Released on 14/09/2010

• Halo: Reach reveals the birth of a Spartan this week

  With that beta waiting to kick off on May 3rd - make sure you have your copy of Halo 3: ODST ready if you want to access it - Microsoft's kicking the marketing for Halo: Reach into overdrive this week with the premier of a live-action advertising short called, "Birth of a Spartan".

  According to Eurogamer, the teaser, which is directed by Smart People director Noam Murro, will take viewers through Carter 259's bio-augmentation, transforming him from a normal human to a fully-fledged Spartan warrior.

  A 60-second version of the advert will be shown on Sky Sports this Tuesday evening, apparently, at the full-time whistle of the Champions League game between Lyon and Bayern Munich. Viewers in the US will be checking it out during ABC's "V" sci-fi drama on Tuesday as well. If you miss it, however, you'll be able to catch it at welcometonobleteam.com from 5am GMT on Wednesday.

  Exciting times for Halo fans, then. Now if they'd just bring on that beta, and release the final game.

  Halo: Reach will be available for the Xbox 360 later this year.

• Bungie signs with Activision

  Wow. This is big news in every way: Bungie, the developer behind the Halo franchise, has signed a 10-year deal with Activision, the world's biggest videogame publisher.

  Speaking to Eurogamer yesterday, Bungie's Brian Jarrard said that the deal was an opportunity to bring the company's new games to a wider audience than just Xbox 360 owners.

  "There are bigger opportunities out there for us and we would love to be able to reach more fans than we have before and really bring our experience to them on the platforms and devices of their choosing", said Jarrard. "So certainly that's something we're planning for and working towards in the future, so it's great that's one area Activision has a lot of experience in."

  Eurogamer also speculated that the terms of the deal - a 10-year publishing contract for games associated with a specific new videogame universe - could mean that Bungie's planning an MMO. "I can't get into specifics, but we're definitely looking at building a universe that people want to spend time in," Jarrard said.

  Whatever Bungie has planned, it's sure to be blockbuster stuff. Before we hear any more about that, however, the developer still has to release Halo: Reach later this year.

  Halo: Reach will be an Xbox 360 exclusive.

• Halo: Reach hits September 14

  Halo: Reach hits September 14

  It can be hard living without the Halo: Reach beta to look forward to, can't it? If you're already having nightmares about malfunctioning jetpacks and assassination kills you never saw coming, you can relax a little: you're only going to have to wait until September 14 until you can pick up your own copy of Halo: Reach.

  Bungie has announced that Halo: Reach will be released worldwide on the 14th, and that's good news, as it's a lot sooner than the vague ?holiday season? rumours promised.

  Bungie also took the time to do a little beta housekeeping. Now that your chance to sample the finished game's multiplayer content is over, the developer has revealed that a staggering 2.7 million players took part, logging 16 million hours of game time.

  They also saw - wait for it - over 1.1 billion virtual kills.

  ?It exceeded our expectations,? said Bungie's Brian Jarrard, demonstrating a skill for understatement. "Our only real perspective going into this was the Halo 3 beta test, which had about 800,000 people. We knew there were a couple million copies of ODST out there, but we really didn't have any specific information that let us know what the population might be like."

  Halo: Reach is an Xbox 360 exclusive.
  

• Microsoft didn't originally like the name Halo

  Microsoft didn't originally like the name Halo

  Just because it went on to become one of the greatest console success stories of all time, you shouldn't think that everything about Halo's creation went according to plan. In a retrospective of the 2001 classic in Edge magazine, Bungie has revealed that Microsoft hated the name "Halo", and Bungie, in turn, wasn't particularly thrilled about the subtitle "Combat Evolved".

  "At the time, Microsoft marketing thought Halo was not a good name for a videogame brand," designer Jaime Griesemer told the magazine - thanks, CVG. "It wasn't descriptive like all the military games we were competing with. We told them Halo was the name. The compromise was they could add a subtitle. Everyone at Bungie hated it."

  Griesemer admits that the years have been kind, however. "But it turned out to be a very sticky label and has now entered the gaming lexicon to the point where articles that have nothing to do with Halo get titles like 'Skateboarding Evolved'. So I guess in hindsight it was a good compromise."

  Bungie's final Halo game, Halo: Reach, will be hitting shelves on 14th September for the Xbox 360. Presumably Bungie's okay with that title.

• Bungie details Halo: Reach dog-fighting

  Bungie details Halo: Reach dog-fighting

  One of the biggest surprises of E3 was the revelation that Halo: Reach would feature dog-fighting in outer space, and now Bungie's been offering a few more details.

  Speaking to Eurogamer, the developer revealed that the dog-fighting content will be playable in four player co-op, but will appear in a single mission only, titled The Long Night of Solace.

  "It takes place about midway through the campaign," explained executive producer Joseph Tung. "At this point in the campaign the Covenant are invading Reach in full force. The situation's getting pretty dire, but the second in command of Noble team has figured out a way to bring the battle to the Covenant."

  Speaking of the flight section itself, Tung admitted that, "We looked at lots of other flight games that were out there. We didn't want to make a flight simulator for Reach, we wanted to make a very accessible, easy-to-use and fun-to-play space mission."

  The game's controllable Saber aircraft boasts lasers and targeting missiles, and you'll have to keep a sharp eye on your shields during fights. We can't wait to have a go.

  Halo: Reach will be available for the Xbox 360 on 14th September.

• 343 preparing the next Halo game?

  343 preparing the next Halo game?

  Don't get too excited - this one is almost certainly a long way off - but Microsoft's internal studio 343 Industries is busy hiring people to work on a brand new Halo game.

  Eurogamer spotted a number of job applications that are being advertised on the company's official site, suggesting the developer is looking for mission designers and artists, amongst other roles.

  "343 Industries is forging the future of Halo," says the site, "expanding and building upon one of the most important and successful franchises in gaming history. Halo is a rich and exciting universe that encompasses AAA video games, New York Times best-selling novels, world-class animation and much, much more. Just you wait. 343 is set to revolutionize gaming and entertainment by putting the industry's fiercest talent in one room and diving for cover. Come be part of the awesome."

  In the year since its creation, 343 Industries has mainly been involved in creating anime and comic books to pad out the Halo lore. The prospect that the team is finally getting to work on a game is pretty mouth-watering, particularly as Halo Reach, due 14th September, will see the franchise's creators Bungie letting go of Master Chief for good.
  

• Master Chief is in Halo: Reach - kind of

  It's time to take off that black suit you've been wearing and turn that frown upside down. Bungie has revealed that everybody's favourite Spartan, Master Chief, will be making an appearance in Halo: Reach after all. Well, sort of.

  According to Eurogamer, who scored an interview with Bungie's Brian Jarrard at this year's Gamescom, Master Chief will be making his way into the Halo prequel as an unlockable voice, which can be applied to your character in the game's popular co-op multiplayer death-fest, Firefight.

  You'll also be able to unlock Buck from Halo 3: ODST, Sergeant Johnson, and the sexy AI Cortana.

  Bungie's recorded so much additional dialogue for the game, that Jarrard reckons, "you'll hear Chief talk more in Reach's Firefight than you ever did in the Halo trilogy".

  "He was a man of few words," continued Jarrard. "It's our throwback to fans, and technically they can say, 'Yes, Master Chief is in Reach after all.'"

  It's not that we exactly needed convincing to get excited about this one, of course. Halo: Reach will be Bungie's final game in the series, and will be an Xbox 360 exclusive when it touches down on 14th September. We'll be camped outside the shops in our Master Chief pyjamas. They're warm, and very stylish.

• Halo: Reach contains maps from Halo 2

  September 14th can't come soon enough. That's the date that Halo: Reach, Bungie's final Halo game, hits the Xbox 360 around the world, and the great news about this title just keeps on coming.

  The latest we've heard - well, IGN got the scoop actually - is that Bungie has remade two classic Halo 2 multiplayer maps for the latest game. If you were a fan of Ivory Tower or Midship, good news: they're back again in the form of Reflection and Zealot.

  Reflection remains pretty faithful to Ivory Tower by the looks of it, although the distances have been tweaked slightly to take into account the Spartan's new jetpack and sprinting abilities. Also, it's been given a coat of new textures to bring it up to date with the HD era.

  Zealot sounds a lot more elaborate, however, reinterpreting Midship as a two-base multi-level epic, the top deck of which is in outer space. This one sounds totally mind-bending, and we can't get to wait our hands on it.

  Stay tuned for more news on this huge release as we get it.

• Guess what? Halo: Reach is a huge hit

  Guess what? Halo: Reach is a huge hit

  Bungie's final visit to the Halo universe was never exactly going to launch quietly, but even the legendary development studio seems to have been a little bit surprised by how huge the game is.

  Halo: Reach went on sale last week, and since then, it seems players have collectively played the campaign mode for more than a millennia.

  According to Bungie's website, the exact figure is 1365 man-years. That?s just campaign, okay? Another 953 man-years have been spent playing matchmade games.

  More stats if you're hungry for them: 8 million daily challenges and 255,996 weekly challenges have been completed using the game's robust multiplayer modes, and nearly 1 million files (these could be saved films or custom Forge levels) have been uploaded, with 4.6 million files downloaded. It's probably worth mentioning the game took in $200 million in just 24 hours last week, which isn't that bad.

  Halo: Reach is easily Microsoft's biggest launch, and the game itself is absolutely worthy of the title. What's pretty scary, though, is if you're a fan of shooters, you've still got Call of Duty: Black Ops coming on 9th November this year for the PS3, Xbox 360 and PC.

  Halo: Reach is an Xbox 360 exclusive.

• Halo Reach Preview

  One last Oorah

  Of all the things I never thought I'd see in a Halo game, giant space ostriches would be right at the top, but that's exactly what came hot-footing its way towards us as we watched Bungie's Brian Jarrard demo the first level of Halo: Reach's Campaign to a bunker full of games journalists in subterranean central London.

  The saga continues

  Home to Winston Churchill's World War II Cabinet, the Churchill War Rooms was the perfect place to put Bungie's interstellar war saga through its paces and get our heads around all the new features – including those giant bipedal birds.

  The Covenant are on Reach: It's the beginning of the end.

  The Reach Campaign kicks off with you taking on the role of a new Spartan – yep, like the Master Chief (except these guys take their helmets off – MC probably hasn't cleaned his teeth in years...) – joining Noble Team, and in much the same vein as The Rookie in last year's Halo 3: ODST, you're swiftly thrown into the thick of things on the planet's surface as the squad set off to investigate a communication blackout from a far-off comms tower.

  What they find there – after an epic plane ride offering James Cameron's Avatar-style sweeping vistas – is something straight out of their worst nightmares. The Covenant are on Reach: It's the beginning of the end.

  The ensuing action was typical Halo - all vast, open-plan battlefields, roving vehicle combat and nip-dodging aliens spewing plasma - but looked better than ever thanks to Reach's improved graphics engine. Weapons included in the recent Halo Reach multiplayer Beta made an appearance - including the ultra-satisfying BR upgrade, the DMR - but the much-vaunted Armour Powers that let us all fly, shield-up, turn invisible or sprint a few months ago seem like they'll be to be drip-fed over the course of the story game if this first level was anything to go by; At this early stage, Spartan #6 was only able to employ the latter.

  Jurassic lark

  By the end of the Campaign demo – the highlight of which saw those aforementioned ostriches running alongside the Spartan's makeshift Warthog (one of them packing a chaingun, standing at the back of a rusted pickup) like something out of Jurassic Park – we were dying to get our hands on the game ourselves. However, our latest playtest was not to be with the story mode, but instead the beloved multiplayer, including the much-talked-about Firefight Mode.

  It's typical Halo – all vast, open-plan battlefields, roving vehicle combat and nip-dodging aliens spewing plasma.

  First introduced in ODST as a friends-only gametype, Firefight will be coming to Reach with full multiplayer Matchmaking integration – so even if your friends aren't online, you'll be able to fend of waves of Covenant alongside three strangers.

  That should make for a much more robust, enjoyable and life-draining offering, and that idea was backed up by our playtest, which saw a number of new modes. The most instantly appealing included a Friefight variant of the Beta's Generator Defence mode, 'Gruntpocalypse', in which the enemies consisted entirely of those loveable (or irksome, depending on your opinion) Grunts, and Rocketfight; everyone starting with rocket launchers and infinite ammo. (Can you say 'Overkill'?).

  Red Vs Blue done anew

  The highlight though ended up being the all-new Vs mode, where two players control Spartans and seek to score as much as possible, while two rivals play as Elites, backed up by a horde of smaller Covenant. When the Spartans lose all of their lives or run out of time, the roles reverse - the objective being to score as many points as possible as the Spartans. It was good fun, especially battling against the odds as the human super soldiers, and a great way to demonstrate the lengths Bungie have gone to to differentiate the playability of the two warring factions.

  Reach's Forge World will let players build entire maps with a dizzying, but easy-to-implement set of tools, rules and building blocks.

  In terms of maps, five small-to-medium ones were shown for Firefight, with only Overlook familiar from the Beta. We spent the most time on Waterfront; a circular courtyard with small shacks surrounding an open middle, which made it perfect for the pot-shot-and-retreat tactics needed to survive as a Spartan in Vs mode. Outpost, meanwhile, evoked Halo 3's Standoff map by way of Halo 2's Burial Mounds – an open-plan deep orange expanse, with giant Covenant guns and hilly terrain. It was here that we got to witness Halo: Reach's version of the Hammer of Dawn from gears of War; a teammate painting a laser target on the ground and explosive fury raining down from the heavens.

  Several epic wins (and losses) later and it was time for some 16-player Big Team Battle on the Reach Beta's Boneyard map. Not too much new to report here for anyone who played the Beta, with one exception – the new Hologram Armour Ability was usable, leading to players running after and wasting ammo on decoy versions of their enemies, then getting sneaked up on and assassinated for their troubles. Mortifying when it happens to you; hilarious when it's you on the offensive!

  Forging ahead

  All of which just leaves Forge World to talk about. The evolution of Halo 3's map editor Forge, Reach's Forge World will let players create and share entire maps with a dizzying, but easy-to-implement set of tools, rules and building blocks – all in an absolutely enormous and gorgeous environment set on a Halo Ring, containing cliffaces, hangars, waterfalls, islands and even a canyon based on Halo 1's classic multiplayer arena Blood Gulch.

  Don't take our word for it, though; try Youtubing 'Halo: Reach ViDoc - Forge World', then head on over to our Halo Reach multiformat page to see the latest Campaign trailer. This is how Halo ends; and it's going out with one hell of a bang.

  Preview by: Mark 'Hologram Trickster' Scott
  Version Tested: Xbox 360
  Preview Published: 30.07.10

  Published: 30/07/2010

• Halo: Reach Campaign Review

  Bungie says "goodbye"; We say "Halo"

  The story of Halo Reach sees Microsoft's most important franchise come full circle, heading back to the place it all began; the planet representing humanity's last and best hope in the war against the crusading alien Covenant. At the same time, Reach the game represents a last "oorah" for developers Bungie on the series that shot them to gaming superstardom at the launch of the original Xbox.

  So Reach is a massive title in all senses for anyone with an Xbox 360 – and the good news is that it's a fittingly brilliant, albeit bittersweet send-off which pulls together the best aspects of the entire saga to offer the most feature-filled and complete package in its decade-long history.

  Obliteration nation

  The bad news is that no one gets out alive. That's not a spoiler; it's a well-known fact that by the start of Halo's numbered series, Reach has been obliterated and the Master Chief is the only remaining Spartan; heck, Halo Reach even starts with a shot of your character's broken and bullet-addled helmet lying on the floor against a backdrop of destruction.

  Your squad of Spartans fight an increasingly urgent rear-guard to ensure the saga's more familiar faces survive to fight another day.

  Halo: Reach, then, is a story of heroism and courage against insurmountable odds in an entirely different way to Halos 1-3 and ODST. Far from taking the fight to the Covenant with any hope of winning, as Reach's story progresses it sees your squad of supersoldier Spartans fighting an increasingly urgent rear-guard to ensure some of the saga's more familiar faces survive to fight another day.

  It helps that you just happen to be the ‘Hyper-Lethal' latest addition to that team – "and only one other Spartan has that classification". In other words, your character in Halo: Reach, Noble Six, is a mini Master Chief, which after ODST's more modest movement and gunplay marks a welcome return to the high-jumping, risk-taking, all-action assaults of typical Halos, replete with recharging energy shield, signature motion tracker, and the return of Combat Evolved's health packs adding an extra degree of urgency in the midst of a firefight.

  Metal Gear Spartan

  There are new weapons of course, and even a couple of new vehicles, but it's the Armour Abilities which set Halo: Reach apart. First made famous in May's multiplayer Beta, where players could select them on a whim before entering battle, the Reach Campaign gives you a specific one as default (usually Sprint) at the outset of each level, with unmistakable coloured pickups dotted at key points throughout offering the option to change up your tactics. Whether you're jetpacking to the heavens, throwing holographic decoys, shielding yourself from damage or engaging a cloak to play a little sneaky Metal Gear Spartan, everyone will have their fave, and discovering complimentary (four-player) co-op strategies on Legendary difficulty in particular will be a huge part of the appeal.

  Even a single Elite presents a significant challenge, and Reach isn't scared of putting a jetpack on them, or throwing tens of them your way.

  For all the new features, however, Halo: Reach still doesn't stray too far from what's become a winning formula; that recycled '30 seconds of fun' interlaced between bombastic set pieces. Instead, they've taken what they do best and notched up the speed, scale and intensity to a whole new level.

  Whether you're on the ground, behind the wheel or turret of a Warthog or Scorpion tank, or taking to the skies in a Banshee or Falcon, enemy forces in Halo: Reach come thick, fast and frighteningly smart. Even a single Covenant Elite – long revered as one of gaming's most rewarding foes – represents a significant challenge, and Halo Reach isn't scared of putting a jetpack on them, or throwing tens of them your way backed by a colourful supporting cast of agile Skirmisher Jackals, Grunts, Hunters and all manner of Wraiths, Ghosts and airborne dangers. Never has Halo captured that ‘big battle feeling' so spectacularly.

  Brute Force

  Also worthy of a special mention are the Brutes – those big, angry, furry bullet sponges of an enemy type who so controversially replaced the Elites in Halos 2 and 3. Are they in Halo: Reach? Sure. But here they're fighting alongside their more illustrious Covie counterparts, giving Reach's combat the best of both worlds; and all without the series' single biggest sticking point, alien parasites The Flood, showing up to turn the gameplay on its head.

  The most perfectly-paced and consistently satisfying Halo Campaign since the original.

  The most gratifying thing is the way Halo Reach's ten mission (roughly 10-12 hour) campaign staggers it all: First you'll cut your teeth with roving vehicle combat across the planet's agricultural backwaters, then at the half way point move into the city of Manassas for the same brand of aerial dog fighting and frenetic urban which marked arguably the series' high point in ODST; all before a furious final push back across open ground toward an iconic rendezvous and a desperate last stand. The upshot is the most perfectly-paced and consistently satisfying Halo Campaign since the original.

  Not that Halo: Reach doesn't have its faults. The much-hyped space blastoff falls a bit flat the instant you hit an invisible wall and realise how little, errr, space it gives you to play in, while the story, though darker and less cartoonish in its characterisation than the first three Halos, seems to rewrite a large swathe of pre-existing lore laid out in popular novelisation The Fall Of Reach in order to tell a story of significant gravitas. Fanboys; you have been warned. That said, it's hardly likely to impact enjoyment for your typical Xbox player.

  Ultimate Halo

  The main negative, though, is, like Halo 3 before it, also a strength: Halo Reach represents a refinement rather than a revolution. It lacks that feeling of freshness and the spirit of change embodied by the Xbox 1 original, but its familiarity is also formidable – harnessing the power of Xbox 360 to showcase some stunning visual effects, a typically rousing orchestral score, plus ten year's of gameplay learnings that will enrapture both existing fans and FPS newcomers like never before.

  And that's sort of the point of Halo: Reach's Campaign. It's everything that makes the series great; Bungie's big goodbye; the ultimate Halo for Halo fans, and can proudly stand alongside the Gears', CoDs and Uncharteds of the world as a defining shooter of its generation.

  GAME's Verdict

  

  • The most perfectly paced and incredibly balanced Halo Campaign ever.
  • New armour abilities improve the pace of play and depth of co-op tactics.
  • Elites are back – more fun to fight than ever – Brutes are back too, while the Flood are out. Win!

  

  • Doesn't reinvent the series or genre (not that it was fair to expect it to).
  • Space combat isn't as expansive as it sounds.
  • If you're a hardcore Halo fan, you'll notice the plot has some major [bullet] holes in it.

  Review by: Mark 'Spartan IC37' Scott
  Version Tested: Xbox 360
  Review Published: 13.09.10

  Published: 13/09/2010

• Halo Reach Review

  Reach for the stars

  Microsoft has the biggest hype machine in gaming - not that you'd expect any different of the world's richest company - and if you ever doubted that, just wait until the launch of Kinect later this year. Before the new motion sensor rolls around, though, Microsoft's marketers find themselves on more familiar territory, banging the war-drum for a name that's been synonymous with Xbox from the start: Halo.

  They're banging that drum particularly loud this year, because this latest offering, Halo: Reach, will be the last in the series by its original creators, Bungie. And, perhaps, because last year's Halo 3: ODST, while an interesting spin-off in a lot of ways, wasn't quite the epic, spectacular sci-fi shooter fans had come to expect. So Microsoft has been keen to let us know that Reach would be everything we expect of a Halo game

  And it absolutely is - despite the fact it doesn't star the iconic hero of the first three games, Master Chief. That's because Reach takes us back to a time just before 2001's Halo: Combat Evolved, when the alien crusaders The Covenant invaded a human colony called Reach, searched it for artefacts and then mercilessly wiped it out. You know from the start, then, that this isn't going to end well.

   

  Spartan parcel

  In Reach, you play the unnamed sixth member of a squad of Spartans - the cadre of armoured super-warriors that Master Chief belonged to. The story deals with their doomed defence of Reach - although there's another thread to it which neatly brings things full circle with the first game, and gives some uplift to what would otherwise be a pretty depressing ending.

  Story-wise, it's all rather serious, and although your squad-mates are likeable, the attempt to go for war-movie pathos doesn't work quite as well as the original trilogy's comic-book quest to save the universe. And while Master Chief might not have been the most complex character videogames have ever seen, you still miss him.

  It scarcely matters, though, because the action is never less than thrilling and spectacular and the wholesale destruction of a planet is a hell of a backdrop for it. Starting relatively quietly in the backwoods, Reach is an unstoppable crescendo of awesome sights and sounds that's arguably at its most memorable in the middle, when you get up into orbit for some space dogfighting (flying the new Sabre fighter) and starship sabotage before plunging planet-side to take part in the desperate defence of a city under Covenant attack. The graphics have a beautiful, hand-painted look throughout, more subtle than the previous Halo games but still far more colourful and vibrant than most shooters.

  Other highlights of Halo: Reach's campaign include the fact that the Elites are back - the toughest foes from the first game, who later on were sidelined in favour of the less interesting Brutes, and even became your allies. Neither will you be fighting the often annoying and simplistic bio-menace The Flood this time. That makes Reach the best possible showcase for Halo's brilliant, undpredictable enemy AI, which combined with the excellent, open level design means the game never plays the same way twice from any checkpoint, and the action remains more fluid and tactically varied than any other FPS.

  Slayer cake

  You've got a ton of new toys, too. There are some fun new weapons and vehicles, especially on the Covenant side, although it was the human classics we loved most - Halo's vanilla pistol has never been bettered. But the big change is the armour abilities, which include a useful sprint and a brilliant jet pack. They can only be held one at a time, but they can be used indefinitely as long as you wait for them to recharge, and they work much better than Halo 3's equipment.

  All these toys are available in both the campaign and Reach's enormous suite of multiplayer modes. As well as new modes in Halo's famous, much-loved competitive multiplayer, you get a hugely expanded version of ODST's co-op defence game, Firefight, a similarly improved version of the Forge map editor mode, and the video replay Theater. You can now earn Credits across all modes of play which you then spend in the Armoury to customise your own Spartan - even in the single-player campaign. It's all tied together by much better matchmaking and the most seamless, fully integrated online interface anywhere.

  If there's a criticism of Halo: Reach - and it's not that easy to come up with one - it's that it's a very similar package and experience to Halo 3, overall, although it's been improved in a number of areas. It's not quite the same without Master Chief, but it's still made to the very best of Bungie's ability - and you can be sure that it will never be the same without the Seattle studio at the helm. Thankfully, in its superb multiplayer and the infinitely replayable campaign - with its perfectly-judged difficulty levels, Achievements and four-player co-op - Reach will last you a very, very long time.

  

  Elite
  + The best action and biggest spectacle in any FPS campaign this year.
  + Peerless multiplayer, online integration and community features.
  + Elites are back! No more Flood!.

  Grunt
  - We miss Master Chief. Even though he never said anything.
  - We've been here before; Reach is an evolution of Halo 3, not a revolution.
  - The story takes itself a bit too seriously.
  

• Spielberg to take on Halo movie?

  Spielberg to take on Halo movie?

  
  Eurogamer has a report up today suggesting that Steven Spielberg is thinking about buying the rights to the Halo videogame franchise: that troubled Halo movie could be back on.

  According to movie website Vulture, the director of Jaws and Raiders of the Lost Ark is going to buy the rights to the Halo novels rather than the game itself, because those are already tangled up between Fox and Universal.

  That's after the much publicised Peter Jackson Halo movie project fell through. Apparently, Spielberg's a fan of Pirates of the Caribbean scriptwriter Stuart Beattie's proposal for a film based on Halo: The Fall of Reach, a novel by Eric Nylund. We'll keep you posted if we hear anything new on this front.

  Spielberg's been a fan of gaming since the days of the Atari, incidentally, and helped out on titles like LucasArts' venerable point-and-click adventure The Dig, and EA's brilliant Wii party game, Boom Blox. He's currently working with Peter Jackson on a Tintin movie, but after that, could he be thinking about turning his attention to Master Chief? Certainly hope so!

  If you're after something a bit more tangible on the Halo front, why not pick up Halo: Reach for the Xbox 360?
  

• Reach for the stars

  Reach for the stars

  Microsoft has the biggest hype machine in gaming - not that you'd expect any different of the world's richest company - and if you ever doubted that, just wait until the launch of Kinect later this year. Before the new motion sensor rolls around, though, Microsoft's marketers find themselves on more familiar territory, banging the war-drum for a name that's been synonymous with Xbox from the start: Halo.

  They're banging that drum particularly loud this year, because this latest offering, Halo: Reach, will be the last in the series by its original creators, Bungie. And, perhaps, because last year's Halo 3: ODST, while an interesting spin-off in a lot of ways, wasn't quite the epic, spectacular sci-fi shooter fans had come to expect. So Microsoft has been keen to let us know that Reach would be everything we expect of a Halo game

  And it absolutely is - despite the fact it doesn't star the iconic hero of the first three games, Master Chief. That's because Reach takes us back to a time just before 2001's Halo: Combat Evolved, when the alien crusaders The Covenant invaded a human colony called Reach, searched it for artefacts and then mercilessly wiped it out. You know from the start, then, that this isn't going to end well.

  "The action is never less than thrilling and spectacular."
  

  Spartan parcel
  In Reach, you play the unnamed sixth member of a squad of Spartans - the cadre of armoured super-warriors that Master Chief belonged to. The story deals with their doomed defence of Reach - although there's another thread to it which neatly brings things full circle with the first game, and gives some uplift to what would otherwise be a pretty depressing ending.

  Story-wise, it's all rather serious, and although your squad-mates are likeable, the attempt to go for war-movie pathos doesn't work quite as well as the original trilogy's comic-book quest to save the universe. And while Master Chief might not have been the most complex character videogames have ever seen, you still miss him.

  It scarcely matters, though, because the action is never less than thrilling and spectacular and the wholesale destruction of a planet is a hell of a backdrop for it. Starting relatively quietly in the backwoods, Reach is an unstoppable crescendo of awesome sights and sounds that's arguably at its most memorable in the middle, when you get up into orbit for some space dogfighting (flying the new Sabre fighter) and starship sabotage before plunging planet-side to take part in the desperate defence of a city under Covenant attack. The graphics have a beautiful, hand-painted look throughout, more subtle than the previous Halo games but still far more colourful and vibrant than most shooters.

  Other highlights of Halo: Reach's campaign include the fact that the Elites are back - the toughest foes from the first game, who later on were sidelined in favour of the less interesting Brutes, and even became your allies. Neither will you be fighting the often annoying and simplistic bio-menace The Flood this time. That makes Reach the best possible showcase for Halo's brilliant, undpredictable enemy AI, which combined with the excellent, open level design means the game never plays the same way twice from any checkpoint, and the action remains more fluid and tactically varied than any other FPS.

  "An unstoppable crescendo of awesome sights and sounds."
  

  Slayer cake
  You've got a ton of new toys, too. There are some fun new weapons and vehicles, especially on the Covenant side, although it was the human classics we loved most - Halo's vanilla pistol has never been bettered. But the big change is the armour abilities, which include a useful sprint and a brilliant jet pack. They can only be held one at a time, but they can be used indefinitely as long as you wait for them to recharge, and they work much better than Halo 3's equipment.

  All these toys are available in both the campaign and Reach's enormous suite of multiplayer modes. As well as new modes in Halo's famous, much-loved competitive multiplayer, you get a hugely expanded version of ODST's co-op defence game, Firefight, a similarly improved version of the Forge map editor mode, and the video replay Theater. You can now earn Credits across all modes of play which you then spend in the Armoury to customise your own Spartan - even in the single-player campaign. It's all tied together by much better matchmaking and the most seamless, fully integrated online interface anywhere.

  If there's a criticism of Halo: Reach - and it's not that easy to come up with one - it's that it's a very similar package and experience to Halo 3, overall, although it's been improved in a number of areas. It's not quite the same without Master Chief, but it's still made to the very best of Bungie's ability - and you can be sure that it will never be the same without the Seattle studio at the helm. Thankfully, in its superb multiplayer and the infinitely replayable campaign - with its perfectly-judged difficulty levels, Achievements and four-player co-op - Reach will last you a very, very long time.

  
  Elite
  + The best action and biggest spectacle in any FPS campaign this year.
  + Peerless multiplayer, online integration and community features.
  + Elites are back! No more Flood!.

  Grunt
  - We miss Master Chief. Even though he never said anything.
  - We've been here before; Reach is an evolution of Halo 3, not a revolution.
  - The story takes itself a bit too seriously.
  

• Interview: We talk Halo: Reach with developer Bungie

  Interview: We talk Halo: Reach with developer Bungie

  
  

  It's little under a month now until the game that Microsoft are labelling 'the biggest game of 2010' touches down on Xbox 360 consoles across the UK; and like you guys, we couldn't wait to get the latest on Bungie's big sendoff for the world-renowned Halo saga.

  Here's the lowdown from Campaign Designer Niles Sankey and Community Director Brian Jarrard. (Yes, his initials are 'BJ'. Stop sniggering).

  On ending the Halo saga and moving on...
  Brian Jarrard: "I don't think it's fully sunk in yet; people are just happy the majority of hard work is behind them. Personally I think it's not going to become real for a few months that we realise we're done working on this universe.

  "Certainly I don't think there's any regrets, though - I definitely have not heard anything but pride and accomplishment within Bungie for not only creating such a rich universe that's been able to persist for so long, but really feeling truly that we've built our best Halo game yet and we're going out with a bang, and that we've really set the bar for what a Halo experience should be.

  "Reach is something we can all look back on and be proud that we've left that for our fans - but at the same time, it's gonna be really invigorating to take that new leap and move into something completely different; push the team and see if we can do it all again."

  Niles Sankey: "We've still got the best part about development to come; releasing it to the public. It's going to be exciting to see what the community will do with things like Forge World. It's just so exciting, so we still feel like we're just getting to the best part of Halo: Reach."

  On making a prequel instead of continuing with Master Chief...
  NS: "The Master Chief's story is really cool, but the nice thing about Reach is that where the Chief is the last Spartan, we really wanted to see what it was like back in the day when there was a huge Covenant invasion and you had squads of Spartans engaging a huge army of invading Covenant. This is the story in which we get the high point of the full-on battle.

  "And on top of that, it does tell part of the story of the Chief in that people like to see how things came to be, and how Noble Team impacts the story of the Master Chief. You get to see not just this great giant Covenant invasion, but how it lead to the sacrifice of Reach and the future of humanity with the Master Chief's story."

  
  BJ: "I think there's something nice and poetic about ending our ten years of Halo by going back to where it all began, by being a self-contained story. The first discussion we had after Halo 3 was what Halo 4 might be, but it became way more than we could fit into a single game and do well. Halo 4 would bring a lot of baggage with it, too; if you're not familiar with all that's transpired before it, would that be a good experience?

  "Going back to Reach, the events on that planet, that turning point in the war; it's beloved by fans; it's a really exciting point in the universe... everything kind of aligned to make it really compelling to our studio."

  On Master Chief being in the Halo Reach Campaign...
  BJ: "Master Chief is not in the Halo Reach campaign. He's in the [multiplayer] armoury, but not the story."

  On criticisms of past Halo games and addressing those in Halo Reach...
  NS: "Certainly with the level of success Halo has you're always going to have differing opinions and it's of course always difficult to make everybody happy to a certain extent, but we're our own biggest critics at Bungie about things we've done in the past.

  "The nice thing about Reach though that I can say today is that we really do feel this is our best Halo game; we've really chosen the best parts of the other Halo games. In many ways it's a lot larger than previous Halos; it's the biggest Halo game in terms of story scope and level size. With Reach we feel we've hit the right mix of what we've learned in the past and put it into one package. It's a BIG game, and I think it's our best."

  "With Reach we feel we've hit the right mix of what we've learned in the past and put it into one package. It's a BIG game, and I think it's our best."

  On the exact length of Halo Reach's Campaign...
  BJ: "I can't give a number [of hours], but it's at least as big as Halo 3's. You won't ever feel like you're replaying missions again, though - In Halo Reach each moment is original."

  On their personal favourite moments seeing the game come together during development...
  BJ: "I think it's different for everybody. I think MY first big moment was the first time I saw the true payoff of taking the player through some intense infantry combat, into the cockpit of a spaceship, launching them into space in real-time, and throwing them into this big Star Wars style space battle. I hadn't seen it, I'd only heard about it and I was a little bit sceptical, but actually seeing it pay off, it punctuated the entire experience that Reach is going to offer to Halo fans."

  NS: "Towards the end of game development, so many people focus on the game; that's really when, if you turn your head away from even one aspect for a couple of weeks, then turn it back, by then it's like something you've never seen before. Space combat is a great example; there's loads of other stuff that we can't reveal yet. Just playing it today, I'm just like "this is absolutely remarkable" - the scope is so huge and what we're doing is so different.

  
  "Even watching you [journalist] guys in the Forge editor, I'm like "woah, that's amazing, I didn't even know you could do that" because I've been focused personally on the Campaign. A lot of us at Bungie can't wait to get the final game and explore the parts we weren't working on."

  BJ: "Yeah, even showing it to journalists recently has been funny. The other day, after all the journalists left we stuck around and played some Firefight ourselves, and I got to see a Skirmisher use [new armour ability] the Hologram in multiplayer for the first time. Because of the unscripted nature of our game experience there are always these moments that are like "wait, did he just do what I think he did?" It's crazy that after this many games I'm still seeing these things I've never seen before. It's pretty awesome. Our guys are pretty damn talented! [smiles]."

  On teaming up with Activision and life after Halo...
  BJ: "We're game developers, we've got a really great plan and we're really excited about our future and the new universe we're going bring to life. Activision has world-class publishing expertise and they're going to help us get that game into the hands of gamers on multiple platforms."

  NS: "Right now we're still working on Reach and excited to release it, but when we do look to the future, the next thing about working at Bungie is that the publishers will know they can trust that we will deliver a great game experience and we won't fail at that. I think that's earned us a lot of freedom and latitude to do what we feel is right. In the end, I'm not worried at all; the future's very bright!"

  Thanks guys, good luck with launch!

  Halo Reach lands on UK shores on September 14.

  You can Pre-Order your copy, including the Limited Edition and Halo Reach: Limited Edition Xbox 360 Console Pack HERE.
  

• Bungie's new game coming to PC?

  Bungie's new game coming to PC?

  When you're as big as Bungie, you can't keep anything secret, can you? Now that the Halo series is behind the developer, newshounds on the internet are scrabbling around for every scrap of information they can find regarding the studio's forthcoming Activision game.

  Well here's some news: it looks like the game is coming to the PC as well as consoles.

  According to Eurogamer, a slide shown during an investment conference yesterday spilled the beans, listing the game as "Con[sole]/PC/Online".

  Bungie signed a ten year development deal with Call of Duty publisher Activision to create the game, which the developer has spoken of as being a "brand new universe". Speculation is rife that this means the studio behind Halo is working on an MMO, and this investment slide does little to shake that theory.

  Whatever the game is, it's an exciting prospect. Activision has plenty of experience with MMOs, handling World of Warcraft, and Bungie would be perfectly placed to inject a lot of fast-paced action into an online world.

  If you're interested in the kind of things Bungie can do, of course, we hope you've checked out Halo: Reach, the latest - and perhaps the best? - game in the sci-fi franchise, which is available right now for the Xbox 360.
  

• Halo movie still on the cards

  Halo movie still on the cards

  Halo, eh? The games are great, but the persistent rumours that we're going to get a movie set in Microsoft's sci-fi world refuse to go away. According to Kotaku, the company's still hoping Master Chief and friends will make it to the silver screen some day.

  Speaking with the games website, Halo's franchise development director Frank O'Connor said, "There will be a Halo movie. We don't need a movie. But we'd like a movie." Got that?

  "We'd like the moms of gamers to see the movies because they would love our characters. Maybe we'll even fund it ourselves," he went onto explain, before adding that the reason the Peter Jackson project fell through was due to Hollywood lawyers.

  With rumours that Steven Spielberg is interested in the project currently doing the rounds, O'Connor suggested that even if a movie didn't happen, the franchise could be headed for television instead. "We'd love to see Halo as a television series. Look what HBO did with Band of Brothers or even Rome. Something like that would work because the Halo universe is so vast."

  What O'Connor didn't need to say, of course, is that if you want the very best the Halo universe has to offer, head down to the shops and pick up the Xbox 360 exclusive Halo: Reach, which is out now.

• Halo History

  Halo: The Complete Saga

  Halo: Reach may not be the final Halo title, but it's the last game from Bungie Studios, the visionary developers who created the series. And what better way to celebrate Bungie's big goodbye than by playing the entire saga in story order?

  We've searched our stock high and low to ensure you can do just that - starting with Reach, and continuing in every other Halo game ever made.

  Suit up, soldier, it's gonna be one hell of a ride...
  

   

   

   

   

   

  Halo Reach

  Format: Xbox 360 (2010)
  Genre: First-Person Shooter

  August 2552: Deep into a third decade of brutal interplanetary war against an unrelenting alien collective known as the Covenant. After decades of genocide, they have found humanity's military capital; the planet Reach - Earth's last defence against an all-out assault.

  But Reach is the home of the Spartans - Mjolnir-armoured super soldiers who will do everything in their power to beat back the invading hordes and protect the secrets of the United Nations Space Command.

  You are the sixth and newest member of Reach's finest Spartan unit; classified as 'Hyper Lethal' and armed with cutting edge equipment, the fall of Reach will be your final mission - and the very foundation of our greatest victory.

  Welcome to Noble Team, Spartan. Give 'em hell.
  

  Halo: Combat Evolved

  Format: Xbox (2001) (Playable on Xbox 360), PC (2003)
  Genre: First-Person Shooter

  September 2552: Escaping Reach before the planet's obliteration, UNSC cruiser The Pillar of Autumn FTL jumps into the unknown, and emerges at a ring-shaped planet built by a long-dead race called the Forerunners: Halo.

  Aboard the Autumn is Spartan 117 - codenamed Master Chief - and humanity's most advanced Artificial Intelligence, designated Cortana. Together, the pair will infiltrate Halo, wage a guerrilla war against the Covenant across its surface, and uncover a secret which could turn the tide of war in our favour - or wipe the galaxy of all sentient life.

  Get ready to experience combat: evolved.
  

  Halo 2

  Format: Xbox (2004) (Playable on Xbox 360), PC
  Genre: First-Person Shooter

  October 2552: Reeling from the destruction of Halo, one of the Covenant's three leaders takes a small force and, pursuing intelligence that will lead him to a new Halo ring, unwittingly stumbles upon Earth itself.

  Fresh from his last-gasp victory on Halo, It falls to the Master Chief to lead the defence of humanity's homeworld, before following the Prophet of Regret's cruiser through a slipspace portal opened in-atmosphere over New Mombasa.

  Backed by Cortana and a small UNSC fleet, the Chief will pursue Regret across the new ring world, battle another equally perilous threat and, aided by an unlikely ally, will discover the endgame behind the Covenant's genocidal crusade...
  

  Halo 3: ODST

  Format: Xbox 360 (2009)
  Genre: First-Person Shooter

  October 2552: Regret's unexpected incursions into New Mombasa left not only untold devastation across the African mega-city, but also a small army of Covenant troops behind on its surface, frantically searching for clues to another, greater forerunner artefact.

  Dropped deep into Covenant-occupied territory, a group of the UNSC's second most elite fighting unit, the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, will undertake a mission of the utmost importance.

  Separated from his squad, the Helljumper's newest recruit will dart between alien patrols under cover of darkness to locate his compatriots and safeguard a piece of intelligence which will prove vital to the war effort.

  Prepare to drop, Rookie...
  

  Halo 3

  Format: Xbox 360 (2007)
  Genre: First-Person Shooter

  November 2552: The Forerunner's Halo network is primed for firing; the Covenant have redeployed to Earth in search of Halo's control centre; and alien parasite The Flood has imprisoned Cortana, commandeered the Covenant's floating holy city, and found its way to Earth. This will be the final battle - and for the faltering USNC, things have never looked bleaker.

  But where the Master Chief lives, hope remains. Joined by the former vanguard of the Covenant forces, the Elites, Spartan 117 will carry the hope of humanity into battle in New Mombasa and, subsequently, across the galaxy to the very source of the Halo Rings - where a fateful climax will ensure the sacrifices made by Noble Team were not in vain.

  It's time to finish the fight.
  

  AND DON'T FORGET...

  Halo Wars

  Format: Xbox 360 (2009)
  Genre: Real-Time Strategy

  2531: Decades before the fall of Reach and just six years into the Human-Covenant War, UNSC warship The Spirit of Fire engages alien forces above the surface of planet Harvest.

  Lead by Vice Admiral Preston Cole, the Spirit's marine forces will make a shocking discovery: Harvest conceals a significant Forerunner artefact which had gone undetected during humanity's colonisation of the previously peaceful planet.

  Finding that this relic points the way towards a galactic location of potentially war-ending significance, the Spirit of Fire mobilises its forces in the hope that it isn't already too late...
  
  

• History of Halo

  
  
  
  
  

  What is HALO?

  You're kidding, right? Halo is the brainchild of Bungie Studios. It's one of the biggest videogame series in the world, and arguably the best exclusive on the Xbox. That means you won't find a Halo game on any other home console - it's basically a reason to buy a 360. On top of that, Halo is also a huge multimedia phenomenon that's grown to include comics, figurines and novels - and maybe even a movie in the not-so-far-future.

  The games themselves mostly take the form of First-Person shooters, pitting you as a rock-hard armoured space marine fighting against a fanatical alien race called The Covenant. We say mostly, because occasionally you get to play as a Covenant soldier, instead - while one of the Halo games, Halo Wars, isn't actually a shooter at all; it's a Real-Time Strategy game based on the back-story of Bungie's acclaimed sci-fi universe.

  Before there was HALO...

  
  

  ...There was Marathon. No, not the old name for Snickers, but actually the series that Bungie made for the Macintosh prior to Halo.

  Marathon was a critically-acclaimed first-person shooter which the Halo games openly reference with injokes, iconography and sci-fi subject matter - although Bungie insist that the two game universes are separate. First released in 1994, with sequels Marathon 2: Durandal and Marathon Infinity arriving in '95 and '96 respectively, the Marathon trilogy was one of the era's most advanced FPSs, but being a Mac-only release flew under the radar next to ID's all-conquering DOOM for PC.

  If you want to try Marathon and witness Halo's spiritual heritage, you can download it here.

• Xbox enjoys biggest year ever in 2010

  Xbox 360 may have celebrated its fifth birthday in 2010, but according to Microsoft the console is going from strength to strength.
  
  The platform holder has revealed that the last 12 months was the biggest year ever for Xbox, with total sales of the high-definition console surging past 50 million worldwide.
  
  It means that the system has now doubled the total sales figure of the original Xbox.
  
  In the last 12 months, Xbox 360 has seen momentous exclusive launches such as the smash-hit Halo: Reach, while a redesigned version of the console with a sleek new look and built-in wi-fi has also been released.
  
  Moreover, November 2010 marked the debut of the revolutionary motion-sensing device Kinect, of which a massive eight million units have already been sold globally.
  
  A spokesperson from Microsoft said: "2010 was just the beginning. Stay tuned for more developments in the living room from Xbox and our partners in 2011."

  Published: 14/01/2011

• Bungie lifts the lid on Master Chief

  Bungie has been discussing the creation of its iconic Halo star Master Chief over at Industry Gamers - thanks for the story, Eurogamer - and the developer has explained why the big green giant tends to keep his thoughts to himself.

  "We left out details to increase immersion; the less players knew about the Chief, we believed, the more they would feel like the Chief," explained Bungie lead writer Joseph Staten. "Immersion was the main goal here. Also keeping the Chief a man of few words reinforced what we wanted to be a tough-as-nails soldierly persona."
  
  Staten adds that to give the game a bit of oomph, Bungie wanted players to understand the Chief predicament. "In the first Halo game we absolutely designed experiences around themes of loneliness and abandonment," Staten revealed. "Halo didn't dwell on the loss of the other Spartans (the closest we came was some of the 'combat dialog' from friendly A.I. For example, 'Look, a Spartan! I thought they all died on Reach...'), but we did absolutely want players sometimes to feel the weight of the Chief's heavy responsibilities. Take, for example, the mission where the Chief leaves Cortana to search for his commanding officer, Captain Keyes, only to end up witnessing the recorded deaths of other soldiers who might have lived had the Chief been with them."

  Master Chief was last seen in Halo 3, of course, but if you want to catch up with his Spartan buddies in something a bit newer, check out last year Xbox 360 exclusive, Halo Reach.

• Assassin's Creed Brotherhood heads BAFTA list

  It's more good news for Assassin's Creed fans after yesterday's revelation of a May announcement of the next game in the popular franchise. BAFTA has released its list of nominations for this year's videogame awards, and Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood has received the most nods of any game, featuring in a total of seven categories.

  
  It seems the members of the BAFTA panel were big fans of Ezio's latest adventure, as it scooped nominations for Action, Artistic Achievement, Gameplay, Multiplayer, Technical Innovation, Use of Audio, and the biggie: Best Game.

  
  In the latter category, Ubisoft's game faces some stiff competition from FIFA 11, Heavy Rain, LIMBO, Mass Effect 2 and Super Mario Galaxy 2. Call of Duty: Black Ops missed out in that category, but was nominated in six others. Mass Effect 2 also had six nods in total, with Sony's gritty thriller Heavy Rain picking up five, while Super Mario Galaxy 2 and indie darling LIMBO both got four. Surprisingly, Halo: Reach only featured in two categories: Multiplayer and Technical Innovation.

  
  Meanwhile, the mass-market success of Microsoft's Kinect ensured a strong showing in the the Family category, with nods for Dance Central, Kinect Adventures, Kinect Sports and Kinectimals. Flying the flag for more traditional control are LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 and the terrific Toy Story 3.

  
  The winners will be announced at a ceremony on March 16, which will be streamed live on the BAFTA website.

• Microsoft unveils Halo Fest

  Ready to feel old? Microsoft best-selling Halo series is 10 years old this year. A decade of Master Chief! To celebrate, the Xbox giant has announced Halo Fest, a three day event celebrating all things Spartan, which will take place during the Penny Arcade Expo, due to hit Seattle this August.

  The event should be a blast, and will see Microsoft swamping attendees with tournaments, panels and all sorts of prizes. The reason why wee excited, though, is that, even if wel be stuck in rainy old England for the event itself, several websites looking at you, Eurogamer - are speculating that Microsoft might use the occasion to announce a new Halo game.

  With Bungie leaving the series it created with last year Halo: Reach, it over to the franchise new custodian 343 Industries. The team has been hiring game developers left, right and centre for quite a while, and Eurogamer seems to think that a tenth birthday party would be the perfect time to reveal what 343 been up to.

  If you're not in Seattle this August, don't worry too much. We'll have all the news for you right here.

• Xbox fails if Halo flops says Microsoft

  Microsoft has admitted that the performance of its key hardcore game titles, particularly Halo, is their best way of telling how the Xbox 360 console is evolving.

  In an interview with Official Xbox Magazine, Microsoft Game Studios head Phil Spencer said quot;I think it's important that our AAA first party titles do help craft and shape how the platform evolves.

  "If we lose our way with Halo, we lose our way with Xbox, because Halo and the importance of games like Call of Duty and other shooters, that state of the art needs to continue to move forward, and our team at 343 need to move forward with that. That's always going to be one of our success criteria."

  The team at 343 Industries inherited the Halo mantle when creator Bungie moved on to develop a top secret new project for Activision. The Washington-based studio now has two Master Chief related projects in the pipeline. Their HD remake of the original Halo: Combat Evolved comes out in November to celebrate the series' 10th birthday. Halo 4 will follow in 2012.
  

• Halo 4 beta invites are a hoax, warns 343 Industries

  Halo 4 beta invites are a hoax, warns 343 Industries

  David Ellis of 343 Industries, the studio which inherited the Halo series from Bungie, has taken to Twitter to warn fans that offers to take part in a beta trial for the upcoming Halo 4 are not to be trusted.

  If you see a page claiming to allow you to sign up for a Halo 4 beta be advised, IT'S A FAKE, he posted, which is pretty conclusive. It seems fans had been lured in by unscrupulous phishing sites which requested personal account details in return for access to the hotly anticipated FPS sequel.

  Halo 4 sees the return of Master Chief, having sat out both Halo ODST and Halo: Reach, and marks the start of a new trilogy for the award-winning series. The game is expected later this year, exclusively for Xbox 360 of course, but Microsoft has yet to announce any further details.

• The greatest game ending ever, according to Guinness World Records, is...

  Call of Duty: Black Ops has been voted the game with the best ending ever, in a poll conducted by Guinness World Records. The beefy shooter topped a chart containing fifty blockbuster games, voted on by 13,000 gamers.

  CODBLOPS beat Halo: Reach into second place. Rockstar's epic western Red Dead Redemption, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, brain-bending puzzler Portal and arty killer thriller Heavy Rain also featured in the top ten.

  It wasn't such good news for games famous for their twists. Both Knights of the Old Republic and Bioshock, two games that have been widely praised for their last act plot twists, landed in the lower regions of the chart, at 49 and 35 respectively.

  "Everyone has an opinion on how to end a game whether it's an epic boss fight, a clever plot twist or a 90-minute movie," said Gaz Deaves, editor of the Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition. "This list recognises some of the greatest endings and hopefully will get gamers talking about what are their favourites and why."

  So how about it? What's your favourite game ending and why?

• Call of Duty: Black Ops voted best videogame ending ever

  Videogame fans have voted the 2010 blockbuster Call of Duty: Black Ops as having the best ending in gaming history.

  Guinness World Records conducted a poll of more than 13,000 gamers to compile a list of the top 50 videogame endings of all time, with Activision and Treyarch's Cold War shooter topping the list.

  The game - which also holds the record of being the UK's top-selling title ever - features a twisting storyline that culminates in a submarine showdown, interwoven with a powerful revenge plot and conspiracy theories.

  Second place went to the dramatic and poignant finale to Bungie's Halo: Reach, while the fairytale finale to Nintendo's classic The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time claimed third place.

  Other titles in the top ten included Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, God of War, Red Dead Redemption, Portal and Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.

  Gaz Deaves, gaming editor for the Guinness World Records 2012 Gamer's Edition, said: "This list recognises some of the greatest endings and hopefully will get gamers talking about what are their favourites and why."

  Published: 14/02/2012

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