Heads up fellow “Halo” fans, we’ve got some word on just how Bungie will be celebrating the upcoming Anniversary (November 15). Pre-order incentives include: Master Chief Xbox Live Avatar Armor, let us assume this will be gender neutral and not a case of the guys being able to purchase / wear this and us female gamers being screwed once again. As well as the armor comes the Grunt Funeral Skull, an in-game modifying skull that changes the rules of play in multi-player. Let’s expect to hear more come this weekend when 343 Industries hit Comic-Con, full details about that and the other stuff in the full press release below.

Pre-order “Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary” to Unlock Your Inner Master Chief and Pay Tribute to the Lovable Grunt

Join 343 Industries for a special Comic-Con “Halo” Universe panel on July 22

Ten years ago “Halo: Combat Evolved” launched around the world and defined both the shooter genre and a generation of gamers. Microsoft Studios and 343 Industries are celebrating this epic milestone with the launch of “Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary” for Xbox 360 on 15th November and inviting fans to join the landmark celebration with a set of special pre-order bonuses*:

· Master Chief Avatar Armour – Heroes never die, and to honour the 10th Anniversary of John 117, you will finally be able to transform your Xbox LIVE Avatar into the iconic hero by outfitting it with Master Chief’s signature MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armour.

· “Grunt Funeral” Skull – An exclusive, game-modifying skull that changes the rules of the game for an explosively humorous experience, “Grunt Funeral” sends “Halo’s” most lowly and lovable enemy out in a blaze of glory. And plasma. And then more glory. Once the skull has been activated, every grunt’s methane tank will explode like a plasma grenade when killed. Watch out for the grunt chain reaction!

Be sure to check out the latest “Halo: Anniversary” behind-the-scenes feature on Halo Waypoint and HaloWaypoint.com for in-depth developer commentary on the creative process behind developing one of the year’s most highly anticipated games.

To learn more about the “Halo” series and the expansive fiction it helped inspire, drop by 343 Industries’ “Halo” Universe panel at San Diego Comic-Con, where the creative minds behind the franchise will be delivering exclusive insights into the “Halo” universe, answering fan questions and more.

“Halo” Universe Panel with 343 Industries
San Diego Convention Center, Room 6BCF
Friday, 22nd July, 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Frank O’Connor, Kevin Grace, and others from 343 Industries, as well as special “Halo” guests Greg Bear and Karen Traviss, discuss the first 10 years of “Halo” and offer a sneak peek into what’s next for this exciting sci-fi universe.

Developed by 343 Industries in collaboration with Saber Interactive and Certain Affinity, “Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary” immerses you in an authentic, next-generation re-creation of the award-winning campaign and genre-defining multiplayer that revolutionized the first-person shooter genre. Featuring a bounty of new features, including cooperative play over Xbox LIVE**, a bundle of some of the most beloved multiplayer maps in “Halo” history reimagined, a Classic mode that lets you play the original version, new challenges and a new story to uncover, “Halo: Anniversary” launches exclusively on Xbox 360 for an estimated retail price of £34.99 on 15th November 2011.

Gay Girls Who Game host Angela is a self admitting Halo fangirl. She’s bought every game since launch in whatever the mega edition is (other than that RTS title Halo Wars). You will know she is a Halo fangirl from the opening squeal she lets out consisting of “a game I’ve been hangin out for!!!!!!” at the beginning of the review. You may recall Halo: ODST was a bit of a disappointment for Angela, and now the words “First Things First: Male or Female” have redeemed Bungie and once more made them gods, at least in this reviewers heart. Shame about the length… but that isn’t everything. Halo: Reach manages to score the Lara Perkins L Word rating.. not bad!

To see the review skip to around 23mins 50secs in.

For a full written review of the campaign part of Halo: Reach click here.

Halo has put out there weekly update and there’s some Halo: Reach matchmaking news tucked away in there. Rather than padding out the post, here’s what was actually said: “Generally our playlist updates fall on a monthly cycle but sometimes there are exceptions. Take this month, October, for example. We just did an update this past Tuesday and we’ve got another one teed up for approximately 10/19 (pending final testing and review). This next mid-month update will include the addition of the Campaign Matchmaking playlist along with quite a few other tweaks and improvements to existing playlists. The final changes are subject to change and pending final test review but it’s our hope to roll out a dedicated Infection and Snipers playlist amidst a slew of other changes.”

If you want to see the full thing, head over to Bungie’s website.

And so it ends, at its beginning. It’s September 2010 and time for another Halo review, this time in the form of Halo: Reach, a game set chronologically as a prequel to the first Halo game, Halo: Combat Evolved. In some bittersweet twist Halo: Reach is also the swan-song title for Bungie. The story follows Noble Team, a kick ass group of Spartans dealing with the Covenant invasion of the UNSC outpost on Reach. You play a member of this team known as “Noble Six” aka Spartan-B312.

You can customize your Spartan from the get go, once you’re good to go, you’re introduced to your fellow protagonists: Noble Team, a UNSC special operations unit. Each member of Noble Team has a specific skill set and each is fleshed out just enough for you to form a little attachment to them. Noble Six consists of: Carter-A259 tough ass leader, Kat-B320 second-in-command and a lady who dings the gaydar, Jorge-052 heavy weapons specialist, Emile-A239 cool dude and assault specialist and Jun-A266 the marksman.

Finally we get the choice and it rocks!

So to the gameplay
It could be argued that the on foot gameplay of Halo really hasn’t evolved that much over the years, but if it ain’t broke, why fix it. The run and gun sections are exactly what the Halo fan expects and Halo: Reach doesn’t disappoint, though the more cynical may well argue it lacks originality. The only notable difference to the on foot sections is the lack of dual-wielding (which isn’t missed) and the addition of the different armor add-ons, like the rather cool Jet Pack for short range leaps and the Armor Lockdown. The only issue with these was accidental usage, though I suspect that was more down to user incompetence than any actual controller layout problems. Where Bungie has excelled is in mixing up the gameplay so it isn’t only run and gun, Noble Team take part in heroic last stand battles, including space battles and the usual array of land vehicle shenanigans.

Graphics and Sound
Halo: Reach features graphics that have definitely evolved. Environments are lush, character models emote and this is all whilst keeping in with the overall feel of the Halo franchise. As usual the audio in Halo is superlative, with an orchestral soundtrack that kicks in at the right moments and never fails to raise a smile as that well known Halo riff begins. The voice work in Halo: Reach too is top notch, featuring the likes of Jen Taylor, Alona Tal, Jamie Hector and Sunil Malhotra. Add to this secondary characters voiced by the likes of Zachary Levi, Greg Grunberg and Nathan Fillion and you’re speaking voice acting first class.

Meet Kat

Female Gamer Angle
You may recall I made the unmitigated error of – shock horror – suggesting the female character of Veronica Dare in the last Halo title was sub-par, a suggestion that warranted death threats according to some Bungie forum good ole boys. Well that was a year ago and this is a new game that once more features some female character input from Bungie, but did they drop the plasma grenade again like they did with Dare?

In short, not they didn’t, so let’s say it, thank you Bungie. The first screen on Halo: Reach states “First things first: Male or Female” and this is for the player character in the campaign, yes, finally Bungie gets it right and was it really that hard? Did the world crack asunder swallowing us all, no. This addition truly made this game my favorite Halo title and that’s saying something. Running around wiping out covenant scum as a kick ass female spartan is amazing, sure it doesn’t change anything in the gameplay, it’s just the character model and at times a few bits of voice work, but this addition is about so much more than that, this addition is about fairness and choice.

The addition of this choice changes nothing in the game and this is something other developers need to take note of. These are fantastical worlds and should not be based on our own social norming. Female Spartans exist in the Halo universe and therefore should be playable and this should change nothing in the overall game, other than the aforementioned character model to a degree and voicework. Well done Bungie for ‘getting’ it.

As well as getting to play Noble Six, or just Six (which is a hoot for a BSG fan of course), Halo: Reach is awash with female goodness, not least of all in the form of Lieutenant Commander Kat (Catherine-B320) a female spartan who more than dings the gaydar (well we can dream can’t we?). Kat is a great female character because she falls away from that semi-naked, overly feminized version of the female games character we so often see. Kat is a hard ass and the only downside of the character is the silly ass-wiggle she sports, other than that, she’s a cracker!

Two other major female characters make an appearance in Halo: Reach, though for storyline reasons we’re only covering them in the spoiler section at the bottom of this review.

Hooyah! Let’s kick some Brute ass!

So what’s the upshot?
The upshot is Halo: Reach gets almost everything right. The addition of gender choice is merely the icing on the cake of an otherwise wonderful game. At around 9 hours long in campaign mode, Halo: Reach features a great story that brings to light some sweet detail from the Halo universe all wrapped up in plenty of the firefights Halo fans have come to love. If you’re a fan of multiplayer, needless to say the campaign is merely the beginning of things, given Halo: Reach features fully fleshed out multiplayer that fans will no doubt be playing for years to come. All in all Halo: Reach has taken the original Halo formula and added just enough spice to make it feel fresh and new.

U-Haul Rating
Halo: Reach is the hot girl you meet at a rally somewhere. She’s good looking, sweet voice and you know if nasty aliens invaded she’d grab the nearest nail gun with a hooyah! Move her on in, it might be a short love affair, but it’s one hell of a ride.

Halo: Reach gets the Bette Porter L Word rating. It’s stylish, hard ass, but with heart. It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty darn close. It also shows us that women can wear suits and work as well as the guys. Bette Porter kicks ass and so does Halo: Reach, a must have for any Halo fan.

Review Notes With Spoilers!

Don’t read this unless you’ve completed the game or spoilt the story by reading about it elsewhere, you have been warned. – The other female characters who appear in Halo: Reach are of course Dr. Halsey and Cortana (both voiced by Jen Taylor, though Cortana doesn’t say much this time around). As a fan of the Halo games from day one, it was great to see Halsey taking part in such a big way and the Cortana twist was awesome. One thing I wasn’t overly feeling in Halo: Reach was the final Lone Wolf level, it felt, tacked on and though the closing cinematic was clearly there to make an emotional impact, I felt kind of cheated in a way. That said, for those of you who like the whole trying to stay alive as long as you can thing, you no doubt enjoyed it, for me it seemed a little pointless. If you mention these points in the comments PLEASE remember to pre warn people with a SPOILER warning.

The Xbox team know how to do their marketing, though to be honest, the crowd at Trafalgar Square did look a little light on the ground. Still it didn’t stop one cheeky Halo soldier from taking to the skies on a jetpack. The video is below, showing the stuntman in question chatting about the addition of the armor making the flight a bit more tricky, though it goes off without a hitch. Director of Xbox and Entertainment Stephen McGill certainly seemed to enjoy the flight. Check it out below.

Oh Bungie, how you do like to tantalize and tease, you cheeky minx. The image below (in it’s proper sized format) hit the Bungie Twitter feed a wee while ago with the accompanying message “Just got this mysterious image and word that something big is dropping this week?!”. As usual, the fanboys / fangirls are already trying to guess just what it all means. Some of the suggestions so far include a light up Legendary Edition helmet, that its a still from the Halo movie trailer (unlikely), an April Fools joke and a still from a new Halo game trailer (more likely). Sadly we’ll be away when the news hits, but I’m sure you gals and guys will enjoy talking about it in the forums in our absence.

Finally we get a female gaming action figure that doesn’t have it’s breasts the size of beachballs. McFarlane Toys has released more info on the Series 8 Halo action figures. The new line includes figures from Halo Wars, Halo 2, Halo 3, and Halo 3: ODST and it includes the latter games character, Veronica Dare. Now you may recall the hate we copped when we said we weren’t overly happy of the portrayal of Veronica Dare in the game. That view hasn’t changed overly, but we are happy to see they have at least included the Veronica Dare figure in series 8. If you like collecting your Halo action figures, you could do worse than have a mini Tricia Helfer on your geek shelf.

From the Spawn.com site
ONI OPERATIVE DARE (NO HELMET)
HALO SERIES 8
This new version of Captain Veronica Dare features the secretive ONI Operative as she appeared throughout the events of Halo 3: ODST — without her distinctive Recon helmet. Figure comes with Suppressed SMG and Silenced Magnum, and will only be sold at GameStop stores.

Some of you may recall the irrational response my Halo: ODST article received, merely for suggesting the game had elements of sexism, mainly due to the treatment of specific character Veronica Dare. There was little in the followup comments that was thought provoking for me, just a bunch of boys screaming and yelling with hate and general abuse. This week however an article has gone up on HaloWiki by user Dragonclaws and it got me thinking. Firstly it got me thinking about how if someone actually sees what you’re saying as opposed to something they ‘think’ you’re saying it can only aid intelligent debate. It also got me thinking that perhaps I was slightly hasty in my own response to the game and its female ‘hero’.

Though the author – Dragonclaws – disagrees with majority of the article I penned, I enjoyed his article immensely, because rather than name calling and screaming, he’s put forth points as to why he believes some of my points were invalid and – surprise surprise – I agree with some of what he’s saying. We may not agree 100%, but that’s cool, because this has shown there is room for friendly debate here. As I stated in the original article I am – and always have been – a HUGE Halo fangirl, so it was disheartening to have people who love the same games be so hate-filled in response. The original article was never there to upset anyone.

I hope you’ll check out Ryan’s article: Examination of Female Characters in Halo Part 2. It’s well written and considers many points I myself had not and in a calm thought provoking manner. Bravo.

In this episode the intrepid twosome ponder the Halo ODST debacle as they give their thoughts on the game, whilst trying to ignore the Bungie fanboy hate that flooded Lesbian Gamers with regards to this title. Seems like fanboys don’t like other peoples opinions, there’s a shocker. Fanboy stupidity aside Halo ODST is getting a video review because it’s Halo and in the annals (that’s a double “n”) of gaming that’s pretty important. You can check out Gay Girls Who Game take on the Halo ODST debacle in episode 3.16 – that’s season 3 episode 16, or if you like nice round numbers, that’s episode 60 all up at AfterEllen or below.

Just a wee news post to point to a new article that’s just gone live. Having recently completed Halo ODST one thing stood out as more annoying than the short / repetitive gameplay, the less than superb graphics and the over the top hype this game has managed to garner based on name alone. Halo ODST has one of the worst portrayals of a female ‘commander’ in any video game thus far released. One Discourse on Sexism and Tolerance looks at what went so horribly wrong with the character of Veronica Dare and how it could have so easily been avoided. You can leave comments for the full article under this post.