Halo

About

Halo is a multi-billion dollar science fiction shooter franchise owned by Microsoft Studios and released by Bungie, Inc. and 343 Industries. It quickly became a critical and commercial success, and one of the Xbox’s most successful franchises.

History

The original Halo game, titled “Halo: Combat Evolved” was released on November 15, 2001.^[1] It stars a super-soldier named The Master Chief^[2], and follows his attempts to discover the secrets of the ring-shaped artificial world known as Halo. The game was critically acclaimed, with many heralding it as the Xbox’s Killer App.^[3] Due to is popularity, the video game was followed with two sequels, released in November 2004^[4] and September 2007^[5], respectively. There have also been several spin-off games, such as Halo: Reach^[6], set as the prequel to the original trilogy, and Halo 3: ODST^[7], set between the events of Halo 2 and 3. At E3 2011, Halo 4 and Halo CE: Anniversary^[8], an HD remake of the original title, were announced.

Halo 4 is set to dive deeper into the personal stories of both Master Chief and Cortana, his AI companion.^[9] It is slated for release on November 6, 2012, and is to be the first in a new trilogy known as the Reclaimer trilogy. In preparation for Halo 4, Microsoft commissioned “Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn”^[15], a live-action series designed to draw in new players to the Halo universe, as well as explain details of the Halo 4 story. Halo 5 and Halo 6 have been announced by the production team at 343 Industries, but there has been no specified release date for either of these titles.

Online Relevance

Halo has a large presence on sites like 4chan’s /v/^[10] board, Tumblr and Reddit’s gaming subreddit^[11]. Halo is also popular in Rooster Teeth productions, as well as Machinimas in general, with many popular series spawning from it. Halo also has a dedicated fansite, named Planet Halo^[12], as well as its own wiki^[13].

Red vs. Blue

Red vs. Blue is a Machinima series created and owned by Rooster Teeth Productions. It has become one on the pioneering an most influential machinimas as a whole. The story of Red vs. Blue is separate from that of the main Halo franchise, and is said to take place in “that moment when you throw the controller at the wall,” as stated by Rooster Teeth CEO, Burnie Burns. It tells of two factions of soldiers known as Red Team and Blue Team. The two teams know nothing more than the fact that their objective is to kill the other team. However, their incompetence usually prevents this from occurring, and more than often, the two teams wind up joining sides to combat a common enemy.

Arby ‘n’ the Chief

Arby ‘n’ the Chief^[14] is a machinima/live-action series produced by Jon CJG. The story chronicles the lives of two living action figures, Master Chief and the Arbiter. The running gag in the series is that the two toys are polar opposites from their in game counterparts. For example, Master Chief in the Halo series is the brave hero of humanity who slaughters thousands of aliens and always puts the safety of others above everything else, whereas the Chief toy in Arby ‘n’ the Chief is an immature, selfish, coward who will only do things for others if it helps him in the long run. The duo spend most of their time either playing Halo or wallowing in their own miseries. While playing Halo, they usually end up finding and stopping any number of hackers who are trying to destroy _Halo_’s mulitplayer mode.

Related Memes

Tea-bagging

Tea-bagging is a term used in video games to describe a player their character over a corpse and crouching up and down repeatedly. It is often used during online multiplayer games in an attempt to troll the user who’s character has just been killed, and make their death more humiliating. It is thought to have originated from the online mode in Halo: Combat Evolved, and grew in popularity before spreading to other games.

Pretty Cool Guy

Pretty Cool Guy is a snowclone, used to show approval to something. The first notable usage, was on 4chan’s /v/ board, when a user made a post in reference to Master Chief, saying: