The tournament for Xbox live Halo 2 is held at various places and in different formats. For a novice, the teams are represented by their regions in the initial stages. Each region can have any number of teams competing with each other in a distinctive format and a tournament within the region will have a winner. There are in total 24 regions for Xbox live and all the games are played online. The winners of the 24 regions then have to register themselves at the official site of Xbox live and get details regarding the type of game, type of opponent and also about bracketing to take part in the global Xbox live "Halo 2" tournament. The grand finals will be played through online via Xbox live.
A winner at the U.S Xbox live Halo 2 tournament reveals that his secret of success is full knowledge of the powerups and weapons. Getting used to the in-time clocks and the regenerating time of every weapon is crucial. Although he has played many kinds of games in the past, once he got used to Halo 2, he never purchased another, he admits. Rumble-pit and head-to-head are some of his favorite modes of play.
The 24 regional winners are divided into 4 pools, each pool accommodating 6 players. Double elimination rounds will be played. The top three from each pool move on to the next round, whilst the remaining three move into elimination bracket. If a regional champion loses two times, then he will be abolished. Each round lasts around 10 minutes. The final matches will be played on Warlock, a new Halo 2 map.
Any gaming tournament won't be complete without some rules to be strictly followed by each and every team participating in the tournament. Some of the general rules that apply to most of the tournaments are: The boundaries of the maps cannot be crossed, flags cannot be hidden inside any structure, grenade jumping, guardian suicide, action replays and super bouncing are not allowed, and players of the opposing teams cannot be removed at any stage once the game starts. There are some other rules apart from these, but may vary in degree and some more rules are imposed in some tournaments.
Halo 2 is the highest selling video game till date. Till now, five million different players have played Halo 2 on Xbox live and the number of games stand at five billion. Xbox has been reaching new landmarks in redefining the online gaming. The only setback for Xbox was that of cheating by online gamers by finding bugs in it and improving their rank and win games. Interactive achievement awards committee awarded Halo 2 with best sound design and best console game. Its achievement was attributed to the unique features it borrowed from its predecessor, Halo: Combat evolved.
Some video game tournaments combine the kinds of video games along with Halo 2, as they can attract more sponsors for their tournament, thanks to the widespread reputation for Halo 2. Some of the tournaments invite teams to sign up and register at a minimum fee, where as some have FFA (free for all) formats. A few combine both of them in their invitation. The Halo 2 Xbox live tournaments have been highly successful what with each receiving applications in huge numbers and sponsors willing to pay for the entire tournament.
