Tag: halo reach (Page 2 of 3)

Halo: Reach trailer airs at the VGAs

Good to its word, Bungie showed off the last game will make under the Halo franchise at the VGAs last night, a game we all know as Halo: Reach. The trailer was a mashup of pre-battle scenes. A warthog driving across some open terrain. A bunch of Spartans back at barracks. A bunch more Spartans at their barracks. A bunch of Spartans leaving their barracks.

Sounds kinda boring, doesn’t it? Well that’s because it is. I embedded the video below so you can see just how boring for yourself. Granted, this all about setting up the conflict that started Halo, so there’s a lot of dialogue. It’s strange, though, that Bungie is investing so much in establishing stock characters in a short trailer. You have the chick trying to prove herself in command. The psycho sharpening a knife with a skull painted on his visor. The dutiful lieutenant reporting for duty. I’m not sure what about this was supposed to excite me, and there was virtually nothing to make me say, “yeah, this will be the biggest game of 2010,” other than the word Halo in the title.

See for yourself:

Halo: Reach to debut at the VGAs December 12th

Halo: Reach cropped logo.Fans of the Halo series now have another date to look forward to. Spike TV’s Geoff Keighley tweeted today that the premiere of Halo: Reach will be at the Video Game Awards on Spike this December the 12th. It will be the first look anyone gets at the game, probably with an exclusive trailer.

I’m pretty excited about the game. I was always a bit more interested in the story behind Halo than I was the storyline proper. I think it’s the Flood. Just not an interesting enough villain for me, but hey, zombie plagues are in, right?

I have to say, though, announcing games on television is just so five years ago. C’mon Microsoft, we live in the age of the internet. More people will doubtless watch the trailer there than on Spike. Why not do something cool like offer double experience for all Halo games and stream the trailer over live as it’s broadcast?

Halo content planned for the next six years

Halo 2 Master Chief.I forgot to mention this very large and intrusive piece of information from the USA Today article comparing Halo to Star Wars. According to Frank O’Connor, the former Bungie guy who now heads up 343 Industries, the Halo division at Microsoft, the adventures of Master Chief have been planned six years into the future.

“Eventually, it will become very apparent that there is a plan for the way the canon all ties together and the way the comic books and the novels all tie together,” O’Connor said. I’m kinda curious what that means. Is there some nefarious plan lurking behind a story line that could have been really epic if it weren’t so poorly handled? Have I overlooked some love connection between Master Chief and the Gravemind? Tell me your secrets, Frankie!

At the very least we can all rest assured that Microsoft can still spot the gigantic glowing cash cow sitting right in front of it. The very minute you get tired of the latest Halo there’s sure to be another, even if it is a glorified expansion, flying off shelves at $60 a pop.

Is Halo really the new Star Wars?

Master Chief Jedi.There’s an odd little article on USA Today this week that suggests Halo is trying to mimic Star Wars in its spin-offs and merchandising. If you want to see some numbers for the franchise it’s a good read, but the article is missing a crucial link: how comic books + action figures + books + sequels + movies = Star Wars.

To be fair, I understand the correlation. Few story worlds have captured public imagination quite like Halo has, but there have been enough of those things lately to realize that Star Wars was no unique phenomenon. Bear with me people. If you take a look at what I’ll call popular story worlds today, they have all been marketed in similar fashion across various media. Harry Potter has spinoff books, figures, video games, children’s toys, and on and on. Lord of the Rings has a similar brand identity. Twilight has completely changed the town in which the story takes place, taking it from a small town to a major tourist location.

What we might be able to say more accurately is that Star Wars is the first of these popular-story-worlds-turned-moneymaking-machines that has survived into the modern age. Comic book heroes took their sweet time getting here, and Lord of the Rings was so long in the making, the movies that is, that many thought it would never happen. But George Lucas did a great job turning Star Wars into more than just a great movie trilogy.

As long as people can find a way to monetize a story, we’ll be hearing this argument. Is it the next Harry Potter? The next Twilight? The next Lord of the Rings? It’s not any of those things, just the next enchanting narrative that got exploited for mass consumption.

Ex-Bungie vets form Moonshot Games

Moonshot Games logo.As Halo nears the end of its Bungie-led storyline, it looks like the team behind the series is looking toward their own futures. Three of those guys decided to jump ship prior to the release of Halo: Reach and form their own studio, Moonshot Games.

The company is brand new – they haven’t even tweeted yet! – so all they’ve got is an impressive resume and a reasonable mission statement. “Led by a small team of experienced industry veterans, Moonshot is pledged to the exploration and development of high-quality downloadable games.” Lofty ideals indeed. Whatever the firm’s first project, I think it’s safe to guess it won’t involve space marines, alien zealots, or ancient-ring-like-planet-destroying-weapons. Yeah, none of those.

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