Top 10: Halo Characters

       All throughout the moth of March I am doing list moth, this means top 10s, fan teams, and other such lists.  To start things off I thought I would cover one of my favorite game series, Halo, and the top 10 characters from that franchise.  First and foremost this list is full of spoilers both major and minor, so if you haven't played through every Halo game, you have been warned.  and without further adieu, here is my top 10 Halo characters list.

Honorable Mention: Emile

       Unfortunately Emile didn't quite make the cut for my top 10, but I like him so much that I had to mention it.  Emile was one of your squad mates in Halo Reach, and was most recognizable because he had a Kukri on his shoulder and a skull carved into his visor.  Emile was a badass, and his personality reflected that.  Emile was always ready for a fight and when it was discovered that Reach was beyond saving, he fought to the end to ensure the salvation of the human race.  Emile meets his end when he is providing support for  for Keyes so he can get Cortana to the Autumn.  Emile is stabbed through the chest with an energy sword, and still manages to take his killer down with him.

10) Jorge

       Jorge was another member of Noble Team in Halo: Reach.  Jorge was the stereotypical gentle giant, and was the only second generation Spartan on the team.  Jorge was paired with the player for most of the early section of the game, and the giant machine was a welcomed support for these missions.  Unfortunately Jorge was the first member of your team to die, but his death, like every death in Reach was incredible powerful, his may have been more so because he was the first.  While on the covenant cruiser above Reach Jorge and Noble six (the player character) plant a bomb on the ship, but the pelican they came in on was damaged, meaning they would need to free fall back to the planet, and the timing device on the bomb was also damaged, meaning someone had to stay behind and activate the device manually.  Jorge being physically superior to you picks you up and throws you off the ship.  Jorge dies believing he saved Reach, which was good for him, but after his death it was revealed there was an entire fleet hiding in orbit, and Reach was doomed.

9) Carter

       Carter was the leader of Noble team in Halo Reach, and before you say anything, there is only one other member of Noble team on this list.  Carter was the one who decided that even if Reach was going down, they were going down fighting.  Carter is one of the few leaders in a game series that leads from the front, and doesn't ask anything of his team that he wouldn't do himself.  Carter meets his end when the covenant sends down a Scarab.  With no way to fight it Carter decides to ram a pelican into it, providing a opening for Emile and Noble Six to get to the Autumn with Cortana.

8) Crimson

       Crimson is the character you play as in Halo 4's Spartan Ops.  There is no standard appearance for him so I just used my armor.  Crimson ranks so low because there isn't any real character development for him, something they should fix for season 2.  But he gets to rank above a lot of characters because you get to customize him yourself, which makes the player connect more to him/her, you can even customize the armor abilities, augmentation, and weapon loadouts.  He is also the first character on this list who isn't killed off.

7)Avery Johnson

       Avery Johnson was one of 2 survivors of the original Halo.  He is also one of the only humans to fight at the beginning and the end of the Human-Covenant war.  He the cigar smokin', smart mouthed, gun toting sergeant of the UNSC.  Johnson provides comic relief for most of the series.  And like most members on this list so far, he is killed in combat.  Johnson dies at the hands, or lack thereof of the Monitor.  After the Chief explains his plan to destroy the entire Halo array the monitor goes nuts and tries to kill him.  The Monitor mortally wounds Johnson, but before he dies he gives the Chief his Spartan Laser, a gun strong enough to destroy the monitor.  It is also heavily implied that Johnson is in fact a first generation Spartan.

6)Arbiter Thel 'Vadamee

       Perhaps the biggest surprise of Halo 2 was the fact you got to play both sides of the war.  Thel 'Vadamee was in charge of the Covenant forces on the original Halo, his failure and the destruction of the ring world were considered Treason, and as a result he was given an option, execution, or become the new Arbiter, to be sent on suicide missions until he died in combat, restoring his honor.  You play as the Arbiter for about half of Halo 2, including the final showdown with Tartarus.  Throughout the game the Covenant is undergoing a shift in power, the Elites are no longer deemed capable of being the Honor Guard, the personal guard of the Prophets, and are being replaced by the Brutes.  Thus planting doubt in Thel's heart about the prophets.  about two thirds into the game 'Vadamee turns away from the covenant believing the Prophets to be corrupt, and the Elites Hunters and Grunts follow him.  Thel 'Vadamee is unique in that he is the only character on this list who isn't a member of the UNSC, he's also the first member to not be human, or a spartan for that matter.

5) John Forge

       John Forge was from the game Halo Wars, the only non-shooter game in the series, and as such it was overlooked by most.  Forge was the badass of the game, and even managed to kill the current Arbiter, the one before Thel 'Vadamee.  In the game a UNSC frigate is transported to Shield World, a Forerunner planet being used to store the Flood.  The flood get loose and the group is forced to fight them off as well as the Covenant forces.  Forge is brash, arrogant, and kinda reminds me of John McClain from the original Die Hard movie, never backing down from a fight and noble to the end.  Forge dies in almost the same way Jorge did, in order to save his men he sacrifices himself activating a device manually.  In this case he was trying to to save his men from colliding with Shield World's sun.  He personally flew the translight engine into the sun providing the crew of the Spirit of Fire the time they needed to escape the planet.  Forge also created a new tank, the Grizzley, which is stronger and much larger.

4) Cortana

       Cortana is the AI that has been with the Chief since the first Halo.  she has an interesting relationship with the Chief, almost romantic in nature, and she is the closest thing the Chief has to a partner.  By Halo 4 Cortana has started to fall apart because she has been active for too long, but because of the development put into this character, after 11 years you feel like a friend is dieing.  Her ultimate fate remains unknown, and personally I'm hoping for her merging with a Forerunner system and surviving.  But with her stuck on Requiem, and Requiem being destroyed 6 months after Halo 4's campaign, this seems unlikely.  Cortana may even make it to another list I'll do later this month.

3) Edward Buck

       Edward Buck was going to be number 2 on this list, but at the last minute I decided to bump him back a position.  Buck is the leader of the team in Halo 3:ODST, this takes place during the battle of New Mombasa.  Buck is played by one of my favorite actors, Nathan Fillian, and draws heavily from his character on Firefly.  His only real fault is that the player doesn't get much time to get to know him.  ODST is considered the weakest of the series, and for a good reason, the story is generic, the main character is stupid, and the weapon selection is relatively limited.  However the game could have been way better if the ODSTs actually acted as a unit the whole time, and if the entire plot wasn't just an extraction.  Buck also was in Reach as a member of the Leapfrogs, a unit of ODSTs outfitted with jet packs.  This is why Buck had to knocked down a slot.

2) Master Chief John 117

       Lets be honest, we all knew this was coming.  The Chief is the most iconic character on the Xbox.  The Chief is the ultimate soldier, strong, uncompromising, and has a habit of surviving situations that would have killed anyone else.  The Chief is the only character I would use if Xbox decides to make a Smash Bros type game.  He has been the protagonist for the entire main series of Halo and is Microsoft's ultimate Badass.  The problem is, up until Halo 4 this is all we know about him.  Bungie wasn't great about developing his character and that is why he wasn't number one, but to be honest, I think he probably could kick my number one's ass.

1)  Noble Six

       The protagonist of Halo: Reach, up until the end I believed that he would in fact be the Master Chief.  He is the newest member of Noble team who's replacing a member who was killed in combat, also his service record is heavily redacted.  His armor is completely customizable, so again I just used my armor permutation.  Noble six was the original spartan intended for Cortana, he was offered a ride off Reach after his whole team was killed, and earned his spot at number one by staying behind anyway, and dieing on Reach.  Noble six is a third generation spartan, so not as tough as the second generation, but still tougher than a standard human.  The biggest appeal to him is that he a far better version than the rookie from ODST, he has no name, you customize his armor personally, in fact your custom armor is what is used in the cutscenes, he is basically tailored specifically for the player to feel like they truly are him, which is part of the reason the series was a first person shooter to begin with.  In other words, this was what Bungie wanted from the beginning.

       So there you go, agree, disagree with my choices?  feel free to leave a comment below.

Wishlist: Halo 5

       Halo is one of my favorite game franchises of all time, and Halo 4 pushed the envelope of the series, but that being said there are some things that could have been done better.  Here is my list of things I would like to see in the next installment of the game.

1) More Promethians, less Coventant

       Lets start off this list with something people won't agree with, I feel that the series needs to do away with the covenant as enemies, hear me out, the covenant have been the enemy since the beginning, but the war ended in Halo 3.  Halo 4 was supposed to be the beginning of a new chapter, and I feel 343 should embrace that and have fun with it.  The covenant are supposed to be our allies now, I know there is a fringe group out there, but if they just end that plot in Spartan Ops season 2 then the series can move on.  Plus this could lead to team-ups that lead into my next item.

2)Playable Elites

       We already had these, sure they weren't overly popular, but I have friends who were disappointed when they could no longer play as a custom elite.  And again, with the Human-Covenant war over, why not bring elites into UNSC, Imagine a Spartan Ops fire team consisting of both races.

3) Return of Equipment (As armor abilities)

       This could also be posted as simply more abilities, but specifically I want the return of some old favorites, such as the radar jammer, the flare, and power drainer.  These could easily be done since the mechanics are already finished for them, and I feel they would be a welcomed edition, particularly the jammer.

4) Return of Duel Wielding, and classic weapons

       Thus fare most of my list is simply bringing back stuff we already had, duel wielding was removed in order to make room on the controller for abilities, so why not bring it back as one?  Then you have those who never really use their abilities, such as myself, able to carry a second small arms weapon.  For that matter why not bring back the weapons that made this fun like the Mauler, Spiker, and the SMG.  Hell why not bring back other weapons like the needle rifle, missile pod, sentinel beam, and flamethrower?

5) more Multiplayer modes

       This may sound greedy considering just how many modes Halo already offers, but they took out some of the more creative modes like firefight and invasion.  But I also want to see a space battle mode.  Reach had a level where you flew around in space shooting down enemies, I sort felt cheated that it wasn't offered again, and then I realized that there aren't a whole lot of space combat games like this anymore, hell Star Fox is rarely in space anymore.  And for a series most famous for how much new and creative stuff goes into the multiplayer why not add space combat.

6) Voices

       Halo Reach gave the option to give your custom spartan a custom voice.  I liked this and wanted it to bleed into standard multiplayer, not vanish completely.  Halo has some fantastic voice actors in its 11 year history, including Keith David, Nathan Fillion, Julie Benz, and Steven Blum to name a few, so why can't a player's custom character have a custom voice?  Think how much better Spartan Ops would be if you could answer your handler in say Adam Baldwin's voice, or after a kill streak hear Alan Tudyk's voice make a comment.  This may just be me on this one, but I think it would be cool.

7) Boss battles

       Yet another thing that was taken out of the series, sure you fight the Moniter at the end of Halo 3, and the Didact in Halo 4, but I'm talking Halo 2  style.  One of my favorite moments in the Halo franchise was fighting the Prophet of Regret, he was the guy that led the attack on Earth, and was one of the 3 leaders of the Covenant in general.  I loved being ably to jump up on his chair and beat the living crap out of him.  Basically what I'm asking for here is more unique enemy battles, ones that need more than the standard shoot them until they drop.  Enemies like Tartarus who had a gravity shield you had to destroy first, and regenerated, or the heretic who used holograms to confuse you.  Mix things up a bit, so that beating the big bads feels fore satisfying than killing a standard enemy.

8) Offline XP

       I don't have a graphic for this, but I'm sure most of you know what I mean.  If you play offline you only get about half the XP you would from an online game.  This is stupid, I travel a lot and bring my Xbox with me, and sometimes I simply don't have an internet connection.  So why should I be penalized because of this?  Plus I am a huge supporter of the classic LAN party, for the youngsters out there, this is when we actually traveled to our friends houses with multiple televisions and XBoxes, and made a night of it.  These were far more enjoyable than playing with strangers online, especially when you have access to multiple projectors and very expensive sound systems, throw in pizza, chips, and drinks and this is how I spent most weekends in middle school, just thinking about it makes me want to plan another one.

9) More in depth Spartan Ops

       Spartan Ops was a great addition to Halo, and by implementing the voices idea I mentioned earlier, and the cutscene style from Reach where your custom spartan is featured, you could have yourself a more complete experience.  With the new consoles on their way, it feels fair that I can ask for a bit more here.  It would make the player feel more connected to the story by putting focus on the character they spent time and effort personalizing, rather than a fire team that you never even meet in the game.  You could even go further and make this its own game, like Reach.

10) Kinect Support

       I personally like the Kinect, and feel it needs to be used more.  Mostly because I spent roughly $200 on the stupid thing and there are no games for it.  I'm mostly looking for voice commands, or better yet gesture commands, which could free up buttons, and video chat.  The Halo 4 HUD has video chat with in game characters, so why not player to player?  not a huge innovation, I just think it would be cool.

       So there you have it, 10 things that I would like to see in the future of Halo, or at least the shooter games, I'm also kinda interested in seeing a new Halo Wars with new factions, units, and heroes.  But mostly I want the shooters to move forward, mostly by bringing back features that already existed.  So if you have any opinions about my list, or have any ideas of your own, feel free to comment.

Video Game Review: Halo The Covenant War

       I decided to do my first video game review on one of my favorite game series of all time, Halo.  And with the release of the new trilogy out now, I decided to review the series up until this point, the Bungie era, or as I like to call it the Covenant War.  These are the games that the humans are at war with the alien group named the Covenant.  I'm gonna do Halo 1-3, ODST, Reach, and Halo Wars, individually, then do an average.

       Halo: Combat Evolved/Anniversary

       I'm combining the two here because all Anniversary is  is a rerendered copy of the original.  This is the game that got my into the Xbox, it was amazing, the story was engaging, the multiplayer for this game is solely responsible for starting the LAN party craze, at the time called "Halo parties".  Then ten years later the game was rereleased for the 360 with redone graphics, Kinect & Live support, and the ability to play the campaign with 4 players.  But the best part of this game however is how well it holds up, to this day my friends and I on occasion get together and play this particular game because of how fun it is.  However this game didn't have my personal best weapons in it, so it isn't my favorite, but because of how well it was made for the time I give it an A.

Halo 2

       Halo 2 is by far the biggest improvement of the series, this game added so much that it almost felt like a different series.  The weapon selection almost doubled, the graphics were upgraded to the point that it took a second for the renders to finish in cutscenes, and they added the ability to steal vehicles, which were able to be destroyed as well.  The campaign added a new character to play as, the Arbiter, the most sacred warrior of the Covenant army.  They also added boss fights, and is thus far the only game to do so (I haven't played 4 yet, I'm getting my hands on it tomorrow).  The multiplayer again was where the game shined, the maps were massive, they embraced the Halo Party crowd, but it made the maps a little too large for just a group  who got together.  The game also introduced duel-wielding small arms weapons, the greatest thing to happen to these games.  I give this installment an A.

       Next is Halo 3, the end of the Chief's story in this war.  The first Halo game to be released on the 360.  The game had an upgraded on graphics, but everything else felt the same here.  There were some new weapons, grenade types, and items are added.  The game did away with boss fights, and the multiplayer maps were fixed to have a balance of map sizes.  This game is also the first to make the skulls a major element, before they were simply Easter eggs.  This game was good, but since there wasn't much change I'm forced to give it a B+.

       Halo 3 ODST was an interesting idea, with some cool new features, and great characters.  The issue was that in this game you play as an ODST, the elite UNSC forces, which wouldn't be a problem if you didn't play as a super soldier for the last 3 games.  ODST took away duel wielding (presumably because ODSTs weren't strong enough to do so), and items were removed as well.  But this game added the Firefight gametype, a favorite of mine, and the VISR, which is a form of super vision that outlines your enemies and friends in different colors, which hasn't been done since.  The character you play as here never speaks, so it makes you feel like your awkwardly watching someone else's story, and compared to the other games the story is kinda watered down.  The shining point of this game is the voice cast, basically the cast of Firefly played their characters, but in the Halo universe.  I give this particular game a C+.

       Halo Wars

       Little known fact, Halo was originally intended to be an RTS, so I like to believe this game was the original vision made real.  This game takes place years before the others, the Spartans in this game are of an older generation, and there are more of them.  The graphics of this game were remarkable, the story was really good, the gameplay however is a different story.  I'm not a huge RTS fan, but I'll play them on occasion, and I do enjoy them.  But my brother who loves RTSs claims that it was a little easy.  Also for an RTS I felt kinda cheated with only two options for armies, especially since the flood, sentinels, and insurrectionists were in the game.  Also because of the RTS style, it became impossible to play multiplayer on one XBox.  S give this game a B.

Halo Reach

       The last of Bungie's Halo games.  Reach tells the story of a Spartan squad, so all new characters.  The game did away with half of the grenade types, and the multiplayer maps were all just carbon copies of campaign locations.  The major point of this game is that since the game centers around you, the player creates a custom Spartan that is used in both multiplayer and campaign.  The customization allowed players to change armor, add effects, and even change the voice of their Spartans.  Though still not the huge improvement 2 was, the game was way better than the previous couple of installments.  Because of that I give the game an A-.

Average

Halo     A

Halo 2     A

Halo 3     B+

Halo 3 ODST     C+

Halo Wars     B

Halo Reach     A-

Average     B+

Agree with me, disagree?  or if you simply have a comment, feel free to post it below.