Halo 2 v1.1 Impending News

Bungie has finally announced that the long awaited patch to Halo 2 is nearly upon us, confirming in a brief statement that it would go live for download on Monday April 18th 2005.

The hugely demanded update hopes to fix the incessant cheating that has blighted Halo 2 in recent months, along with a variety of bugs, glitches and weapon balancing issues.

Bungie suggests that one of the most significant changes is the increase to melee damage, which now forms a viable counter measure to dual-wielding opponents. Jumping strikes in particular have been made much more powerful often resulting in instant kills, while the Brute Shot has been given a specific melee boost in light of the bloody great big scythe attached to it!

Grenades feature the biggest change however in Halo 2 v1.1, with Bungie suggesting that this altered implementation is closer to how they originally intended, placing emphasis on the difference between a grenade-throwing player and a dual-wielding attacker.

As such the fuse times on Frag and Plasma Grenades have been shortened to improve their effectiveness as a last ditch technique, and coincidently reduce the harm they cause when accidentally thrown at the start of a new round - Sorry!!!

Plasma grenades now deliver significantly more damage, with frag grenades offering a slight increase; the end result is an experience not too dissimilar from Halo, while Bungie liken the overall change made as being closer to the last-ditch nature of Halo CE.

Finally Magnum damage has been slightly reduced to emphasize accurate headshots over dual-wielding damage, along with the softening of the Plasma Rifle/SMG combo to bring it closer inline wither other weapon combinations.

Bungie did confirm that the leaderboards will be reset in a few weeks to "level the playing field and give all players a fresh start with Halo2" and suggests that slight lag issues will be apparent during the first few days as maps and other data are re-cached within the Xbox.

The update will download instantly as soon as you boot up Halo 2, although short delays are expected...