The Nerd Next Door

With Halo 4 not exactly being up to snuff but not god awful, 343 got to work on Halo 5 , the first in the series with a subtitle in the name. The game that would save the ailing Xbox One and show that 343 could learn from it's mistakes while expanding on the story of the Master Chief. Does 343 pull i- fuck no, this game is fucked, let's talk about it. Set a year after the end of Halo 4 , Halo 5 follows the Master Chief as he, after learning that Cortana is alive on the world of Meridian, decides to go on the run with his squad to find her. Except not really because the game is actually about Jameson Locke, an Assassin turned Spartan tasked with his team, Fireteam Osiris, to hunt down the Chief. Although the emergence of a new Promethean villain, giant death robots, and the splintering of the Covenant will lead to events that will rock the Galaxy.... and the dumbest cliff hanger since Halo 2 . And the game's first problem comes to light just when I was trying to sum...

One trilogy finishes as does another, it's time to look at Halo 3 , the franchise's jump to the Xbox 360. With a brand new console, does Halo still have what made it work? Well of course it does, but does it still hold up today? Well of course it does as well. But why is this held up so high amongst fans, including myself? Well let's dig into what I consider the apex of the series. Also I played this on Heroic because I can play through Halo 3 with my hands behind my back, Normal would be done in like 5 hours for me. Set hours (and a shitty graphic novel) after Halo 2 , Halo 3 sees the Master Chief wind up back in Africa, but this time on the slopes of Killamanjaro, where he is found by a squad led by returning Sergeant Johnson and the Arbiter. Things aren't looking good however, the UNSC is reduced to a resistance movement hiding in an old NATO base and a few frigates, the Flood are rampant with a super intelligent eldritch leader, Cortana is trapped on High Cha...

With Jak II complete, it's time to head back to Halo 2 . Now I have a long history with this game, one of the people who worked for my Mom got the Limited Collectors Edition for me as a Secret Santa gift when I was 8 in 2004 and my Mom "acquiesced" to me playing it (turns out she bought the game and had them give it to me).  Halo 2 quickly became my go to game and I fell in love with shooter's as a result, putting me one a path that leads to, well writing in general. All this to say that, with 15 years experience, I could have easily reviewed this off memory alone, but I decided to give it a normal mode play-through and give it a fair judgement. How did that fare? Let's find out. Set 1 month after blowing up Halo during, well, Halo , and arriving back in human space (and having a totally bitchin adventure in the process). The Master Chief is attending an award ceremony on a orbital defense platform when the Covenant decide to invade Earth. This begins a ...