But at least the Xbox 360 gamepad is supported, and the controls are even documented in the manual, alongside the mouse & keyboard controls. Very annoying.īy and large, this was the worst setup experience I’ve had with a game since… actually I can’t recall a worse setup experience at the moment. I had to change my Windows regional settings to an English-speaking country to get the original display text. There’s no separate language setting whatsoever. Guess what Halo 2 does? Run in German, of course. The game is a British import copy, running on an American MSDN copy of Vista Ultimate, with the system language set to English but the current region set to German. This one is of interest to European players. But now you’re really done… just one last warning dialog to click away because non-Live accounts can’t get achievements. Huh? What? At least your account comes with a really stupid picture of some dog, so I guess that’s something.īut wait! You think that’s all? Oh no! If you want to customize your controls (and who doesn’t?) you also have to create a player profile! That’s right, the non-Live account you were just forced to create doesn’t actually include a player profile.
After the activation dialog you get a Microsoft data gathering dialog, then a Live account creation dialog which is unskippable! You MUST create a Live account to play… except that the Live account doesn’t have to be on Live! It can be a local account. Just getting the game to start was an incredibly onerous experience.
#HALO 2 PRODUCT KEY? DOWNLOAD#
Go to Microsoft’s website and download your own damn patches if you don’t like it! Make your own damn shortcut if you want to run it from the desktop! And online updates are only available with a (real) Live account. Make your own damn folder if the default path isn’t good enough for you! There’s only one shortcut, and it installs only in Games Explorer. The installer’s Browse dialog won’t create any new folders – not even the top-level Halo 2 folder. That does have the benefit that you can play without the disk in the drive but it also means you probably cannot resell this expensive game.
#HALO 2 PRODUCT KEY? TRIAL#
If you don’t activate you get a limited trial version. Halo 2 requires online activation with the DVD key, even for single player. Now that I got my copy of this, er, Games for Windows showcase product… I noticed a few things that made me wonder if games with the GfW seal should best be avoided as a general rule.