So as you know at Eurogamer they show off all the yet to be released titles, but they also put in titles that have just been released. One of these titles was Resistance 3, which is a FPS game from Insomniac games. I was a fan of the previous two games and I really enjoyed playing them, so when I heard that Resistance 3 was to be playable at Eurogamer I jumped at the chance to give it a go.

As with its predecessors this game has an 18 cirtificate and man does it deserve that rating. It has alot of blood and has gratuitous violence, which is the perfect combination for an eighteen rated game. This game was stuck just behind the Battlefront section so it wasn’t busy at all, I was able to get a seat and start playing straight away. Insomniac was kind enough to send the complete game to Eurogamer, so this gave me the opportunity to see all the game had to offer.

It starts off where the last game finished, so if you haven’t played the pervious games I’m not going to spoil it for you. You start the game in an underground city and as usual there is a little tutorial, after that you get attacked and the fun begins. As you go outside you are being attacked by the alien invasion, the game mechanics are the same as the previous games, so this makes it so much easier to play for veterans of the Resistance series.

The graphics have been updated to give the game a different look and feel and this was done with expert skill. Some of the creatures have had a makeover to make them look much more sinister; they even added new creatures to  add something new to the game. They have not just added new creatures, but they have also added new weapons and grenades. They have also made some great modifications to the weapons that were in the previous games, so this means that they have done everything possible to make Resistance 3 better than the previous titles.

I won’t bore you and tell you about what the new weapons Insomniac added or the modifications they made to the previous weapons, but what I will tell you is that unlike the previous games, you hold all of the weapons at once. This is the first time any FPS game has done this since the Quake gameswhich is a nice departure from the FPS games nowa days that only let you carry two guns, so this as you can see it puts Resistance 3 on another level compared to the Battlefront and Call of Duty series.

When it comes to the game itself, it is yet another triumph. The controls are very responsive and the game seems to flow seamlessly between the gameplay and cut the sequences. This wasn’t just the only thing that made this game good, the Sound Effect (SFX) and the Background Music (BGM) work really well in this game. You can really hear the sound of the weapons being fired, the creatures snarls and of their machinery as it tries to kill you.

All of these additions added with the smooth controls and updated graphics makes this the best of the Resistance series.

- Random Man

Note: Due to technical difficulties, That Bloke in the Beanie was unable to play Dead Island’s online multiplayer co-op. As this is a major part of the game which adds more gameplay and variety, this review should be treated solely as an evaluation of the single player mode.

I never saw the trailer for Dead Island. I had heard the hype but never been embroiled in it myself. So going into it my only expectations were for a zombie game with beautiful environments and solid combat and, for the most part, Dead Island delivered. The game has taken many aspects from various other games such as Borderlands, but it takes its inspiration from the majority of the zombie game spectrum.

The action takes place on the fictional tropical island of Banoi, located just off the coast of Papua New Guinea. Banoi is popular holiday destination for the rich and famous as well as the usual tourists. The beaches are large and expansive, the booze is cheap and plentiful and the trend less is more is almost enforced by law. However there is the problem of the sudden zombie infestation. Where did it come from? Why was it made? Why are the four main characters immune to it? Most of these questions make the main plot and motivation of the game, alongside surviving and aiding other survivors.

You have the choice of four playable characters: Xian Mei a Chinese national working on the reception desk at the resort that specialises in bladed weapons, Logan a former NFL superstar who pissed away his career ending in a car crash that killed his passenger. He now travels to the island as part of a marketing deal, he specialises in thrown objects, Purna a former Australian cop who quit after shooting a child molester who was unable to be prosecuted she became a bodyguard for VIPs all over the world leading her to the resort, she is a firearms expert and Sam B, a one hit wonder rap star seeking to get back on top after being booked to perform at the resort who is handy with blunt objects. Unfortunately, that is as far as most of the characterisation goes. I’m trying to avoid spoilers but we are left with many questions unanswered about our chosen avatar.

After choosing your character and weapon of choice, you try to escape the hotel, only to get caught by a zombie and bitten only to find that you do not turn. Saved by some other survivors you are hold up on the beach with only a wooden oar and your mighty boot or stiletto to start cracking skulls. The environments of the island are huge and varied, but the best is of course the beach resort: the sun, the sand, the half made sand castles and the sound of the sea, wind, birds and the screams of the dead occasionally punctuating the air. It is beautiful, even on a non HD TV. However, there are moments of pop ins and outs graphically. There’s also the problem of emptiness is some areas. What do I mean by that? Well, I went on a merry trip off the beaten track to a non-essential exploration area where there was precisely one and only one hut to explore. Call me picky but I prefer my open world exploration with suitable rewards, not just a lot of pretty scenery and dead zombies.

The plot and other game events are pushed forward by coming into contact with other survivors who, as soon as finding out you are immune immediately task you with some form of fetch quest ranging from the banal but vital task of getting car parts or fuel to burn bodies, to the weird and stupid like searching for some nutters teddy bear and necklace. You generally need to do these quests in order to get modification recipes for your weapons, lump sums of cash or just a decent weapon or xp boost to power you along. The voice acting is mostly solid with some big names behind them but there are some truly atrocious readings as well which bore into your skull as they repeat the vapid phrases at you while you’re working.

You spend most of your time in Dead Island when you’re not kicking/beating zombies to death scrounging for various supplies and money needed to repair and buy new ones. While some shops do exists, most of your money will be spent on repairs at workbenches where you can also craft and upgrade new or better items. The items you pick up seem to have a use but it wasn’t always clear. I ended the game with two dozen bars of soap and no mod to use them in. While the mods you pick up are useful and fun, it is a bit of a shame you can’t experiment by trying a will it blend approach like in Dead Rising.

But the key, crucial question, is whether or not the combat any good? After all, the meat, if you’ll excuse the pun, is a key part of the game. A lot can be forgiven if the action is solid and enjoyable. Unfortunately the answer is only mostly. The quantity and quality of zombies is generally satisfying but when it isn’t it is more frustrating than it is tense. More than once I was killed by a zombie somehow spawning behind me and one-shoting me. The variety of weapons and killing methods are varied and substantial enough to entertain, even if the majority can be brought down with a kick and smack with heavy blunt or sharp object approach. Severing heads and limbs, crushing them, exploding them setting them on fire running them over and even drowning them are all suitably cathartic or amusing. The firearms you come across later have limited ammo capacity and are best saved for boss zombies. There is also the addition of a frenzy mechanic. In my game playing as Xin, the world went into slow motion; she pulled out a knife and proceeded to cut up every poor basterd in her way.

However, this sometimes clashes with the tone that Dead Island is trying to show. For example, early in the game I came across a pool filled with blood and bodies with a poor man in it crying saying how he’d just killed his entire family. It was suitably horrific and drew me into the game that much more because of it. Then I come across a hut where an impromptu porno was being shot with the woman still chained to the bed and I stomp her head in. This leaves me amused and bemused. The problem is the combat lends itself to frantic kick and slash fun/frustrating which can give you a good laugh but everyone else is scared, freaked out and depressed by the situation.

So in short, the combat in DI is serviceable if frantic and frustrating at times. The setting unfortunately loses something of interest in the later levels and the plot and characterisation are thin on the ground. I would recommend it for zombie fans but rent it if first if you are unsure.

7/10

This was my first Eurogamer Expo and can I say that it was an amazing one to start with. As you have read in previous post, there were a lot of great titles that you could play. As always with expos, there are games that haven’t been released yet.

One of these titles was House of the Dead:  Overkill Extended Cut for the Playstation 3. This was an extended version of a previously realised game. I have played all the arcade versions of HOTD (I’m just going to call it that to make this easier to read) and have enjoyed them immensely. All the blood, guts and gore make for a perfect zombie, so I was excited to try this out the game to see if it had what it takes.

The game was tucked away in a corner of the 18 section, from an onlooker’s perspective, the games graphics are up to the usual HOTD standard. sharp graphics with really grainy overtones, what I like to call, arcade style of graphics. The BGM and SFX are what any arcade fan would come to expect with a HOTD game, very dark and ominous music coupled with the some perfect SFX, you can really hear the zombie moans and the body squelch as your bullets blow their heads off.

The game requires you to play via PlayStation move, you can get a plastic rifle that you plug the move controller into in order to play the game, but the move controller is just fine by itself. Since the controller I was using was needed to charge at the time I used just the controller on its own.

You didn’t get much of the story with this as it was just a demo. All that was said story wise was that an incident happened at a location and I needed to check it out. Oh and what did we find? Zombies and they are looking very nasty.

As with all the HOTD games you have little bonuses and power ups through the game, one of the latest power ups they have added to this game is slow motion. This is an awesome addition as can not only kill a butt load of zombies in slow-mo, but you also get to see zombies explode and their body parts fly off as you shoot them with your shotgun all in glorious slow motion.

Now you would suspect that after I have said all of that, that the game would be brilliant. Well sadly you would be wrong, but this isn’t because of anything in the game, it’s well designed and everything around it has been well thought out. The problem however lies with the Playstation Move controller and rifle that you use to play the game with, there are multiple reasons why the PlayStation move isn’t that great for this game, but the main reasons are:  The controller is not as responsive and accurate as you would like it to be, when you do try to calibrate it, the targeting feels off so you can not accurately calibrate the move. Even standing about a foot away from the screen I was still missing, this just shows how bad the move controller is when trying to calibrate it. The other reason is that plastic rifle you get with this game breaks quite easily.

Overall the game is good and has all the quality of its predecessors, but the only thing that lets this game down is the move controller. Get rid of that and you have the potential for an awesome arcade game for the PlayStation 3.

House of the Dead:  Overkill Extended Cut is released on the 28^th of October for PlayStation 3

-Random Man

My first taste of Halo came about when I was round my mates house playing multiplayer split screen. We were playing split screen death match and we chose a nice little level known as Blood Gulch. This was a very simple map that had a base on either side of the map, and a huge wide expanse of land in between. The perfect setting for pretty much any team based game variant. It was also perfect for vehicle battles and anything you can think of. The most simple of maps but the most used throughout Halo: Combat Evolved

Blood Gulch - The First Incarnation

I fell in love with Blood Gulch so much that when I got my own X Brick I organised lan parties (Before the days of Xbox Live) and we would spend hours play CTF battles, team death matches, death matches, pretty much and Halo game variant under the sun on Blood Gulch. Non of the other maps compared to this one, except maybe side winder, but that’s for a different post.

Of course as Halo got older there was always going to be a sequel. So Halo 2 came around, and I was ready to leave Blood Gulch behind and find a new terrain to rain death in. But lo and behold, Bungie had put the next incarnation of Blood Gulch into Halo 2. And I was more than happy to start reigning havoc on this level. Now dubbed Coagulation, not much had changed, save for the bases now have 2 levels and the addition of Banshees to the level. But it was still the same Blood Gulch I came to love in the first game.

The Second Incarnation - Coagulation

Ok so there were a couple of more rocks and the bases probably were a tiny bit closer together, but it was still the same map I loved, and I couldn’t get enough of it.

Now this is where Halo 3 disappointed me. I was egerly waiting for the 3rd incarnation of Blood Gulch. But there was nothing. I wasn’t giving up hope, I was going to wait for the DLC and hope that Bungie would bring back a new Halo 3 version of the map to us. But sadly, there was nothing. The closest thing I had in Halo 3 was Valhalla, and to me that map was nothing compared to Blood Gulch, even though it was very good, I still didn’t have the same nostalgia fix than I did with Coagulation.

The other base is on the other side of the map behind the camera by the way

So, eventually I just accepted the fact Blood Gulch had been dead and berried. Valhalla was the new incarnantion and the grandfather of all awesome Halo had been laid to rest. So I carried on my happy way play Big Team slayer and CTF on Valhalla, every now and again wishing it was Blood Gulch. I know it is very Fan Boyish but I really did love that map.

Then Halo Wars came along. An RTS game that was based before the Halo First Person Shooter saga. It was a very good RTS game and I really did enjoy play skirmish mode more than I did the campaign, but never the less it was fun. Now when I first booted up a skirmish game I had to take a double take. The creators had done themselves justice by making a Blood Gulch in RTS form. A huge grin spread across my face and I jumped straight in. It was very loyal to the original FPS map from Halo combat evolved and sure enough that was my favorite map for skirmish mode. It really translated well into the RTS form and I would play that map for hours.

The Halo Wars Incarnation

By now you are probably thinking, either ‘Why is he going on about a pretty much dead and berried Map from the first halo game?’ or ‘Hmm this is probably leading to something about Halo Reach. If you are thinking the latter you would be very correct (because the title of the post probably gave it away at the start.) Blood Gulch is back in Halo Reach! Bigger, Better and Greener than it ever has been, and It is looking awesome. Red Vs Blue did a nice trailer for the new map, with a couple more announcements about a new armour ability and a new warthog. So without Further adoo I present The Blood Gulch Resurrection!

As you can see this is shaping up to be one hell of a game. and I for one am hugely excited about Halo Reach. More announcements as I get them.

Garv

There have been a couple of FPS games that I have sworn by ever since I was bitten by the shooter bug. Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem and Halo are the main games that I love coming back too, but there has been one game that has been buried in my game collection which I have been meaning to come back to for a good while now, and that is the first Serious Sam game, Serious Same: First Encounter. The title which I thought was trying to be like Duke Nukem after a couple of Red Bulls. It was quirky and fun, the fact that you just shot aimlessly while headless bomb men ran at you screaming what pretty epic. Even though it sounds pretty skill-less you would be surprised, it was fast a paced non-stop rollercoaster ride.

Serious Sam II wasn’t as great as its predecessor, you could tell it was trying to rip off the more successful FPS games of the time (mainly Halo) and did it in a way that just made you cringe more than laugh out loud. So after Serious Sam II, I felt like the lid has been closed on what could have been a great spoof series.

With the recent announcement of Serious Sam III I was sceptical, but after watching the latest trailer and eyeing up some of the screen shots my interest in the 3^rd instalment has shot up. It looks like the developers, Devolver Digital, have gone all out on this, so what has been announced so far?

Titled Serious Sam: BFE (No one knows what the BFE stands for, honestly) this game is a prequel to the first title Serious Sam: First Encounter. Interestingly the game has dropped the classic cartoony look and feel that both Serious Sam 1 and 2 had making for a more nitty-gritty realistic look to the game with piles of blood added in for good measure, luckily though the fast paced crazy gunplay which was most prominent in First Encounter will be back, so I will be looking forward to taking out legions of headless screaming bomb people once more.

Not much else has been announced sadly, whatever Devolver Digital and Croteam have up their sleeves they are keeping very hush-hush about it. The latest announcement had Croteam officially announce 4 player split screen on the PC where one gamer will use the mouse and keyboard and the other three will use game-pads, an interesting announcement to say the least but apparently it is what the Serious Sam community wanted. We should ask for a free Xbox 360 with every game released and see what happens.

So what was Croteam’s reason for adding 4 player split screen to the PC platform? Here is their official list posted on their website:

• Visual identification of opponents allows for more accurate racial and gender slurs during Deathmatch and Capture the Flag games.
• Close proximity allows for unwanted sexual advances towards opponents without fear of reprisal due to their fear of losing the lead in Team Deathmatch.
• Leon’s mom usually walks around the house in these ridiculously short shorts that show the very edge of her butt. Seriously dude, you should see these things.

Right… if you want to do that surely get a games console? Anyway multiplayer split screen aside, this game looks pretty fun, just awaiting more info on it really. It is due for release this summer apparently, bear in mind this game was first announced in 2007 so let’s hope this is not another ‘Duke Nukem Forever’ situation.

As we await more in for, please enjoy the latest trailer. Also have a think about what BFE means.

Did you enjoy the trailer? Well here is a 10 minuet gameplay video whet your gaming whistle.

Garv

When it comes to FPS games there are only a few titles that stand out as the best of the best in my opinion. Halo (obviously), the original Unreal games, Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem and Timesplitters. I love my Sci-Fi shooters and with the recent rebirth of Duke Nukem and with Id’s upcoming RAGE, I’m starting to wonder something… Where the heck is the next instalment of Timesplitters?

A bit of background information; Free Radical Design were a Games company consisting of a development team made of ex-Rare Ltd developers after working on Perfect Dark and Goldeneye 007. In the previous console generation, they developed the Timesplitters series for the PS2, Gamecube and Xbox. It was another one of the great Sci-Fi shooters, following the story of Sergeant Cortez who was frequently tasked with saving the world from destruction by following Dr Crow through time and foiling his evil plans. A deceptively simple storyline that bought players in into a world with a certain amount of depth to it as they were thrown around different time-periods until the games reached their satisfying conclusion.

But for me Timesplitters was never about the story line, it was all about the gameplay. This game was full of variety; it had seemingly hundreds of challenges and missions for you to complete in order to unlock characters and other game modes and even had a map maker so you can create your own levels. But what I really did love about Timesplitters was the fact it had a stupid amount of unlockable and selectable characters in all shapes and sizes, from zombies to upper class Edwardian gentleman, it even had creatures such as calamari and snowmen. Timesplitters was random and incredibly creative in its characters and weaponry design and as such it meant I really never got bored of it. Oh, and I forgot to mention it had monkeys! Zombie monkeys, Robo-cop monkeys… even ninja monkeys! If that isn’t an awesome game I don’t know what is!

So with the current generation of consoles I have been waiting for quite a while for this generation’s instalment of Timesplitters. But sadly, Free Radical were bought out by Crytek after Free Radical went into administration, becoming Crytek UK. Crytek have said that they will develop Timesplitters 4 when public demand demands the game to be developed, but don’t they know how many Timesplitters fans there are out there?

Imagine the possibility of Timesplitters 4. Timesplitters 3 had an amazing multiplayer mode that never really went to Xbox LIVE because the service was still in its infancy when the game released. With the amount of selectable characters and game variants previous instalments had it’d suggest that this would be such a perfect game for Xbox LIVE. All shooters out at the moment are way too serious. The brilliant thing about the Timesplitters franchise was that it based itself on parody, being ridiculously tongue in cheek and hilarious. As the Timesplitters 4 trailer released some time ago suggests, now is the perfect opportunity to rip out the parodies against the FPS genre and have some fun with it.

As you can see for Timesplitters 4 there were plans for a Bioshock Parody

Timesplitters is a franchise that must be resurrected. Sure, we now have Duke Nukem Forever for the next-gen tongue-in-cheek shooter and maybe even Bulletstorm. But Timesplitters had its own charm and fantastic gameplay content that just simply can’t be left on the top shelf covered in dust for much longer.

News has been floating round that Timesplitters will make a return when the new Xbox comes out. This news seems pretty strong but in my opinion we need a game for this generation. Maybe i’m just impatient.

Garv

Throughout gaming history there have been two staple weapons of choice, the gun and the sword. Both have been wielded by heroes and villains a like, and of course there have been all different varieties of these weapons from rocket launchers to demon possessed blades. So if you were a hero or indeed a villain, what staple weapon would you choose? The gun or the sword?

Let’s start with the weapon that has been round since the dawn of gaming time. The sword has been wielded by many a hero and is probably more of an iconic weapon compared to its projectile based counterpart. There have been many iconic swords that have graced our gaming screens over the years. Such as Rebellion and Yamato wielded by the half demon brothers Dante and Vergil from Devil May Cry, these were passed down from their demon father Sparda who wielded the demonic Sparda sword. There has also been the Buster sword that has been passed down from Angeal’s father to Angeal to Zack and finally to Cloud in the Final Fantasy VII saga, there have been other iconic blades such as the soul reaver, the master sword, soul edge and soul calibre, The Dragon Sword and The Dark Dragon Blade. Just to name a few. Swords are not just sharp objects that you can swing around and decapitate people with. They are weapons that can possess powers beyond human imagination and they can harness both evil and holy power which in turn can influence the wielder sometimes against their will.

The Soul Reaver has to be one of the best evil swords out there.

Guns on the other hand have sheer variety on their side. You can get guns of varying types from tiny pistols with precise aiming to great big rocket launchers that can blow any foe sky-high. Gaming’s iconic guns include the Lancer from gears of war, the perfect mix between chainsaw and assault rifle. The BFG from Doom and Quake; the perfect gun to have in your arsenal to obliterate foes in mere seconds. Both the freeze ray and shrink ray from the Duke Nukem series also bring a nice variety when it comes to destroying your foes, and even the portal gun can get the most creative of killers juices flowing. The sheer amount of variety and customisation when it comes to guns in video games that is available has shown us that there is no stopping how powerful guns can become.

Wouldn't like to be on the receiving end of this BFG

This surely means that as guns have an enormous amount of variety, they can easily out trump their melee counter parts? Well I have always been a keen believer in the phrase ‘quality not quantity’ and I have always favoured swords. I know this may sound really strange coming from an FPS fan, but swords have always appealed to me more, and when used correctly have the power to deflect bullets, cut guns in half and give the wielder the opportunity to obliterate enemies with a high amount of skill. Take Halo for example, Sure someone may have a rocket launcher that could blow a sword wielder sky-high but faced with an energy sword time is very limited because sooner rather than later you will have that energy sword impaled through your torso before you can reload.

Don’t get me wrong though. I am not damming all guns to hell, There are some guns out there that could take down the most skilled swords man. The sniper rifle is probably the most efficient gun for taking out a sword wielding maniac, from a nice long distance a sniper can easily head shot even the most skilled swords man.

In a lot of ways swords and gun are on the same level, I could spend the whole article going on about which weapon is better in what situation. However, when you combine the two something magical happens. You have possibly the most epic weapons ever made in gaming. A perfect example would be the gunblades of the Final Fantasy series. Both squall and lightening wield gunblades and it is defiantly something the gaming universe needs more of. They have the range of a gun and the deadliness of a sword, what more do you want?

Yes squall...that gunblade is awesome!

With that all said I will now leave it to the gaming public to decide. Is the gun mightier than the sword?

Garv

Bungie’s community manager Eric “urk” Osborne wrote on Bungie.net;

“As we prepare to become fans of the universe our studio began creating more than ten years ago, it’s nice to know that we’ll be counted among such esteemed company.

“Some might consider the upcoming transition a bittersweet occasion punctuated by a sense of loss and sadness. We feel otherwise. Halo is in great hands… yours.

“Halo is yours now. In many ways, it always has been. Its new caretakers will strive, just as we did, to be worthy stewards but you have the package. Hold these characters and stories and worlds to the same unflinching standards you did while we were at the helm, but allow them all to blossom and change and grow in the ways that they must.”

These were just some of the emotional words that were posted on Bungie.net as the studio bid their final farewell to the FPS franchise they created.

Bungie celebrated their 20th anniversary last week and believe it or not it was 10 years ago we first saw Halo: Combat Evolved grace our original Xbox consoles. Today Bungie officially stated that the future of Halo has now been passed to the internal Microsoft development company 343 industries, who are now developing Halo 4 and Halo: Combat Evolved anniversary.

With Halo: Combat Evolved celebrating its 10^th anniversary this year, 343 could not have picked a better project to kick start their new affiliation with the Halo franchise. Not only are they revamping the original FPS classic but they are, in a way, starting where Bungie began 10 years ago, with the first ever Halo game to be released. I think this is a clever move and even though a part of me is going to miss Bungie being a part of the Halo franchise I welcome 343 with open arms.

So what’s in store for Bungie next? Well they are now working on a project with Activision, but that is all we know thus far.

Bungie have not fully abandoned ship just yet Halo playlist management will be changing hands on August 2^nd. The same day they will be giving us their parting thoughts of the last 20 years through a vid doc called: ‘O Brave New Worlds’.

So this is the last curtain call for the partnership that is Halo and Bungie. I’m looking forward to what the studio will produce in the future.

Garv

Back in September 2007 avid Halo fans saw what they thought was the last outing for Master Chief. He had saved the universe from total destruction and the people of earth thought he had been killed in the process. In the last moments of Halo 3 however we saw Master Chief entering Cryonic Sleep, telling Cortana to “Wake me up, when you need me.” If Halo players were lucky enough to complete the campaign in Legendary difficulty, the scene would continue and show Master Chief’s escape pod drifting towards a strange planet, giving the Halo trilogy a nice cliff hanger ending which opened doors for a new Halo story ark.

Since then we have had two other Halo games that added to the original trilogy, Halo 3: ODST which saw the Halo world through the eyes of a Squad of Orbital Drop Shock Troopers (Or ODST) and Halo: Reach a prequel to the original trilogy which in my opinion was the most in depth game of the Halo Series.

So with ODST and Reach being released since 2007 we thought we might have seen the last of Master Chief, especially as Bungie, the creative team behind Halo left the franchise for good after Reach. Surprisingly E3 this year saw 343 industries, the new minds behind the Halo franchise and it’s future, take the stage and announced Halo 4. A continuation from the original Halo trilogy which will give us an insight into what the future may hold for both Cortana and Master Chief.

Nobel 6 in Halo Reach

So what do we know about the game thus far? Well to tell you the truth not that much, but what has been announced already is sure to whet the appetites of any avid Halo fan. Halo 4 will be the beginning of a brand new story ark, 343 industries have announced that the game will in fact be the first of another trilogy staring everyone’s favourite Spartan. Also there will be changes to Master Chief aesthetically as well as mentally. You may have seen in the debut trailer shown at E3 that there have been changes made to Master Chief’s armour, only minor changes as he has been in Cryo-sleep for god knows how long (which also begs the question how did his armour change in the first place) but its obvious that 343 have some big plans for Master Chief’s future.

Another thing to note is the link from the ending of Halo 3. Remember chief’s escape pod was floating towards an ominous planet? Speculation floating around the gaming community suggests the planet maybe of forerunner origin. The forunners being the original creators of the Halo rings, which were designed to obliterate the alien zombie race known as the flood. If this is true we could be in for some epic game play and what I can only imagine will involve some fantastic battles and a great insight into the origins of the Halo rings. But that’s only one theory.

Sadly, we are all going to have to wait until Christmas 2012 before we can get our hands on the next Halo instalment. Until then we should sit back and relax whist we play Halo: Combat Evolved anniversary edition which is coming out this November.

For more Halo 4 news, stay tuned to Plus XP.

Garv