In today's article, I will be talking about the long exasperated Halo franchise. With six games, ten novels, six graphic novel series', and a countless number of action figures on the market, it almost seems as if the short lived series has seen far too much limelight in the past ten years. Is Halo really an epic that deserves all of the attention that gamers have been giving it recently? Or is it a series that needs to stop while it is ahead?
I would have to agree that the original Halo Trilogy was spectacular. It had a story that kept the player drawn in and wanting more from it. I have no doubt that I will be waiting in line for 343's reboot of the original Combat Evolved, releasing later this year, but I feel that will be the end of Halo for me. I have read the novels, played the games, and even enjoy the machinima resulting from the Halo Universe, but I feel that Halo is overtaking the videogame industry and culture as a whole. I know that the fellow authors here at Wired Gamers will have grave differences in opinion with me on this topic and I invite them to rebuttal any of the claims that I make in the following critique.On November 14th, 2001, Halo: Combat Evolved was released for the original Xbox, boosting its sales and revolutionizing the way that gamers play first person shooters on the console. It transitioned us from the "one-joystick" that we all knew and loved on Nintendo 64's Goldeneye 007 (released only four years earlier) to what is the norm in gaming today. Three years later, Halo 2 was released, breaking records, selling 2.4 million copies on the first day of release alone. Over 4 million copies of the next installment were pre-ordered leading to another opening day record, at the same time boosting sales of the relatively new Xbox 360 Elite console.
I can safely say that I am one of those gamers that camp outside of stores to buy, or even pre-order games. Halo 3 was the reason that I camped outside of the local Best Buy to purchase my Xbox 360 Elite console on it's April 29, 2007 release. This was also the case for attending the midnight release party at the local Game Crazy for Halo 3. At this point, I was a Halo nut. Everything Bungie, and even RoosterTeeth (The guys behind the popular web-series Red vs. Blue) had to be played, watched, or read. This was a new phenomena for me since I had solely been a Nintendo kid, growing up with Zelda, Mario, and Nintendo Power's Howard & Nester.
Had I been loosing my roots? Or just sprouting new ones on unfamiliar ground?
It has now been four years since the original Halo Trilogy made its way out of our consoles; 343 Industries are now serving as "stewards" to the Halo franchise (taking the place of Bungie) Red vs. Blue is nearing its ninth season; new games such as Halo Wars, ODST, Reach, and the upcoming Combat Evolved Reboot will, or already have, made us some points to add to our Xbox LIVE gamerscore, and the gaming community will be forever changed by the Halo Universe.
Halo has morphed me in to the gamer that I am today. Without it I would have still stayed true to my Nintendo Fanboy roots, keeping my tunnel-vision set on the Wii and DS. I thank Bungie and Microsoft for breaking me out of shell of gaming experience, just like it had done with copious amounts of gamers like myself.
With this being said, I still feel that Master Chief and the rest of the Halo Universe has had their 15-minutes of fame in the gaming spotlight and it is now time for someone new to take the pedestal from them. It has been ten years since the "revolution" with the transition from Goldeneye to Combat Evolved and only time will tell when the next "revolution" will come forth.
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