With latest launch, Halo could Reach new heights
 

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This special Halo: Reach kit consists of a metal briefcase that opens to revel a series of

Halo-related items.

(Credit: Matt Fitzgerald/CNET) There's probably no better way to determine who's a hard-

core Xbox player and who's not than this: do they play Halo?

On Final Fantasy XIV GilNovember 15,

2001, the then relatively low-profile video game development studio Bungie, which at the

time was owned by Microsoft, released what would become one of the most significant game

titles ever--Halo: Combat Evolved.

No one knew it at the time, but this storyline, spelled out in the game's manual--for

Microsoft's original Xbox, not the Xbox 360--ushered in what is now nine years and the six

titles of what is easily one of the most successful franchises in entertainment:

The buy ffxiv gilyear is 2552. Planet

Earth still exists, but overpopulation has forced many of her former residents to colonize

other worlds. Faster-than-light travel is now a reality, and Earth's unified government,

through the United Nations Space Command, has put its full weight behind the colonization

effort. Millions of humans now live on habitable planets in other solar systems. A keystone

of humanity's colonization efforts is the planet Reach, an interstellar naval yard that

builds colony ships for civilians and warships for the UNSC's armed forces. Conveniently

close to Earth, Reach is also a hub of scientific and military activity.

Thirty-two years ago, contact with the outer colony Harvest was lost. A battlegroup sent to

investigate was almost completely destroyed; only one badly damaged ship returned to Reach.

Its crew told of a seemingly unstoppable alien warship that had effortlessly annihilated

their forces.

This was humankind's first encounter with a group of aliens they eventually came to know as

the Covenant, a collective of alien races united in their fanatical religious devotion.

Covenant religious elders declared humanity an affront to the gods, and the Covenant

warrior FFXIV Gilcaste waged a

holy war upon humanity with gruesome diligence. After a series of crushing defeats and

obliterated colonies, UNSC Admiral Preston Cole established the Cole Protocol: no vessel

may inadvertently lead the Covenant to Earth. When forced to withdraw, ships must avoid

Earth-bound vectors--even if that means jumping without proper navigational calculations.

Vessels in danger of capture must self-destruct.