PixlBit

Love seeing Raz there as your pic!

Oracle of Ages/Seasons sounds like a good idea.

Part of it might because she's a woman, but I think it's a choice made by 343 Industries. I mean, Karen has written plenty of male centric stuff. She did all the Gears of War books for instance. Stuff I think is just too dude-bro for me. Also, there's a scene in Halo Reach where Halsey appears and acts cold and bossy. Maybe Bungie intended her to be like that from the beginning. I have to go get an audio recording of the Fall of Reach novel again and see how Halsey is portrayed there. That's the memory I'm going on here. Maybe it's off base.

I think you're refering to the New Jedi Order books. Karen wrote one of the 19 books in that series; an e-book called Boba Fett: A Practical Man. The rest were done by all different authors. Karen did a bunch of other Star Wars books though like the Republic Commando series and several books in the Legacy of the Force series. I want to read those Republic Commando books because I thought the story of the game was interesting.

I got to get into Skylanders sometime. Skylander and Disney Infinity toys take up a whole section in several retail stores I go to now.

Yes! I want to photoshop something up with those three things and a chess board.

Playing Etrian Odyssey Untold all the time right now. I preordered Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus and just bought Red Faction: Guerrilla. 

That Zelda game looks interesting, but I really really want to play Wind Waker HD right now.

OMG! Green Hill Zone music. Just add my cursing over top it and you get what it was like when I played Sonic for the first time.

That Sky Sanctuary music is fun to listen to.

Thought about this topic all day today. It all just comes down to two things I haven't jived with from 343's take on Halo.

     1. Dr. Halsey as a villain. Yes, she headed the program to abduct children for the Spartan II program, but she's not alone in the blame. She had a superior who had to write off on this project who had his superiors who also had to ok it all. The whole UNSC brass are really in collusion here and to have members of the military not support its own programs is unbelievable to me. Yes, the public would have something to say about this program, but the military, even a fictional one, would protect it's own. It's just what they do. Also, in light of the fact that the program created Master Chief who was the single most important force that led humanity to victory over the Covenant. I think that has to be taken into account. 

    2. Master Chief's "romance" with Cortana. This appeared at key moment in Halo 4 and I nearly laughed myself silly and then got angry at what was happening to Halo. I get it that they have to try and make Halo more appealing to the mainstream and so they need a romance, but with MC and Cortana? Cortana is an AI construct and occupies no physical space other than electricity and the circuits that transmit her program. It's absurd! MC had a romance going in Nylund's Fall of Reach book with a female Spartan. Now that makes sense. I even thought it made a strange kind of sense for MC to have a gay relationship with The Arbiter. They're two of a kind but from different alien races. But to Cortana? I guess 343 had no choice because they are such major characters, but I think it's the dumbest, most rediculous thing I've seen in gaming lately.

It's all in the books and comics this is happening recently. The games still center on the men. Laskey in the miniseries and Master Chief in Halo 4. I definitely like the female Spartans, but it does seem like they're keying in to the 'tropes vs. women' thing and trying to bring more women in the Halo experience.

Somehow I think the new interpretation of Dr. Halsey is fueled by the outrage over abduction of children to create the Spartan II's like Master Chief; to try and sanitize the story by showing moral outrage.