Review: Halo - The Great Journey - The Art of Building Worlds

While at first, I wanted to buy the signed, Limited Edition version of this for $75, I decided to just get the regular version. I'd been looking forward to this book ever since it was announced.

The book is filled with beutiful art inspired by the games and books. There are concept images, as well as srapped designs. Great for Halo fans who like looking at preproduction designs. I was pleased with the quality of the images, but the number of images just didn't seem enough. It's about the size of the Halo Encyclopedia, maybe a bit thinner. Maybe I'm just greedy.

There's really not much else to say on the book. Great art, great commentary, great price. 5 out of 5, 9 out of 10.

Coming soon: Halo Primordium Review

       After much difficulty getting my copy (the bookstore was out of stock, despite my pre-order...), Halo Primordium arrived yesterday, and I have been reading it avidly since. Expect a review either next week or the week after.

Review: Halo Graphic Novel

       The Halo Grapic Novel is four comics brought together into one book. I know it wasn't very professional of me, but I didn't even read one of them because I hated the art so much. But here are the other three.


       The first comic is The Last Voyage of The Infinite Succor. It follows SpecOps Commander Rtas 'Vadumee, and his team while investigating a loss of communication with an agricultural ship. It also follows MCPON John-117 while in the swamps of Installation-04's Flood Containment Facility. I don't want to give any spoilers, because it's such a good story, so I'm not going to say any more on it. The art is a little gritty for my taste, but that might be what the author was trying to portray.

       The second story is a relatively short comic, Armor Testing. It just shows a testing session of the new MJOLNIR Mark-VI Powered Assault Armor. The testing takes place on Earth, and the one wearing the new armor is Spartan-II Maria-062. The comic has good, clean art, and is actually a quite interesting look at the Mk VI armor.

       The third story, Breaking Quarantine, is about Sgt. Johnson's escape from the Flood Containment Facility. There are no words, I think because the "author" is Japanese, and doesn't speak English.* It's a good story overall, and one that Halo fans wondered about, until this came out.

       The fourth and final story is Second Sunrise Over New Mombassa. As I said at the beginning of this review, I did not read this one. I tried to, I really wanted to. But the art was just too hard to get past. You can see the artwork at the bottom of the review.

       All in all, even though I didnt like the fourth story, the Graphic Novel is worth reading for any Halo fan, although I would never buy it. 3 out of 5, 7 out of 10.

"Good" News! (for Reach players)

343 Industries announced last week that an Anniversary Map Pack will be available for Halo Reach. This means that Reach players wont have to buy Halo CEA to get the remastered maps. The pack will include six classic Halo maps, and one new Firefight map. It will release same-day as Halo CEA, for 1200 Microsoft Points. But anyone who buys Halo CEA will get a download code to add the map pack to Halo Reach.

Review: Halo Glasslands (mild-moderate spoilers)

      
       Halo Glasslands follows several different groups or characters. You follow Dr. Halsey, the remainder of the Spartan-IIIs and Spartan-IIs from Onyx, and SCPO Franklin Mendez. Then there is Kilo-Five, which is made up of a S-II "dropout" Captain Serin Osman, Spartan-II Naomi-010, ODSTs Vasily Beloi, Malcom Geffen, and Lian Devereaux, and a "smart" AI Black Box, AKA BB. And Finally, there is Avu Med 'Telcam, and Jul 'Mdama.

       Halsey, Mendez, and the Spartans are still in the Forerunner Shield World, and are looking for food, shelter, etc. While investigating something she saw move, Lucy-B091 wanders off from the team, and accidentally walks through a wall. You may remember from the beginning of Ghosts of Onyx, that Lucy was traumatized during a mission (OPERATION: TORPEDO) where her entire team, except her and and Tom-B292 died. After that, she never talked again. So Lucy couldn't radio Halsey and the rest of the Spartans for assistance. She explores this new area for a while, and comes across several Forerunner, not Covenant, Huragok (Engineers). She begins communicating with the Huragok via a large touchscreen. Eventually, the Huragok help her out of the "room" and meet up with the rest of her team. Halsey has a field-day communicating and asking the Huragok questions. They later convince the Huragok to let them send a distress signal out. After they get a reply from Parangosky, the Huragok are convinced that it is safe to bring the Shield world back to normal space.

       Meanwhile, Kilo-Five is on a mission to spark an insurrection within Sanghelios. Captain Osman, under the orders of Margaret Parangosky, is supplying Avu Med 'Telcam with weapons. 'Telcam wishes to remove Arbiter Thel 'Vadam from power, and (unbeknownst to the UNSC) defeat the humans before they can regain power. But don't think too low about him, because that is exactly what Parangosky is trying to do to the Sangheili. Later in the story, the UNSC picks up readings coming from where Onyx used to be. Kilo-Five is sent to investigate. Eventually, the Shield World is brought back to normal space. In normal space, it grew to the size of an entire solar system. Not just empty space though, land, and lots of it. They find Forerunner ships capable of pin-point slipspace accuracy, and even though the Huragok wont allow themselves, or the ships to be removed from the Shield world, they create several new Huragok special for the humans. It is later requested that the shield world be named Trevelyan, after Kurt-051, who sacrificed his life for Halsey and the S-IIs and S-IIIs.

       Jul 'Mdama is a former Covenant Shipmaster, who thinks the humans should be finished off. He joins forces with Avu Med 'Telcam, who is part of Servants of Abiding Truth. They try to assassinate Arbiter Thel 'Vadam. Towards the end of the story, 'Telcam sends a note to Prof. Phillips, telling him to meet him at the SoAT's "headquarters". Then, after talking with Telcam a few minutes, there was an explosion. And all Osman could hear on Phillip's microphone was Telcam, shouting, "It's not us. It's not us! What in the name of the gods is happening?" I'm not sure exactly what that means, but it could either be residual Covenant forces, or humans. Or could it be Forerunners? I wouldn't bet on it, but there's always the possibility. We'll just have to wait for the sequel.

All in all, Glasslands would have to go in my Top 3 favorite Halo novels. I really enjoyed the exploration of Forerunner technology, as well as going deeper into Sanghelios than ever before. I'm not sure I like the fact that humanity's "alliance" with the Sangheili might not last. I kind of liked the idea of rebuilding society side by side. And in Halo 2 and 3, I felt 10 times more awesome fighting alongside Spec-Ops Sangheili. It wasn't 100% what I expected, but it is definitely a must-read for any Halo fan.

Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary launch party!

Yes, it's true. Microsoft will be throwing launch parties for CEA at 13 of their stores across the US. It will be at 10 pm on Nov 14th. The 1st 100 will get a bunch of Halo goodies, and the 1st 100 to buy the game will get a stuffed Grunt. (No, not a real one... v.v).

Halo Anniversary Launch Party on Halo Waypoint (bottom)

CEA Launch Party on Facebook

Review: Halo Uprising (spoilers)

       Halo Uprising follows Master Chief on the Forerunner Dreadnought, as well as Ruwan Ackerson, and Myras Tyla.

       It follows Master Chief's activities on his way to earth, as well as how he gets off of the Dreadnought.

       It also tells the story of when the Covenant attacks Cleveland, and why they didn't destroy it. They had captured Colonel James Ackerson, and told him that they were going to destroy Earth. And in an attempt to save his brother, Ruwan, he lied to the Brutes, and said there was something in Cleveland, Ohio that they couldn't fire the Halo Array without. The "Key of Osanalan", he called it. Of course, the Key was fake. Him and Ruwan made it up when playing together. When the Covenant invaded Cleveland, demanding the location of the Key from it's citizens, Ruwan heard the name, and knew it was James. Ruwan eventually makes it to a UNSC outpost, and meets with the Covenant, saying he was the Key. He was then sent to the Minister of Inquisition. Before meeting with the Covenant, he was injected with a tracking substance. The plan was that he would become a target. Once he was on the CCS-class Battlecruiser, the Orbital Defense Platform Nassau used its MAC to destroy it. Ruwan, and everyone else on it died.

       Uprising wasn't my favorite comic. So far, I've only read Uprising, Helljumper, and Halo Graphic Novel. Helljumper is my favorite at this point. The story was ok, but I didn't care for the drawings. I really liked Helljumper's art. I wouldn't recommend anyone to buy this for more than $2, unless they're a hardcore Halo/comic fan. I just checked it out of the library, and that's what I recommend you do, if not, borrow it from a friend.

Coming soon: Halo Glasslands review!

Ok, as some of you may remember, I went to Barnes and Noble to get Halo Glasslands, but they didn't have any in yet. I went over today as soon as it opened, and now I have it. I'll have my review up sometime early next week.

Review: Halo Helljumper (mild spoilers)

At first, I wasn't sure whether or not I wanted to read any of the Halo comics. I've never really cared for comics. But I thought, if I consider myself a true Halo fan, I should read all the Halo material I can. So I started with Helljumper.

Helljumper follows a squad of ODST's on a mission to investigate a distress call from the small colony of Ariel. When they get to the planet, they discover it's abandoned. So they begin searching the planet for the presence of the Covenant, as well as the human colonists. They soon discover a mass occupation of Covenant troops, digging for something, as well as forcing the colonists to help dig. Two ODSTs infiltrate one of the dig-sites, and enter a system of Forerunner tunnels. NOTE: Do NOT read any further if you don't want a mild spoiler. Eventually they find a Forerunner construct that calls itself The Knowing. The Knowing tells the ODSTs that if the Covenant gets their hands on itself, that they could wipe the human race out "down to your last DNA strand". The ODSTs, Reclaimers, order The Knowing to destroy itself. The construct obeys it's master's command, and detonates the facility it was housed in. With nothing for them on Ariel for them anymore, the Covenant leave the planet, and the ODSTs go home.

It was an interesting story, though not essential to the Halo story. It was also very short. It took me only about an hour to read it. I would try to check it out of your local library, as it is worth reading. Personally, I wouldn't pay for it, but if you want to, that's up to you.

Expect my reviews for the other Halo comics, as well as the graphic novel sometime next week.

Halo 4 story clues

         I'm sure if you're a Halo fan, you can't wait for Halo 4. You probably wonder what the story is going to be about. Here are some clues from other Halo media as to what it may be about.

          Halo 4. Set to release "Holiday 2012", part of a the new Reclaimer Trilogy. 343 says that it will "definitely" have "resonant connections" with Halo Glasslands, Halo Primordium, and the Terminals in Halo CEA. Based on what I know about Glasslands and Primordium, this gives a pretty good picture of Halo 4. Halo 4 will explore Master Cheif's character, who he is, and his relationship with Cortana.
          Many people think that the Legendary Planet is Onyx. That is a poor assumption, because the Onyx Shield world is located in slipspace. Many also think we will fight against the Forerunners. I hope not, I'd rather fight alongside the Forerunners. We could possibly see flood and covie stragglers, new enemies, and maybe even Precursors....

          Halo Glasslands was released yesterday, and is to be part of the "post-war series" by Karen Traviss. I read the first 2 chapters online, as well as other articles. It's going to be about humanity getting back on their feet after the nearly three decade war with the Covenant. We will also read about the Spartan III's and Dr. Halsey in the Shield world.

         Halo Primordium is to be released January 3rd, 2012. It will be the second book of the three-book series called the Forerunner Saga. It will follow the humans Chakas and Morning Riser, after Mendicant Bias' assault on the Forerunner capital. It will also delve deeper into the story of the Precursors and the Timeless One.

Halo CEA is set for release ten years to the day from Halo CE, November 15th, 2011. It runs on the same engine as the original, so it plays and feels exactly like CE. It has HD like in Halo 3. Don't know why they dropped it in Reach.... It will have Terminals like in Halo 3, which 343 has hinted will give insight and clues about the story of Halo 4.

Halo: Glasslands

I've been very excited about the two upcoming Halo novels. I even put a countdown gadget for Glasslands on my desktop. Yesterday, I got up at 7 in the morning (which is crazy early for me), rode my bike 3-4 miles to Barnes and Noble so I could be there the second it opened. I was pacing in front of the door like a six-year old need to go potty. Finallly, the doors opened. I went in, looked on the new releases section. Nothing. New paperbacks, nothing. Finally, I had to ask for help. The guy looked it up on the computer, and told me that they hadn't gotten any in yet! I have never been so upset/frustrated/hysterical in my life. So he put in an order for me, and now I have to wait a few days... Luckily I read the prologue, 1st, and 2nd chapters at Tor's website and Halo Waypoint. Expect my review early next week.

Prologue and 1st Chapter on Tor.com, 2nd Chapter on Halo Waypoint

Reviews

I'm thinking of also putting up game reviews as well as news and updates on upcoming Halo games and books. What would you think of that?