Halo: Legends is an Animatrix style exploration of the background and origins of the Halo story itself, and a few of the characters. Its set up in multiple parts, each one, of course, having its own focus for its plot. There is, however,  one  key difference between the Animatrix and Halo: Legends. I actually liked the Animatrix.

Being a die hard fan of the series, and an actual Helljumper, I was very excited for this release. After seeing it, ive completely changed my mind. The stories in the Animatrix all  had more to do with the Matrix series. It exposed you to great info about the series that actually connected with the main plot of the trilogy. Halo: Legends seems like it was more of a money maker than a story expansion. The target demographic for this was the younger anime crowd, instead of just Halo fans in general. Each of the segments except for one were done in the tribute anime style, huge eyes, speed lines, sushi and all. One even recreates the Elite homeworld and makes it out to be just like Japan. The Elites are even in kimonos. No thank you.

The stories themselves aren’t too bad, but elements inside each segment completely ruined the plots for me. I dont want to see any Gundam style mechs, or crazy covenant heroes and whatnot that have never once been introduced in to the massive story. Ill never understand why people continue to stick in elements of their own design or creation in to stories that have entire universes already laid out for them. There are 5 or so books out, and 5 games out, none of them mentioning the various weapons, gadgets or characters that were key to these plots. The action is actually some quality killing, but the ratio of action to plot development is tipped way more to the plot side, so you have to fight thru the story to see someone get stuck.

All in all, i think a younger audience will completely enjoy this. Bigger fans of the series might want to stay away from it since it doesnt deliver anything you dont already have or know, unless youre a huge anime fan, then, again, its right up your alley. I, on the other hand, was so displeased by this that i cancelled my reservation for it at MovieStop and used that money towards a different reservation. Being outside the target demographic sucks.

Halo: Legends (BluRay) : 4/10

After giving them a once over with my super nerd eyes, I can say its looking pretty interesting. You get a couple of weapons from both the UNSC and the Covenant armories in the pics, and from what I can see, they all look really really really really cool. An older BR? Carbine? Laser? Yes, please! And in one shot it looks like there is another member of the SPARTAN program with you, but due to the blurry pics and the lack of public  info surrounding the game, we wont really know until Bungie wants us to know.

FINALLY. Thank God, this is finally out. Now i can stop dreaming about it, and start living it.

I know you played the original Halo: Combat Evolved, and I know you loved it. ODST is just what the doctor ordered for everyone that complained about the additions and subtractions between the original, and Halo 3. All Halo players will be able to pick up and go with ODST, and all Halo:CE players will excel at it. Smaller jumps, slower movement speed, weaker melees and grenades that don’t sail like footballs are the main changes in the engine. No real changes in controls except for the fact that dual wielding and equipment (bubble shield, mines, etc.) are out and visor mode is in. If you aren’t aware of the visor mode I’m talking about, its a very simple vision mode similar to night vision. You’ll also get a better picture of the immediate environment and highlights around both friend and foe units. X to activate, X to deactivate. Easy.

There is no Halo matchmaking style of multi-player. You have the campaign, which you can play with up to four players cooperatively, and you have Firefight. You, of course, get the last half of the Mythic Map Pack for the Halo 3 matchmaking, but that’s it as far as the familiar multi-player goes. For those that plow straight thru the campaign, firefight is just what you need to keep the replay value up. Waves and waves of covenant mixed with skulls and limited weapons and ammo make for a great…well…firefight. If you find that you’ve become too good to kill on one of the easier difficulties, kick it up to legendary and get your ass kicked a few times. It will rekindle your fire and challenge you to commit genocide against the Covenant.

Now to the goodies. The weapons. Most of your favorites make a return except for the battle rifle. Its absent from both campaign and firefight. I know, right?! But they replace the old, with the glorious new. The silenced SMG is a killer. If the pure intimidation factor of the look doesn’t kill the covenant by itself, then the silenced firing and the ability to use the scope DURING firing will definitely finish the job.

Whats that? There’s another better weapon? The best gun in the game, you say? Yes, sir. The pistol makes a triumphant return. Silenced. Scoped. Head shots galore. Absolute beauty. I could play thru the entire game with nothing but the pistol if they allowed. Miss the Halo:CE pistol? Get ODST, pick up pistol, engage and enjoy. I’m having to cut myself off right here, or I would preach about this all day. Seriously. Shoot it. You’ll see what i mean.

And finally, the meat and potatoes. The campaign and plot. You start out as the nameless, faceless Rookie about to drop in on the Covenant with 5 of your squad-mates. As soon as all opening cinematics are over, you find yourself buried in a city looking for your team. As you stumble across clues that tell what happened to each of the different members, you replay the story thru their eyes in a flashback, and then regain control of the Rookie after revealing whatever needed to be revealed. After getting all the pieces of the puzzle, you start winding the game down and pushing thru to the ending. Spoiler alert…its really good. Short, but really good. For reference I was able to go beginning to end on the solo campaign in 4-5 hours, give or take.

Done and done. As mentioned before, if you like the original Halo: Combat Evolved, then you will definitely enjoy the feel of this game. And if you’re just a fan of the Halo series in general, then this is still a definite buy. So go buy it. Now.

Halo 3: ODST : 9/10

Need to buy?

Halo 3: ODST

Ah…1992…It was a great year! Cartoons used to play on Saturday morning, Sharon Stone was making all of us want to go watch Basic Instinct, Salt N Pepa had us Talking about sex while Sinead O’Connor was on SNL ripping up pictures of the Pope, Seinfield was having a Contest, the Alabama Crimson Tide was on a National Championship run, and most of us gamers were plastered to our computer chairs with our Arizona Tea kicking back waiting for our MS-DOS system to fire up so we could shoot some Nazis in Wolfenstein 3d. For those of you that just read that last sentence and thought, “Wow, that was 17 years ago?” I am sorry for the reality check, but hopefully it will help prove my point.

Id Software revolutionized gaming in 1992 by coming out with what most of us at the time thought was the greatest game ever.  Wolfenstein 3d gave us the start of the First Person 3d Shooter(FPS).  It helped us take a hard day at school or work and allowed us to go postal on some unsuspecting Nazis.  This is the game that helped games like Doom and Marathon push the limits of our PC’s and MAC’s so we then could gradually build systems designed just to play these types of games.  Halo, Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, Quake, and Bioshock wouldn’t be what they are today without the original Wolfenstein to kick off the craze and start us rethinking our gaming experience.

I was walking through the gaming store the other day trying to pick out the next game for review and there it set, staring at me.  I saw this skeleton looking Nazi reaching his hand out towards me like he was saying “You must play me.”   Now it seems at first that a fan of the original game would want to buy this game right then, but had it been anyone else they might have.  Unfortunately I had a bad experience, it happened in 2001, it was called Return To Castle Wolfenstein.  The game was mediocre at best and I wasn’t sure I could put myself back through that pain.  I then sucked up the courage (by that I mean Bourbon, don’t worry I had a driver) and went and bought the game.

This game is actually Wolfenstein 3, it is sort of strange calling it Wolfenstein.  The game follows the main character B.J. Blazkowicz just like the others do and uses the paranormal devision of the Third Reich’s military intelligence as the main antagonist.  The plot is basically: The Nazis want to form super soldiers to destroy the Allies and B.J.’s job is to stop them.

The game makers have done a good job of getting the powers to B.J.  as well and it makes game play a lot of fun.  There are 4 basic powers: A shield, one that makes your weapons stronger, one that slows time, and one that allows you to see in the dark and walk through some walls.  When the powers are activated your look and feel of the game changes.  The Change is unbelievable.  The screen has a green hue to it and you can see creatures floating around that aren’t normally there.  You can also see pools of energy that will replenish your crystal powers.  All weapons and powers can be upgraded by finding enough gold and getting to a black market arms dealer.

I will have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by this game.  It made me feel like someone took the time to actually make a good game this time instead of making one just off the name alone.  This game is by no means perfect, but it is enjoyable.  It  puts a smile on my face to see where the FPS has come in 17 years.  With upcoming games like Halo:ODST, Halo:REACH, Bioshock 2, and COD:Modern Warfare 2, I think the best is yet to come.

-Great Graphics and Sound

-Moderately-high Replay Value

-Good control system, right in line with most FPS

-Moderately good story line

8.25/10

If you have not played Wolfenstein 3d cause you are too young or just lame…go find it to download online.  It is still fun! Hard to look at, but fun. If you want to have some fun after you have beaten it, do what we used to do in ’92….cheat.  God Mode is great and you can refill your guns too.  No I will not tell you the codes!  Happy Gaming!!!

Reportedy, Spielberg was “blown away” by the latest screenplay by Stuart Beattie, who based his story on the tie-in novel Halo: The Fall of Reach by Eric Nyland.

No word on whether producer Peter Jackson — who was previously attached to a different iteration of the Halo franchise — is still involved.  Jackson had hand-picked director Neill Blomkamp for the film before it fell apart due to budget concerns and worries over having an untested filmmaker at the helm.

Blomkamp’s District 9 is due to open this week, however, and advance word has been pretty spectacular.  Since the two titans are currently working together on the Tintin movies, I’m going to speculate that if Jackson still has ANY interest in Halo, Spielberg will likely be bringing both he and Blomkamp into the fold.

Having read The Fall of Reach, I can definitely say that I would have less room in my underpants over the notion of a movie version of it produced by Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson … especially if Blomkamp directs and District 9 is as good as early reviews indicate.

Then, amuse yourself by thinking about the various studio executives who are –  probably right at this very moment — weeping in bathrooms, hoping nobody will walk in and catch them shedding tear over having scuttled Blomkamp’s Halo movie for fear that the director was an unproven quantity.

Well, if that trailer is any standard of measure, it looks like producer Peter Jackson was right all along (big surprise): Blomkamp was, in fact, the dude that project needed.

Speaking of trailers to make your willy wobble, here’s one for Jennifer’s Body, the Diablo Cody-penned, Karyn Kusama-directed, Megan Fox-starring horror flick coming out this September.

That’s the one showing in theatres. There’s also a red-band trailer, which is completely different.  I couldn’t find an embeddable copy, but you can watch it here.

Now, I have to admit, I was prepared to give this movie a big ole’ cold shoulder.  I was mostly unimpressed by Juno, Kusama’s Aeon Flux was a piece a crap, and I’m such a vehement Transformers hater that I can’t even manage to find Megan Fox all that hot.  Imagine, then, my surprise to think the trailers for this are pretty damn awesome.

Some of this may have to do with the presence of Amanda Seyfried, who can do no wrong, and doesn’t appear to have done any here, either.  And surprise, surprise, Megan Fox looks like she might have a bit more than simply Being Hot in her playbook; you can never really tell from a trailer, of course, but at least this movie has given her something to, uh, sink her teeth into.

Anyways, color me interested.

Ready? Go.

This game kept me busy for hours and hours and hours. Anyone who is a fan of either the Halo Universe or real time strategy games, then you should definitely play around with this game. I was able to get my fill of Covenant killing, I got to flex my strategy muscle, and get an extended look into the Halo back-story, all while eating a hot pocket. Hot pocket + Halo 3 = fail. You know it. Don’t even try it. All that hot cheese….

Now, it doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles that you would find coming standard on most RTS games for your PC, but exceptions are easily made seeing as how its on a console. You’re just limited in general to what you can do. Given a handful of minor problems I had with it, its still a solid RTS experience. There are no special game modes, just your standard single player campaign, player vs. AI skirmishes, player vs. player skirmishes.

The game play is extremely easy to pick up. Of course the main part of actually beating the missions and skirmishes is using your brainz, and coming up with a selection of units and strategies to destroy your enemy, but building units and buildings, upgrading your technologies, blah blah blah is all just a button or two away. Unit selection is where I ran into my first problem. You cant assign groups of units to “hot keys” anymore, but with the choices you have as far as unit and group selection, you are easily able to get around it and keep on killing anyway. I was actually impressed with the amount of ways you can select units. Pick one, pick groups of the same unit, select all, select local, and several others all make it easy for me to tell my army which Covenant base I want to ass plunder. The only other problem I had was that you aren’t able to build bases all over the map. There are certain locations that are able to build on, but you can’t pull the whole “I have 7 bases pumping out units” scheme anymore. On top of that, all of your other supporting buildings have to be created on one of the open slots that appear around your base once its finished building, meaning that there is also a limit to how many other buildings you have. Once you actually play and get used to the game, you’ll find out that that really isn’t a problem. All units are created and destroyed pretty fast, and having more than 2 or any building besides you’re supply buildings is really just overkill. So its balanced once again. Confused? Just play that shit. You’ll get the picture.

As far as the visuals go, this game is STUNNING! I mean like Stone Cold Steve Austin stunning. The cinematic scenes are some of the best I’ve seen on the 360 and PS3. Period. Maaaaybe even the best that I’ve seen. Yeah, I said it. I’m feeling saucy. The in game graphics are also Grade A. Of course you don’t get as much detail because you’re mainly seeing the tops of everyone’s heads (insert BJ jokes here), but you still get a nice view whenever you zoom in to check them out. Each type of character has several animations for whatever action you can have them do. The SPARTANS even have animations for boarding vehicles. Take a Banshee…see what happens. All of the audio backing the game is also top notch (notch? knotch? don’t know, don’t care) You get all of the same killing sounds you’re already familiar with, plus a shit ton of new ones to accompany all of the new units you’ve never seen before. The voice acting for both the cinematics and the in-game sequences also pass the test. I didn’t mutter one “Ugh” at either the dialog or the acting itself. That’s not normal. I’m picky about that stuff.

So take all of this, roll it together, spit on it to make it official, and you have one A+ game on your hands. If you’re still sketchy about the whole thing, the demo is available on XBOX Live. Download it, play it for 15 minutes, be amazed.

9.0 / 10

BUY IT HERE !!!

BE A REAL MAN AND BUY THE COLLECTORS EDITION !!!