I would like to ask a simple question to my readers. Is it just me or does anyone else not care about Halo: Reach?

First off, I am not a Halo hater. Halo: Combat Evolved was one of the most original and entertaining shooters to ever grace a console system. I have spent many hours playing Halo with my friends. We had a blast hosting Halo parties and console-linking two Xbox systems together. Then Halo 2 came out and again we would spend hours taking turns driving around in warthogs and running over people in multi-player. Good times! A little while later, Halo 3 came out. I can't tell you how many times my friends and I played capture the flag, Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch. We killed eachother so many times with the plasma sword...yep...fun times. By the time Halo Wars came out I started to feel my nostalgia wearing a bit thin. Oh, look...Warthogs...how neat. Sub-par RTS controls...awesome! By now, I kind of figured Bungie was running out of ways to repackage the same old crap and we would never see another Halo game again. Well, as it turned out, I was wrong.

Bungie, after spending all the profit from Halo 3: Legendary Edition sales on hookers and blow, decided to create a small side project to fill the lull between Halo 3's completion and Halo: Reach. Originally billed as a 2-3 hour mini-campaign, Halo: ODST became a full game after the team that was supposed to work on Peter Jackson's Halo Chronicles and the Halo Film suddenly found themselves with nothing to do after both projects where canceled (There is a god!).

In ODST you no longer played as a spartan but some random dudes who spent most their time dressed like spartans, fighting the same old aliens as in every other Halo game, in the same city that Master Chief blasted his way through in Halo 2. One might think, "if the plot is so stale perhaps Bungie focused on improving the gameplay". Wrong! ODST plays a lot like a video game version of Halo cosplay. Where everyone is dressed up like master chief but they all run and jump like a bunch of fat guys in a vat of corn syrup. ODST's story was crafted because "Fans wanted to know what happened back on Earth, how humanity was defending it.". I guess Bungie felt they needed to address this... personally... I think the Halo fan-fiction had this angle covered.

Today, Reach is being hyped on just about every major video game media outlet. Now, I could sit here and write a paragraph or two laying out the details of the game but that is a lot of work and I am a lazy man. So, here is Halo: Reach in a nutshell: Same aliens, more Spartans, same gameplay and at the end of the game you lose (Reach falls to the covenant).

Some might say I am being too harsh on Reach. After all, it isn't out yet and I am already criticizing it. Well, considering Bungie's track record with innovation in the Halo series, Halo: Reach is going to end up being more of the same game we have been playing since 2001. Feel free to call me out on this if I am wrong...but don't hold your breath. I don't want anyone's death on my conscience. As for ODST , I am not buying it. I know there will be morons who will give Bungie more of their money to play repackage gameplay from 9 years ago but I won't be among their number. So long Halo universe... we had some good times but I am moving on to better gameplay and greener gaming pastures.