| | Web Integration
Stat tracking is of paramount importance for any respectable online game, especially shooters. Every fraggin' fool alive wants to know how many kills they got, who they fragged, who fragged them, and how many headshots they managed.
Good stat tracking provides bragging rights, and in the online playing field, what's more important? Halo® 2 takes the traditional after-match stat tracking to a level never even imagined before, while leaving you wondering how you ever gamed without it. It sets a new standard, and we can only hope that others will follow.
When the killing sprees, head shots, grenade sticks, and killtaculars are finished and calculated, you get an immediate read out of everything that just took place. Whether you want to see how many medals you received (e.g. stealth kills, vehicle boarding, and killing sprees) or you're just looking to see who killed you the most, it's all there for you to eat up with your greedy little eyes. The immediate stat tracking is impressive, but your stat piling doesn't end on the TV screen.
Charge 'em up.
Halo 2 introduces us to a form of Web integration we haven't really seen outside of sports titles—and even then, it takes it to the next level. Let us take a look at what exactly Bungie.net offers.
First Visit
There are a couple of things to note when you visit Bungie.net for the first time: - Create a Profile: A profile will allow you one-click access to your own personal stats, access to your Xbox Live® Friends List on the Web site, and quick links to any clans that you may belong to. In short, it makes things convenient for you.
- Stats: Bungie.net is the home of Bungie, not just Halo 2. So, to get to all the Halo 2stat-tracking goodness, just highlight Stats in the lower-center portion of your screen. Then, click whatever option you want to go to.
When you highlight the Stats option on the Bungie.net homepage, you'll be offered a few different options. Here's how they break down.
Online Stats
This is where you want to go for any viewing of individual game stats. You see, Halo 2 reports every statistic for every ranked game you've ever played. Let me repeat that. You'll be able to find the individual game statistics for every game you've ever played. Moreover, you can track down the stats for every ranked game anyone has ever played … ever.
Type in a Gamertag or Clan name, and you can look up whatever you want. You'll be able to see all the same statistics you see after you finish a match online (which includes the stats for every player involved in the match). These stats include: - Kills: This tracks every kill, assist, death, and suicide in the match.
- Stats: This covers game-type-specific stats (e.g. Flag Saves, Flag Captures, and how long you held the ball in Teamball).
- Hits: This breaks down how many of your shots hit, how many shots you took, what your hit percentage was, and how many headshots you had.
- P.v.P. This category, which stands for Player versus Player, tells you which player killed whom the most and which player was killed by whom the most.
- Medals: This, appropriately enough, shows which players got which medals and how many of each medal they received. Plus, if you're unfamiliar with the icons, a simple mouse-over will tell you which icon symbolizes which medal.
Frozen in terror.
Play Lists
This doesn't cover any sort of stat tracking, but it does break down which games are played under which game type. If you're wondering what game types are available in Team Skirmish versus Big Team Battle, select this option, and you'll get a full rundown.
Find Player
This is a quick and easy search engine for tracking down your gaming buddies or maybe even an opponent you just played and wanted to research.
Score Boards
If you ever go to this page and see your Gamertag or clan listed, go ahead and do yourself a favor. Take a screenshot of it, and send it to every person you've ever known. At that moment, you or your clan will have been in the top five of one of the ranked score boards.
If you ever want to find out exactly where you or your clan ranks amongst the thousands of online Halo 2 players, this is the place to do it. You can check the score boards for every ranked category: Rumble Pit, Team Skirmish, Head to Head, Big Team Battle, Minor Clan Match, and Major Clan Match. They're all here for your perusing. 
Red means dead.
The Best for Last
While all of the preceding elements are excellent—and frankly it's above and beyond what most people would have expected—the absolutely coolest feature on Bungie.net is the Game Viewer. You'll see it, you'll love it, but you won't even be sure you quite comprehend it. You'll find the Game Viewer while looking at the stats for an individual game in the View Online Stats section.
The Game Viewer allows you to pull up an overhead view of the map played in a particular match. You'll see the individual player icons (as designed by each player) on the map. These icons demonstrate all of the different kills as well as the paths to those kills (e.g. you'll see your icon with a line pointing towards another icon, demonstrating that you killed that opposing player from that direction). You can literally see where each player was killed and by whom during the course of the round.
You can even zoom in on individual areas of the map for a closer look. For example, zooming in on the Power Station on Zanzibar can give you some insight to how your opponent was either defending or attacking the objectives. Plus, you can track the route of the objective, so if you want to see where the flag was taken after it was grabbed and where the flag carrier was killed (if he was) and by whom, then you can.
Halo 2's degree of detail in its stat tracking is astounding. The level of minutia it allows you to dive into is unparalleled. We all knew that Halo 2 was the game we've all been waiting for, but who knew it would fundamentally change the way online multiplayer shooters were handled? Let's hope this is a sign of what's to come from future games. By Alex McLain |
