Intimate Melee - If you want to punch someone in the back of the head in Halo 2 you're going to have to get a little closer. The range has been shortened immensely for melee attacks requiring the player to be toe to toe if he wants to get a few jabs in.

Vehicle Control - Vehicle control in Halo 2 has changed a bit. The beloved Warthog now has tighter steering effectively reducing the fishtail effect from Halo 1 to nil. Ghosts, as well, have been modified a touch. Control is not as smooth as before with more drifting and some tweaked physics hampering the turn-on-a-dime handling from its previous incarnation. The added boost acceleration is great for streaking across maps but the downside is a loss of steering control which balances gameplay quite well.

Boarding Action - The boarding aspect of Halo 2 is a great equalizer when dealing with vehicular enemies. The key to this new technique is timing. Although you cannot board a charging vehicle due to its speed, once your opponent slows to turn around or attempts to back over you the time is right to press the X button and knock him to the ground, thereby allowing you to take control of his ride and speed off to slaughter his buddies. This feature was used sparingly due to the engraved gameplay of Halo 1 on everyone's minds. The Microsoft crew would be yelling "board him!" but by the time we registered what they were saying it was often too late. When the technique was pulled off a couple of times it was very impressive.