Zac and Zero return for the first co-op Keep Playing review. They became friends playing Halo 2 five years ago, will Halo 3 ODST continue the tradition?
Related Videos: Keep Playing Review: Halo Wars, Halo 3 Leftovers!

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What you don’t know can’t hurt you, right? Is that why the Japanese game industry has been slipping lately? Even prominent Japanese creators are seeing the writing on the wall, saying that they must innovate, “or die”. As if to prove their point, we talk about a mess of games we’ve been playing that were not made in the land of the rising sun.

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Direct Link: Powetcast Episode 20: Be an Earthling First

(Name your dream team comic merger! AT&T still doesn’t own a company. How about Dark Horse? Leave your comments below!)

Show notes after the jump!

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Now Halo is hardly a game that one would consider a lost classic, but given the franchise’s popularity, and since Halo ODST hit stores this past week, now is a good time to take a look at this classic, if for no other reason than to see how far the series has come in the 8 years since Halo sold many an Xbox so long ago. You play as the Master Chief, humanity’s last and best hope against a collective of alien races known as the Covenant. Aided by your fellow crew members and a holographic artificial intelligence known as Cortanta, you blast your way through many covenant soldiers in an attempt to discover the secrets of the artificial planet/space station known as Halo.
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Lets turn the clock back to 2006. It was one year into the Xbox 360’s life cycle, and consumers were either stabbing and shooting each other in order to get their hands on the newly released PS3, or lining up for hours to get their hands on a Wii. Meanwhile, Xbox 360 gamers were still waiting the proverbial ‘killer app’ for the system. While games like Oblivion, Fight Night Round 3, and Saints Row did a good job or keeping players tied over, many of them were just higher resolution versions of games on the original Xbox. What gamers really wanted was Halo 3. Meanwhile, Epic had something brand new up its sleeve. Making use of the brand new Unreal 3 graphics engine, a lifelike alternate world, and unique gameplay features, Gears of War was unleashed on the scene, and it redefined the rules of the shooter genre.
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When E3 hit and Mass Effect 2 was officially revealed, we learned that the fate of your Shepard character rests in your hands: your decisions will ultimately determine if (s)he lives or dies. Apparently BioWare felt this needed clarification, and though it explained a few things, it only served to muddy the waters.

I’m sure there’s more nuance to what was said, but isn’t it much more fun to jump to conclusions? (After the jump!)

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I used to write about Halo on this site all the damn time. Thats when Halo 2 multiplayer was in full swing and Halo 3 stuff was still trickling out. Now Halo 3 updates are so frequent I can’t report on them all, and theres still no news of another game from Bungie Studios.

Well its not a new proper Halo game, but Ensemble’s Real Time Strategy based in the universe should still scratch that itch, at least aesthetically. And to prove that, here is the box art.

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We don’t know when its coming out. Early 2009, probably March or April. Are you interested in playing an RTS based on Halo? Can an RTS really be played with a controller? Does halo have a shot being out of the hands that made the first 3 games a success? Let us know in the comments section.

I won’t kid you: I’m not a huge Rare fan. Loved Donkey Kong Country, but I didn’t grab on to any of their N64 titles, and their debut efforts for the Xbox 360 weren’t my cup of tea either. However, I do like a good platformer, and I’m willing to give Banjo a shot. Its coming in November and they’ve released a gameplay montage to show off the new vehicle building, driving, and flying. Looks like you can get pretty creative!
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