Halo, My Way!

Why this blog???

The reason for this blog is to show my affection for a videogame known as HALO. Now granted, I have just passed my 29^th birthday, but I am still very much a kid at heart, and still enjoy a good videogame every now and then. This more so now due to all of the advancements in video gaming technology since the advent of Atari, Nintendo, Sega Genesis, and now with the Microsoft XBOX 360 and Sony Playstation gaming consoles. But my love affair is with the Microsoft gaming systems, and the Halo franchise spanning 10+ years with Microsoft and its XBOX Live community.

So for a little bit of history –

History – December 2001

After a very serious car accident, I had just returned home from world renowned, Englewood, Colorado’s Craig Hospital, where I received a rigorous 4 months of top notch physical rehabilitation. Granted, I was well on the right path to being in good physical condition that I am now, but I was still a quadriplegic with normal use of one arm and limited use in the other. Well, being as that it was right around Christmas time, a group of really close friends of mine got together, pooled their funds and bought me the very first Microsoft XBOX that came out. I thought “GREAT” and was very eager to get started, but if anyone else can recall, the gaming controllers were extremely huge and kind of awkward to hold onto. Well, this made it hard for me to hold onto with my right hand that was more quad than para. But I was driven to dominate that controller and play some video games. I found that as time went on, teaching my hand how to compensate for what was lost with my injury was actually a form of therapy for my hand. I had adapted, and managed to get my hand to a level of functionability if you will, that would make life a little bit more simple.

So what is Halo and this crazy fascination with gaming consoles and the online gaming community.

Halo is a multi-billion dollar science fiction video game franchise created by Bungie and now managed by 343 Industries and owned by Microsoft Studios. The series centers on an interstellar war between humanity and a theocratic alliance of aliens known as the Covenant. The Covenant are led by their religious leaders, The Prophets, and worship an ancient civilization known as the Forerunners, who perished in combat with the parasitic Flood. Many of the games center on the experiences of Master Chief John-117, a cybernetically enhanced human super-soldier, and his artificial intelligence (AI) companion, Cortana. The term "Halo" refers to the Halo rings: large, habitable structures that were created by the Forerunners to destroy the Flood. They are similar to the Orbitals in Iain M Banks' Culture novels, and author Larry Niven's Ringworld concept.

The games in the series have been praised as being among the best first-person shooters on a video game console, and are considered the Xbox's "killer app". This has led to the term "Halo killer" being used to describe console games that aspire, or are considered, to be better than Halo. Fueled by the success of Halo: Combat Evolved, and immense marketing campaigns from publisher Microsoft, its sequels went on to break various sales records. Halo 3 sold more than US$170 million worth of copies in the first twenty-four hours of release, breaking the record set by Halo 2 three years prior. Halo: Reach, in turn, broke the record set by Halo 3, selling US$200 million worth of copies on its first day of release. Continuing the trend, Halo 4 broke Halo: Reach's record on its opening day by grossing US$220 million. The games have sold over 50 million copies worldwide, with the games alone grossing almost $3.4 

(Complements to Wikipedia)

So..., what, or who is Synical Saint? Synical Saint is the name I have given to my Avatar, the name you will see for any game I play on XBOX 360, via XBOX Live. Whether if be Halo, Need for Speed or Tiger Woods Golf, the Synical Saint handle will follow me all throughout XBOX 360, & XBOX live.
The remainder of this blog and future posts will pertain to my experience playing Halo, including the tips, tricks and the strategies I have picked up over the years, with a heavy emphasis in the final game of the series, “Halo 4”.