I can honestly say that I have never played a single second of any Halo game and to be honest I never really had the desire to. The series has always looked a bit “safe” for me, space soldiers jumping all around with sub par graphics and orange blood. The vast majority do not share my opinion on the game as Halo is one the most popular FPS titles to date. Because of that fact I just figured something was wrong with me, that I just didn’t get it.

All of this has possibly changed with the upcoming installment…

From what I have seen thus far the game seems much more polished, dare I say edgier and almost as if it has taken a page out of  the current shooter model and become decidedly more appealing to an adult audience.

I lean more towards the simulation shooter or ones, though far fetched and technically unrealistic, at least have their feet ground in some level of reality. That being said, I still love an Unreal Tournament styled FPS. The recently released Tranformers: War for Cybertron has renewed my interest in these over-the-top arcade-esque experiences. As for Halo, I think it was just a matter of Bungie (Halo Developer) to find a way to get gamers like myself signed on to this otherwise over looked franchise, but how do they do that? They merge with Activision.

Much like World of Warcraft developer Blizzard, Bungie has signed on to a 10 year publishing deal with corporate giant Activision. Activision is the machine behind the Call of Duty series, Rock Band and a slew of other top name titles. So how does this matter in the grand scheme of things, well it comes down to QA. Quality Assurance, Activision has a long standing relationship with consumers (damaged as it may be with the recent quarrel with IW studio heads) simply put Activision publishes some of the best gaming titles period. They are a marketing machine and as such, they know what will sell. With Modern Warfare 2 outselling Halo by a staggering margin it wasn’t much of a shock to me that Bungie has jumped on the Acti-Wagon and tightened up their Halo experience to make it a bit more appealing to Core Gamers. Myself included, coincidence? I think not.