Halo (series)

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Revision as of 15:12, 25 April 2007

Halo is a video game series created by Bungie Studios. The Halo trilogy centers around Master Chief Petty Officer SPARTAN-117, or simply "the Master Chief", a human super-soldier equipped with technologically advanced battle armor, and his Construct AI companion, Cortana.

The official logo for the Halo franchise.

Games

Halo: Combat Evolved

The box art for Halo: Combat Evolved.

Halo: Combat Evolved is a first person shooter that takes place on a mysterious planet-like construct referred to as 'Halo'. Two days before the story begins, the Covenant, a collection of alien species committed to the destruction of the human race launch an assault on the home of Human military production, Reach, and destroy it. A single starship, the Pillar of Autumn, survives the alien onslaught, carrying one of the last known SPARTANs- the "Master Chief". The ship initiates a random jump to Slipspace, hoping to lead the enemy away from Earth. Following coordinates chosen by the onboard Al construct named 'Cortana', they jump to an alien built ring which orbits a planet. This ring is called Halo. Halo was built by a mysterious group of people in the distant past called "The Forerunners". Although the Protagonist (the Master Chief) does not know it, seven rings were constructed to completely eradicate all life in the galaxy. The rings were built as weapons of last resort to stop a parasitic race called "The Flood". Most of the history between the Forerunners and the Flood is unknown, but it appears that the Forerunners were overwhelmed by the Flood, who then proceeded to destroy their own civilisation in an attempt to starve the flood, leaving the universe empty and safe for new organisms to evolve. The Covenant discovered the rings and believe that they will lead their civilization on a "Great Journey". The "Sacred Rings" are the most treasured artifacts of the Covenant and they guard the rings savagely. Each "Halo" requires an Index to activate. You must stop the Covenant from activating Halo and prevent the Flood spreading across the universe, while faced with a massive four way war fought over immense and beautiful landscapes.

Halo: Custom Edition

Halo Custom Edition is an expansion of the PC version of Halo: Combat Evolved. It is used to load user-created content (mods) that were created using the Halo Editing Kit (HEK). Halo CE includes online multiplayer where users are able to play against opponents with the same maps.

Halo 2

Halo 2 is the sequel to Halo: Combat Evolved, released for the Xbox on November 9, 2004 in two different editions; the standard Halo 2 edition, with traditional Xbox packaging and a single disc with the single-player and multiplayer components, and the Collector's Edition, package in a specially designed aluminium case, along with an additional bonus DVD, extra booklet and slightly different user manual (written from the perspective of the Covenant military as opposed to the standard edition which was from humanity's perspective). The game's sales generated US$125 million on its premiere day, making it the fastest selling United States media product in history. The game has sold over 7 million copies worldwide since release. A PC port for the Windows Vista operating system is currently in development by an internal team composed of both Microsoft Game Studios and Bungie Studios.

Halo 2 features new vehicles and weapons, and improved artificial intelligence, as well as new game mechanics like dual wielding and the ability to hijack vehicles. In Halo 2, you can now play as the covenant- Arbiter (The master elite). Unlike its predecessor, the game fully supports online multiplayer via Xbox Live and held a record for the most played game on Xbox live until the release of Gears of War. The game has a reworked, more advanced graphics engine than the original, utilizing normal mapping and bloom effects. It also has Bungie.net integration and rankings and tracking of every online match. Halo 2 supports the same local area network and split-screen multiplayer components found in Halo: Combat Evolved.

Halo 3

Halo 3, the third game in the best-selling Xbox game franchise Halo, is a highly anticipated first-person shooter video game under development by Bungie Studios for the Xbox 360 and is expected to "set a new high water mark" for next-generation games, Although it wont look any better than Halo 2..^[1] An official announcement on the developers' website states that Halo 3 will end the current story arc of the Halo trilogy. A beta test of the multi-player component of the game is scheduled to begin on May 16th, 2007.^[2] The final version of the game is due to be released in Fall 2007.

Halo Wars

Halo Wars is a real time strategy game exclusively for the Xbox 360 which takes place in the time before Halo: Combat Evolved, thus not part of the Halo Trilogy. Its developer, Ensemble Studios, stated in the FAQ that Halo Wars is "created for the Xbox 360 from the ground up." This means it will not have to control issues many other console titles had when porting games of a similar genre.

Untitled Halo Project

An untitled Halo project was announced on September 27, 2006 at X06, to be co-written, co-designed and co-produced by Peter Jackson, with his recently-formed Wingnut Interactive ^[3]. Jackson will create a "media experience" set in the Halo universe, in partnership with Bungie Studios. It was later revealed that it would in fact be a 'New trology' of Halo games, not one.^[4]

Adaptations

Novelizations

The Halo universe has five times been adapted into novel form, with two more in the works. The first adaption was Halo: The Fall of Reach—a prequel to Halo: Combat Evolved, written by Eric Nylund and published during October 2001.^[5] The novel was reportedly finished in seven weeks,^[5] eventually becoming a Publisher's Weekly bestseller with nearly two hundred thousand copies sold.^[6] The second novel, entitled Halo: The Flood, served as an adaptation of Halo: Combat Evolved. Written by William C. Dietz, this novel also attained the Publisher's Weekly bestsellers list during May 2003.^[7]

Eric Nylund returned to write the third novel, Halo: First Strike, a sequel to Halo: Combat Evolved, or, more accurately, a prequel to Halo 2. It was published in December 2003,^[8] after being written in a period of sixteen weeks.^[6] A fourth novel, entitled Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, written again by Eric Nylund was published on October 31 2006.^[9] The Halo universe was adapted into the graphic novel format in the Halo Graphic Novel, a collection of four short stories, released during July 2006.^[10] It was written and illustrated by well-known graphic novelists Lee Hammock, Jay Faerber, Tsutomu Nihei, Brett Lewis, Simon Bisley, Ed Lee and Jean Giraud. Bungie Studios considers the Halo novels as canon.^[11]. Bungie has also announced at least two more Halo books on the way both to be published by TOR, one of which may be about Grey Team, who were sent on a mission far outside the confines of UNSC space, and have been missing for over a year as of 2552, which was told in Ghost Of Onyx (page 221), Eric Nylund has admitted he is interested in telling their story.

Comics

At the New York Comic-Con 2007, Marvel Comics announced they will be working on "Halo ongoing series" with Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev. ^[12].

Action figures

Numerous action figures and vehicles based on Halo have been produced by Trevor Jones and includes, among others, the Master Chief.

Film adaptation

An upcoming film adaption of the series. The script for the movie was to be written by Alex Garland,^[13] though writer D.B. Weiss, author of Lucky Wander Boy is currently set to rewrite it, using elements of the Garland draft.^{[citation needed]} The movie was to be developed and released by Universal Pictures and 20th Century Fox, under the creative oversight of Microsoft, but there have been complications with the distributors, and it is subject to change.^[14] Peter Jackson will be the executive producer.^[15] The movie is expected to release 2008, due to difficulties in selecting a director for the project.^[16] The director has since been revealed as Neill Blomkamp.^[16]

Recently the project has been postponed at the agreement of both Jackson and Microsoft. ^[17] However, production was halted due to financing problems in October 2006.^[18]

The Haunted Apiary

The Haunted Apiary (aka I Love Bees) was an alternate reality game used to promote the release of Halo 2. The game was centered on a website at ilovebees.com, and was created by 4orty2wo Entertainment, commissioned by Microsoft and endorsed by Bungie. The URL was discovered when it was briefly flashed in an official Halo 2 trailer.

Canceled media

• Halo: Spartan was a supposedly canceled Gizmondo game that was in pre-production, but was only so to generate stock numbers.^{[citation needed]} It was said that it was going to be controlled with the digital camera on the Gizmondo.^[19] (aka i love bees)

Halo machinima

A scene from Red vs Blue, a popular machinima production based on the Halo series.

Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles, created by Rooster Teeth Productions, is a machinima series that parodies the Halo universe. Virtually all of the footage of the series is taken from Halo and Halo 2 gameplay. Set mostly outside Halo canon, the series chronicles the story of two opposing teams fighting—in Blood Gulch, a desolate box canyon "in the middle of nowhere"—a human civil war that supposedly ensues between the events of Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2. An absurdist parody of Halo itself, military life in general, and other science fiction films, Red vs. Blue is a comedy.

Other machinima series—ranging from Fire Team Charlie, another comedy, to The Codex, a space opera more closely tied to Halo canon, as well as the in-game interview show This Spartan Life—have also been created.

Music

Three soundtracks, all composed by Martin O'Donnell, have been released based on the Halo game series:

• Halo Original Soundtrack
• Halo 2, Vol. 1: Original Soundtrack
• Halo 2, Vol. 2: Original Soundtrack
• Halo 3, Finish the Fight

See also

• Halo Zero, a fan-made 2D sidescroller set in the Halo universe.
• Marathon Trilogy

References

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Halo

• Bungie Studios
• HBO- Halo fansite
• Grunt "R" Us- Halo Community Website
• HEE- Huge listing of glitches and easter eggs
• The Library- A Massive Halo Reference Page
• Halopedia-A Halo Wikia Site