Contents 1 Halo Story 2 Halo 2: The ups and downs 3 Halo 3: Finish the Fight! 4 Halo 3:ODST 5 Conclusion 6 The Future? 7 Multiplayer

Halo Story

Halo

This is a series created by the brilliant development teams at Bungie that debuted on the Xbox on November 15, 2001. It follows the adventures of Master Chief, Spartan-117 in his war against the Covenant. Look most people know the deal here. Chief kicks all sorts of Covenant ass to help mankind survive. About 2/3 of the way into the first game of the series Halo:Combat Evolved we are introduced to the Flood, a species that is basically a parasite. Just another enemy for the chief to beat the crap out of. Anyway the pacing, story, gameplay and graphics of this game are spectacular. Yes some people complain about the repetitiveness in some level structure, please somebody call the WAAAAAAMMMbulance for them. I still can pick up and play this game almost anytime.

Basically this series changed what FPS games meant on a console. Before Halo:CE we had some console FPS games, but most of them were average at best. The Dreamcast had a couple of decent ones, but they were best played with the KB/M peripheral, which I hate. Halo's controls were as perfect as you can get on a controller. It helps that the Xbox controller (both the Duke and the S) are well suited for FPS games. Bungie just did an amazing job of mapping the controls to the buttons and sticks.

Another thing Bungie did an incredible job on was the vehicle controls. Once you got the hang of the Warthog (it didn't take long for me) it was just fun to drive and still is. Getting behind the wheel of the Scorpion tank just let you rain down destruction on the bad guys....it doesn't get much better.

Halo 2: The ups and downs

For me personally the games got better as the series went on. Now I will say that Halo 2's campaign is not as good as Halo:CE, but the multiplayer aspect of Halo 2 was easily the best experience on consoles at the time and was not surpassed until Halo 3. The party system, ranks, matchmaking and gameplay were well beyond anything seen on consoles before and for some time after. (I don't want to hear about PC gaming. I hate PC gaming and we are talking about consoles here). One complaint from Halo:CE fans was the way Bungie weakened the pistol. Bungie themselves admitted it was broken in Halo:CE and WAY too powerful. Still people complained, but I thought it made perfect sense. I did like the pistol in Halo:CE, but come on, it was just ridiculous. Now back to the single player of Halo 2. A great surprise to me was the fact that you played some levels as the Arbiter. A Covenant Elite commander that was disgraced and forced to become the "instrument of the Prophets". Anyway some of his levels were very good, but for the most part the Chief's levels were much better. Plus you ended the game playing as the Arbiter, which caused a bit of an uproar in a lot of Halo fans' lives. I will say the Cliffhanger ending was a bit much for me to take, but overall I enjoyed the campaign, just not as much as Halo:CE's. Still the multiplayer aspect made it a more complete game than Halo:CE, but just by the slimmest of margins. The one thing missing from Halo 2 online was co-op, but that would be corrected with Halo 3.

Halo 3: Finish the Fight!

Halo 3 took everything from the first two games and made it better (again, MY OPINION so suck it). Bungie added not just 2 player online co-op, but 4 player. Not only that, but all of the player in a 4 player session were different characters. The host (usually) played as Chief, then you could be one of three Elites (Arbiter was the default player 2 character). So right there we have something that neither Halo:CE or Halo 2 had. That in itself made the game worth the price of admission. Me and 3 buddies (Cystic, JP and I forget who else) played through the entire game on Legendary one night. It was an epic run. Anyway the campaign itself was so much better than Halo 2 and if playing alone you were ALWAYS the Chief. The additions of more vehicles, weapons and equipment just added to the campaign and well as the multiplayer. The two items that set Halo 3 apart from the two previous games are Forge and Saved Films. Forge is a map editor and while it does not allow you to make your own maps, it does let you alter existing ones. All types of variations have been added to the already deep multiplayer offerings. User created info is easily shared and used by all. Forge has spawned a near infinite number of map variations and game variations, not to mention a lot of just cool looking stuff. Now go and add the saved films feature to that. No more BS about who did what in a game. Now you can see for yourself what really happened in the game. Create film clips and screenshots of your shining (or embarassing) moments for all the world to see.

Basically this game kicks ass. Yes there are still the annoying, whiny, and cursing idiots on Live and a lot of them play Halo. That makes it more important than ever to have a nice friends list. That way at least your team should be free of idiots. Plus the quick mute feature Bungie installed makes idiots go away even faster.

Halo 3:ODST

Halo 3:ODST launched on September 22, 2009. It followed a squad of ODST's on New Mombassa after the Covenant shipped jumped to slipspace while in Earth's atmosphere (same one the Chief followed in Halo 2).

It is a different take on the traditional Halo 3 storyline. Instead of the Chief vs. the Universe it is a smaller scale conflict. You are the Rookie searching for clues that will help you find your squadmates that were scattered when the Covenant ship jumped. You awake 6 hours after the jump and have to search the city of New Mombassa at night to find the clues that tell the story. As you find a clue you then flashback to an event and play as that ODST. I found it to be a great campaign and the Halo gameplay we all are familiar with remained with a few differences. First off as an ODST you are not the super soldier a Spartan is. You have no shields, only stamina, and your health must be replenished with Health packs. Also you cannot duel wield weapons. The re-imaging again of the pistol made it almost as powerful as Halo:CE's and it is very useful for headshots.

Bungie also introduced "Firefight". A co-op game mode where you take on waves of Covenant for points. It is very similar to Gears of War 2's horde mode, but I find it to be superior. It is private games only up to 4 people - no matchmaking, but can be a ridiculous amount of fun. Get a good group going and matches can last for 2+ hours. You have a "pool" of lives that everyone shares. These get replenished after each round. There are waves, rounds and sets. Five waves to a round, 3 rounds to a set. At the begining of each round a difficulty multiplayer skull is activated. Making it tougher. Plus at the beginning of each set a new one is also activated. It gets real tough, but it is still a lot of fun.

Disc 2 of ODST is the complete Halo 3 multiplayer experience. All of the downloadable Halo 3 maps are there, plus 3 more - Citadel, Heretic (midship from Halo 2) and Longshore.

Also with ODST launching you are able to access the final Vidmaster achievements that will allow you to unlock the coveted Recon armor permutation.

Some people have complaints about the game. The campaign being too short, it is almost an expansion pack and shouldn't be $60, the graphics look like Halo 3. First off the game was made in a year. Most of Bungie has been focusing on Halo 3:Reach. Also even for Halo fans that have all of the multiplayer maps, there are 3 more on here, so that is approx. $10 right there. The game is enjoyable, has a very different feel to a normal Halo campaign and the music is just spectacular. I can't say enough about how much I enjoy all of the Halo soundtracks and kudos to Marty O'Donnell. Great stuff.

Conclusion

Bottom line, the Halo series is great. There are so many haters out there, but obviously there are a lot of HUGE fans and I am one of them.

The series has spawned countless Machinima and one of, if not the, most famous is Red Vs. Blue. If you are a Halo fan and don't know about this, first get some help. Second head over to Roosterteeth.com to see for yourself. Another personal favorite is Arby 'n' The Chief, a sequel to the Master Chief Sucks at Halo series. Those were created by DigitalPh33r, a gifted young man. You can see his work on Youtube.

The Future?

Halo:Reach will be Bungie's last Halo game (according to them). It will take place before Halo:CE and chronicle the events of the Fall of Reach. As per Bungie it is to contain some squad based fighting. Hopefully, a squad of Spartans. It is scheduled for a Fall 2010 release.

343 Industries This is Microsoft's division that is in control of the Halo IP. Former Bungie employee Frank O'Connor is the lead man here.

Multiplayer

• Bungie took the typical PC multiplayer modes and moved them to the console ... to much approval.
• Halo 2 took those modes and expanded them and brought it too XBox Live.
• Halo 3 took it too the next level, by bringing in video replays, a online scoring system, the ability to record matches, and a user created map creator. The Forge system and Saved Films are two of Halo 3's defining additions to console multiplayer gaming.

More will be added (hopefully in terms of some pictures, screen shots or whatever is allowed by copyright laws).

Halo: Combat Evolved

Halo 2

Expansion Map Pack

Finish the Fight!