It is part of the intercommunality "Grand Avignon" ().
Avignon is twinned with:
Some interesting places in Avignon are:
Marseille
Marseille (Occitan: "Marselha") is a city in the south of France in the Bouches-du-Rhône department. About 1.7 million people live in the metropolitan area, and about 850,000 in the city itself. This makes it the second largest city in France by number of people. Its commercial port is the biggest in France and one of the most important in the Mediterranean sea.
Although part of the region of Provence, Marseilles has its own history. This city is the oldest in France and probably the most complex. The city was started around 600 BC by Greek sailors from Phocaea (modern day Foça, near İzmir). This was a Greek colony in Asia Minor that is in what is now Turkey.
Marseille has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate ("Csa" in the Koeppen climate classification).
Halo 2
Halo 2 is an award winning first-person shooter video game made by Bungie Studios and published by Microsoft for its own Xbox console. It was released all over the world on November 9, 2004. It is the second game in the Halo series the first being and the third being Halo 3. A Windows Vista version of the game was released in 2007.
The game's story is based around a future war between a fictional confederation of alien races known as "the Covenant" and the human race. The player takes the role of Master Chief, a genetically enhanced "super soldier" who fights for mankind. The player is helped in their fight against the Covenant by human marines. The game had many features that were not in the original Halo such as extra vehicles, weapons and a greatly improved multiplayer mode, including the ability to play over Xbox Live.
"Halo 2" was the most popular Xbox Live game on its release. It held that title until the release of Gears of War nearly two years later. By June 20, 2006 over 500 million games of Halo 2 had been played over Xbox Live. It was, and still is, the best selling Xbox game of all time with over 8 million copies sold worldwide. It broke sales records in the US, many of which were only broken by its sequel Halo 3 in 2007. The Windows Vista version in 2007 was less successful as the fact it was released 3 years after the Xbox version gained many negative reviews.
"Halo 2" is a science fiction first-person shooter based mostly on foot but with vehicle combat sections. "Halo 2" has many features that were not in the original Halo. In Halo 2 players have the option to use two weapons at once, called dual wielding. This allowes the player much more firepower but does not allow the throwing of grenades. The player can hold up to two weapons at once or three when dual wielding. Weapons range from normal human weapons such as pistols and shotguns up to heavy weapons like rocket launchers and sniper rifles. The player can also carry alien weapons like "plasma rifles" and "needlers".
The story mode continues the story started in . There are nine levels in the story, split between controlling Master Chief and the alien Arbiter. There are four difficulties to the campaign "easy", "standard", "heroic" and "legendary" Completing them unlocks extras such as different dialogue in certain sections of the game, and extra weapons in split-screen multiplayer. There are various 'skulls' at hidden parts of the levels, as in Halo 3. These skulls unlock helpful and or strange differences in the levels such as confetti and balloons appearing when the player scores a headshot. The story can be played two player on the same console but not over Xbox Live.
Halo 2 allows up to four players to play on the same console or up to sixteen over Xbox Live. The game was influential in changing the way games played over the internet. Before in most online multiplayer games, one player was the "host" who used their own connection for the game and chose the settings, gametype etc. In Halo 2, and most games since, players choose a type of game they want to play and the game matches them with players of their own ability on a randomly chosen map.
Some weapons and vehicles available in the story mode were not available in multiplayer as they would be too powerful and 'unbalance' the game.
The game is set in the same fictional world as the rest of the Halo series. Much of the game takes place in the future year 2552, over 500 years from now. In the storyline humans have developed faster than light travel, and now live on many planets and moons of the Solar System. On humanity's first try to build a settlement on a planet around another star they met the alien "Covenant". The Covenant declared religious war on humanity. At the start of Halo 2 humans are losing the war and the Covenant have just discovered Earth.
The Halo of the game's title is the name of a series of planets 'built' by a mysterious race called the "Forerunners" a long time before the game. The Halo's are the last defence against another alien race known as "the Flood". The Flood want to use every living thing in the galaxy for food. The Halo's are actually giant super weapons, that when activated kill all life in the galaxy. This is the only way to stop the Flood, to starve them by killing all their food. The Covenant are not aware of this and are attempting to fire Halos as part of a false religious prophecy. In the first Halo game, , the humans and Master Chief manage to stop the Covenant from firing one of the Halos. They also destroy one of them in the process. Just before "Halo 2" begins the covenant discover another Halo that can only be got through a portal found near Earth.
The game opens with the torture of an alien, the leader of the Elites. He is being tortured by the covenant because he failed to stop Master Chief destroying the first Halo in the original game. The Elite commander is branded by the leader of the Brutes, another part of the Covenant. The player then takes control of Master Chief, on board a spacecraft orbiting the Earth when the massive Covenant fleet arrives. The Covenant have come to take the portal that will allow them to get to the new Halo so they can fire it. The Covenant board the ship the player is aboard, and attempt to plant bombs to disable it and the other ships in the human fleet. The player must fight through Covenant forces to disable the bombs. Once this is complete the human ship heads off, following the Covenant flagship that just flew past. Meanwhile, in the cutscene we see the former elite commander being made into a religious warrior known as "the Arbiter" to make up for his failure to stop Master Chief in the original Halo.