REVIEW SUMMARY: Interesting premise, poor execution, vital to understanding Halo 4.

MY RATING:

BRIEF SYNOPSIS: The black ops squad Kilo-Five has a staggering revelation but there is no time to consider the implications because one of their operatives goes silent on a hostile world. As civil war erupts on Sanghelios, the UNSC Infinity prepares to undergo a test run using live targets and live munitions. And ancient evil waits to be awakened.

MY REVIEW
PROS: Great ideas, essential to understanding what is going on in Halo 4.
CONS: Flat characters, repetitive character descriptions, not very engaging.
BOTTOM LINE: Recommended for Halo fans exclusively.

An hour into playing Halo 4 I found myself asking a lot of questions. Who is this Didact fellow? What is Requiem? Why are the Covenant suddenly attacking me – didn’t we have a truce at the end of Halo 3? How did the UNSC build a 6 kilometer long space ship? It’s a good thing that I play the Halo games for the shooting and not the actual storytelling. If I want to learn anything about the Halo universe I just turn to the tie-in fiction that has done such an amazing job of expanding the lore. Authors like Eric Nylund, William C. Dietz, Tobias S. Buckell, and Joseph Staten have written wonderful novels that support this monolithic franchise. Two new authors have been added to the roster, the much celebrated Greg Bear (whose Forerunner novels I have yet to dig into) and Karen S. Traviss, an author with much tie-in fiction experience. Halo: The Thursday War is the second entry in the Kilo-Five trilogy, which is itself an indirect sequel to Eric Nylund’s Halo: Ghosts of Onyx. Relating to the canon, Halo: The Thursday War takes place just prior to the events of Halo 4. So how does it stack up compared to the rest of the family?

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Halo: Combat Evolved was the first game I ever owned on the X-Box. Ever since I’ve had a love/hate relationship with the franchise. I have enjoyed the game sequels less and less with each installment, with the exception of Halo: Reach. That said, I always end up coming back for more. The Halo franchise has a tremendously successful hype machine. As a lover of science fiction and an Advertising major I cannot help but admire the marketing efforts that lead up to the release of a new Halo game. The Halo 3 “Believe” campaign with the massive diorama featuring hand-crafted miniatures blew me away. Rather than focusing on the graphics or game-play, it put emphasis on the themes crucial to the series. It was inspiring. Now, with the return of the iconic Master Chief and the start of a brand new saga, Microsoft has funded a live-action promotional web series titled Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn. Three episodes have been released so far and the quality is astounding. For years there has been talk of a big budget Hollywood film adaption of the Halo franchise and this is proof positive that it can be done – and done well. If you’re excited about Halo 4 or you need a little something to rekindle that flame, check out Forward Unto Dawn and keep your eye on SF Signal – book reviews Halo: Glasslands and Halo: The Thursday War to come.

Check out Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn after the jump.

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