The Halo Series of Video Games
The story of Halo
The Halo Series is wildly popular
Halo, a popular science fictional video game franchise that is comprised of eight games, is dubbed to be the best first-person perspective shooting game console. The game revolves around an intergalactic war between humans and the Covenant, an alliance of aliens out to destroy humanity. Published by Microsoft Studios, the franchise runs in several platforms including Xbox, Xbox 360, Windows and Mac OS X.
Because they are fist person shooting games, most action is seen in the protagonist’s perspective. A player enters the world of Halo through the eyes of Master Chief Petty Officer John-117, a human turned super soldier, who was made by the United Nations Space Command to undergo psychological, biological and cybernetic enhancements in order to face the antagonists, the Covenant and the Flood.
The video game franchise is composed of Halo’s original trilogy and spin-offs. The game was first released on November 15, 2001 with the title Halo: Combat Evolved. As the first game in the series, it introduced the key facets in the franchise like the Master Chief, the Covenant, the Flood and the mysterious Halo rings. Introduced game play concepts introduced in this first game remained present all through out the franchise. An example of this is the ability, or more like a limitation, to carry a maximum of two weapons. This forces a player to contemplate wisely on his choice of weapon.
The second game in the trilogy is Halo 2 where the ability to dual-wield weapons was introduced. This means that the player can hold and fire two weapons at the same time. The third and final instalment to the original trilogy is Halo 3 where equipments, new vehicles and new weapons were introduced. Spin-offs of the trilogy were released to join the trilogy like the Halo 3 ODST, Halo Reach, and Halo Wars.
Halo 3 ODST has gained much popularity recently. Picking up where the trilogy left off, the human race is still at war with the Covenant. But unlike the trilogy, you no longer play the role of the cybernetically enhanced Master Chief and instead control a rookie human soldier who is part of an army known as ODST or Orbital Drop Shock Troopers. An incident causes your character to be separated from his squad. You explore the ruined city of New Mombassa while looking for your squad mates with the help of Mombassa’s city maintenance artificial intelligence called the Superintendent.
Halo ODST can be played in two modes, either campaign or multiplayer. Under multiplayer mode, the game has a cooperative game mode known as Firefight where you take on one wave of increasingly difficult enemies after the other. You try to survive as long as you can to earn more points.
The game has excellent visuals and brings a real atmosphere of a ruined city through its art design. The ODST game play, action, graphics and story was praised by critics and gamers alike. In 2009, Halo ODST was ranked eight best game of the year in Time and awarded bestfirst-person shooter game by Softpedia. All in all, Halo 3 ODST and the whole franchise are definite must haves for any gamer.
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