2. I won't forget the best memories. All because of Bungie. [Edited on 04.16.2010 5:42 PM PDT]

Goodbye Halo 2, You still are the best online experience i've ever had.

Easily my favorite game ever. Met some great friends online, and met them in person. Still remember on the drive to meet them, my mom crying on the phone telling me I was going to get raped. Super LOLZ... glad they decided against it. Always a fan of the franchise. I have my emblem tattooed on my right bicep for craps sake!

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] ThreeSixXero At least we have Vista (I will totally screw Microsoft if they take that away, too). Not to be shallow, but what were those 'prizes' involved with wednesday? I'm rather intrigued to find out what they were/are.[/quote] I think most of them aren't decided until the last 50 players' Xboxes explode, as at least one of them is the Last kill on Halo 2 forever.

My favorite memories of Halo 2 are insane 2 v 2 battles on Lockout between me and my buddies. Seriously, I think my hours logged on Lockout alone equal the rest of my Halo 2 MP experience. I'm going to miss you H2. [Edited on 04.16.2010 5:54 PM PDT]

I have shed a tear or two today in mourning for the passing of Halo 2. I want to thank Bungie for the trials and tribulations that the team had to undergo in order to complete this game in all it's epic quality. I only wish that I had been there! Memories: COUNTLESS hours trying to get that damned banshee to follow me down the tunnel into New Mombasa only to destroy it accidentally or board it at the wrong time and have to start over! Superbounces! Mucho fun. (I know...Banhammer, but I couldn't resist!)I have shed a tear or two today in mourning for the passing of Halo 2. I want to thank Bungie for the trials and tribulations that the team had to undergo in order to complete this game in all it's epic quality. I only wish that I had been there! Memories: COUNTLESS hours trying to get that damned banshee to follow me down the tunnel into New Mombasa only to destroy it accidentally or board it at the wrong time and have to start over! Superbounces! Mucho fun. (I know...Banhammer, but I couldn't resist!) Hide and Seek variant of Juggernaut on Lockout or Ivory Tower! Trick-jumping all around Lockout without stopping! Scouring the internets darkest corners for all the juicy Halo 2 information that I could find. Of course I stayed away from plot leaks! Many many hours of practising my BR spread with my clan or friends. Great times. Halo 2 you will be missed dearly.

What a great game... it was crazy playing for hours and hours on end for two nights, not knowing whether or not this game would be our last. Thanks for the hard work, Bungie.

I remember the first time I played Halo 2. I was at a friends house and he had been telling me about the game all day. I didn't believe him when he told me how awesome it was. At the time I didn't have an xbox and had never heard of halo. I was a huge Ps2 fan. But I remember vividly turning on my friends xbox and putting Halo 2 in. Not even fifteen minutes into it I was hooked. It beat everything I ever played. The next day I went to the mall and bought an xbox, and a copy of Halo 2. I played the campaign so much. I still love it now. In fact just a couple days ago I played through the whole Halo series. When I finally got xbox live I played Halo 2 with my brother all the time. I had so many fun times. I haven't played it online in awhile, been on Halo 3 more. But Halo 2 will always be on the top five list of my favorite games. It being number two to Halo 3. You guys at Bungie never disappoint. And Halo 2 online never once had a bad moment for me. I enjoyed every game.

Most of my Halo 2 memories are LAN parties. Many of which were on my birthday each year. :D Coagulation. Ascension. Legendary Campaign. and my favorite...HEADLONG! The last day was awesome. I just wish microsoft explained how they would be shutting the system down. I stayed up from 9pm EST until 6am EST and then tried to sign back on at 8pm est unsuccessfully. After the system didn't shut down at 3am est, I just figured it would be open until 3am est the next day. If I had known just by staying online I could still play... I would be another person online right now! Either way, thanks Bungie for the memories. RIP Halo 2!

So what happens if you were one of those 50? Recon? Oh..wait never mind... -mutt

: /

The best times of my teenage years where not chasing girls, it was sixteen player halo 2. I wished I could have got my collectors edition of Halo 2 to work on my 360. The maps would not download properly, but alas it's all over now, so I never got to play it one last time. :( I can blame halo 2 for my first break up; some how I found time outside halo to get a girlfriend, the lateness of assignments; almost failed year 9, and my now awesome event management skills; from planning all those LANs. The first Halo CE 16 way, was in a tent in the back yard of a friends. A storm blew in, the tent blew over, but we kept playing. By the following morning I was hallucinating sniper rifle streaks across my vision from lack of sleep... 'never again', I said, But many more LANs like it would follow. When Halo 2 came out my LANing group quickly jumped to it quite naturally, and continued planning events. Even getting a LAN in when the map pack was released early by accident. Planning a LAN was like planning to invade a small nation. We has to get enough TVs and xbox's from trusting parents, and gather all the networking gear (often buying our own). Then we had to get transport for everything, and then we needed a place or trusting parent who was willing to take twenty or so smelly 17 year olds eating nachos and drinking mountain dew. We even had a girl/s in our LANing group! (big thing for me then) I even picked my gamer tag 'Hebdomad'... it means - "the number seven, from Greek, from hebdomos, seventh" ...all because of Halo. Most memorial of all was the midnight launch of Halo 2. Me and my close friend where waiting eating dinner, when our house got a phone call. Mum answered the phone, and dropped some very heavy news that my uncle had just died. Needless to say, it was a very emotional night. I managed to make it to the launch, thanks to my now brother in law, but the fact I lost my Uncle that night, I was just too upset to truly enjoy a master peace of game design that night. Halo is also the reason why I'm now studying games at University, despite the fact I have a very slim chance of ever working on a project like Halo, or even in the games industry at all. I'm sure many people will post about their kill streaks, but many more will await in the shooters to come, but for me Halo has represented the best times, and the worst times of my life. I've made life long friends though halo, but I've also lost a few because it. Thank you Bungie, I love you too.

Halo2 was by far my favourite game. I loved sticking people and sniping. Halo3 just didnt do justice when it came to plasma gernades (having 4 at a time) and the sniper rifle (it's just too slow in h3). I also loved using the h2 maps to my advantage (crouch jumping up high to suprise my persuers). I loved the variation between choosing a small map like midship/lockout or picking a big one like coagulation. One of my fondest memories of h2 was the matchmaking lobby because you could talk to everyone while waiting for a game. Youd either befriend people or find enemies before the game even started. H2 was my life for as long as I can remember. I was able to reach out of my shyness and make true everlasting friendships and I even met my husband on it. Even with the release of H3 I didnt want to leave my H2. I stayed a devoted fan until the end and I wish more than anything that I could be one of the last people still online right now. [b] I envy you guys! [/b] I was one of the people who just realised too late. [u] 10 Quick Memories: [/u] 1. First modded game I played was on Team Snipers. Eventhough I was the one getting spawn killed out of the sky I thought it was fantastic. =) 2. Throwing a single gernade during a btb from lift 1 on lockout into under glass and getting a killfrenzy 3. Getting the most kills in a btb by just sticking people 4. Learning how to bxr 5. Getting out of maps/super bouncing for fun 6. Pigging out on all the halloween candy that I was supposed to give out to little kids and staying up all night in pre-game lobby talking to a random guy who is now my best friend 7. Singing when I thought no one could hear me unless I pressed the white button (Man was that embarrassing) 8. ROFL Copters 9. Crazy host bounces 10. bxring a lunging sword wielder Now I know Im a nerd and anyone who knows me knows that I could go on forever. I love h2 I cant believe its gone. H3 is nowhere near as epic as h2 so I hope the new halo will somehow manage to captivate more of h2's lengendary gameplay. Goodbye the best online game of all time. So long countless new memories I could of had. One can only hope that someday you will come back renewed to the 360 to be enjoyed once more. I cant thank you enough Bungie for creating this game and opening me up to a new world and family through online gaming. Forever a fan, A lil Cutie. P.S. Reading some more posts I too would like to say thats it was extremely sad to hear people say that they had never tried h2 online until the 14th and they loved it more than h3.I just cant help but think if they would have just tried it sooner, maybe it would have stayed alive longer. =( [Edited on 04.17.2010 8:17 PM PDT]

Best Halo 2 Memory.......God 6.6 years of my life poured into a single game, well best game. It's hard to think about it and me makes me feel quite older then I should be and Quite sad. Over the years I have met truly awesome people and many of them have dissipated out of my friends list, the good times of Pre-zombies where when you got infected you had to be yelled at to switch. Those were the good days.....but the memory that truly set halo 2 apart form every other halo was playing it with my older brothers. Back when it first came out I was a 5th Grader and they were still in high school. I remember In halo CE they always kicked my ass. Once halo 2 came however, I was finally good and we all would hook up on live and kick butt. That Family - halo fun was what made halo 2 awesome the sheer awesomeness when I grabbed the flag or planted the bomb and I for that single moment made my brothers yell "Hell Yeah!" Those memories will be we me forever and it's painful to know even when we are all done with college Halo 2 will be gone forever. Good bye Halo 2. You will be missed. Hopeful reach has a Throw-back game-type to you.

Moments in time. My favorite moment was the first night our over [u]age 50 group[/u] played our first age exclusive game almost five years ago. I welcomed the group and we started to play. For some strange reason all those same people, and more, have kept showing up at the same time each week ever since then. Does it get any better than that? :)

Halo 2 will be missed, my first Xbox Live Gamertag sported [url=http://www.bungie.net/stats/playerstatshalo2.aspx?player=PissedAnt]my endeavors[/url] in Halo 2 MP. Good times. I was an addict foaming at the mouth for MP carnage years on end. I held the illustrious LAN party more than once and slightly less than twenty times. In fact, H2 LANs are the reason there are four standard def tvs taking up space in my garage (for sale btw.) Something I never noticed until now still eludes me. Urk, maybe you can find this one out. When you are searching for games/players in H2 Optimatch, the blue screen with data scrolling by caught my eye. It scrolls a little fast, half displayed and obscured by the UI but I definitely know it is in English. The part I keep catching over and over is "...DAVIDCANDLANDISTHEGREATEST...DESIGNER..." What other hilarious things might I be missing? Please tell me, for I will never see it again!

My favorite Halo 2 memory is the night I picked it up. My buddy and I went at midnight, in Grandville MI. We stood in a HUGE line that wrapped around the mini-mall. It was FREEZING cold. Our feet and hands were numb. But nothing was going to get us out of that line. Finally the line moved as the door opened at 12:01 A.M. and they started letting us in 15 people at time. When it was finally my turn, the door opened and I stepped in from the darkness outside. It was warm, it was bright, and I was greeted by the monks as the soundtrack for the game was playing loud over the store speakers. It was as if I stepped into Halo heaven. I will never forget that moment and many others I had playing Halo 2. Rest In Peace old friend. You will be missed...

The two things I remember most for Halo 2 are exploring every detail campaign, and hosting 16-player LAN parties. My rural internet connection was pretty terrible back then; matchmaking unfortunately just brings back memories of lag.

Halo 2. I will miss you so much. So many late nights at my brother in laws house when I was 12. trash talking everyone and playing big team till 6 a.m. custom games for hours doing super jumps. A lot of great times. Great memory's that I will never have in Halo 3. Thanks bungie for such a great game. I think I might have to buy the pc version now. I don't think I can cope with this loss.

We stuck by him til the end. Hard to believe he's gone.. were it so easy..

man it was halo 2 one of the best of the halo and it gone from live. what a heart broken thing. well one final ho ra

Marty's awesome. [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] urk There are those who said this day would never come... [url=/news/content.aspx?type=topnews&cid=25650] click for full story [/url][/quote]...[i]What a day to say now...[/i]

My God...Halo 2 matchmaking has come to a close. I'll never forget riding the hype train with all the magazines, articles, and Weekly Updates (hey Frankie!). I remember skipping a day of college on release and ran right home to play the campaign. It's amazing how swept up in the story and gameplay I got. Bungie turned Halo on its head once again with the story. So many amazing memories from the campaign, huge LAN parties at my house, and countless hours of Xbox LIVE play with friends. Halo 2 may have been born out of stress and turmoil, but damn....what a game. Props Bungie. ...mad props. Fare thee well sweet Halo 2 and sweet dreams. [Edited on 04.16.2010 8:35 PM PDT]

first of all, i think it would be great if one of the prizes for playing was being one of the last 300 players(spartans) online. you could call it "warrior of Thermopylae" or "dining in hell" or something. anyway, wow. halo 2 was really important to me. i don't know where to start. i'll try to be as concise as possible. the maps. imo Halo 2 had the best maps of all the Halo games. my favorites: lockout, ascension, midship, ivory tower, beaver creek, zanzibar, relic, terminal. turf and sanctuary were my absolute favorites though. i can't stress how awesome i think santuary is... i think it's the best multiplayer map i've ever played on. i would've liked to see more of these maps in halo 3, but if that's not gonna happen, maybe Reach if they would work, or any future Halo game really. i remember: --tower of power. i don't even know what to say. but it was loads of fun, and i really miss it. --zombies. the first game where i played a zombie gametype, and it was tons of fun on Foundation. i remember how people would post up in the various rooms: the one where you could jump up to a high space at the back, and another where people moved crates to the entrance as a barrier. i remember playing as a zombie, desperately trying to get past; eventually, we managed to get in a bit and steal one of the crates, creating an opening. i remember playing on zanzibar, and several humans had posted up at camp froman. we didn't have enough zombies for a frontal assault, so we went to the big crate by the wheel and melee'd it over to and up the stairs at froman, using the crate as cover. it must've taken at least 10 minutes, but it worked. we jumped over the crate and killed a couple people. --a couple of my friends who i spent a huge part of my summer summer 06 playing team snipers with. in terminal we would camp the upper level of the garage, lol. --the people from my clan. a friend introduced me online. i never knew them in person, but they were hilarious and fun to play with. most of them were in their early 30's (i was in high school), two of them were even married and had a very young kid. often they would get drunk and play; the female of the couple would talk in a british accent when she was drunk. at one point someone was pretending to be a unicorn, but when they talked, someone else said "unicorns don't speak english, they only go neighghgh!" then there was Banana Phone, where we would join social team slayer with 5 people. when we got split up, the two on the other team would pretend to be total noobs: "what team are we on? do i shoot this red guy? oops, sorry. whoah! i just picked up a second gun! what? how'd you do that?" etc. --"what the f**k's a samIam?" except this guy in the pregame lobby said it as "sam-L-am" instead of "sam I am." still an inside joke for my friends to this day. --those awesome moments in multiplayer where you felt invincible. i remember one time on Sanctuary where i was heading to a ramp on the side of the map, and started getting shot by two people from behind. by the time i had turned around, my shields were pretty much gone. i jumped down the ramp and over thier heads, chucking a grenade or two. i don't remember the exact details of how i killed them, but i remember feeling like the ultimate badass, so untouchable. --sword jumping to the top of headlong. we used a banshee for a little bit of it, but i remember trying to get up to a higher ledge, we had one person stand on another and jump, a third person below had to sword jump at them when they hit the peak of their jump to fly up to the next level. eventually we made it ON TOP of one of the cranes in the level. --making my player model appear in the sky on burial mounds. --super bouncing. yeah, it was a sometimes a little annoying when people did it in matchmaking, but finding more of them in private games was awesome. --gathering all the fusion cores and vehicles in zanzibar to make a huge explosion. --this one time where i had a sniper and looked across coag and saw an enemy with a sniper rifle. we both fired a shot, both missed. right before i took my second shot however, i briefly saw a ghost shoot through my screen and splatter the hell out of my enemy. it was hilarious because since i was zoomed in the ghost came out of nowhere. --fun wow, i really failed at being concise. i had to get it out though. i could have written more, but i'll leave it at that. anyway, me and my friends will definitely be getting people together for halo 2 LAN parties. *sigh* it's the end of an era. R.I.P. Halo 2. you will be greatly missed. P.S. - please never change, Bungie. you guys are by far my favorite developer, everything i know about you guys screams "i want to work there." your sense of humor, your ability to have a lax work environment while still having an incredible drive to push out games even more incredible than anyone thought possible, your devotion to your community, and more. i'm still in college though, so it'll be a while before i send in my resume. but don't worry, it's coming. [Edited on 04.16.2010 9:07 PM PDT]

oh ye powerful son he who has fought the good fight he who has been on a many a battle field he who has fought for honor and those who can not fight he who was born to fight trained to fight trained to kill we will miss thee's amazing head shot your wild and cunning nature the sleepless night and the caffeine filled morning afters the highs and lows the camaraderie and the vengeance you will not pass unto the night u will not smell the flowers of a funeral for you will live on in the hearts of men and women who have fought at your side tho we may never again fight on the battle fields of blood gulch or find Sanctuary again u will live on and who knows the bungie gods may see fit to bring you back to life on another battle field never the less we will miss you oh fateful son

Halo 2 got me into the franchise, its hard to believe its gone. I guess onwards and upwards (jetpack reference). My fondest memories were teaching my little brother to play. Five years later he owns me whenever we play. Thanks Bungie, for making great games. Can't wait for Reach, Reach, Reach, Reach!