Halo (franchise)
''Halo'' is a military science fiction media franchise, originally developed by Bungie and currently managed and developed by 343 Industries, part of Microsoft's Xbox Game Studios. The series launched in 2001 with the first-person shooter video game '' Halo: Combat Evolved'' and its tie-in novel, '' The Fall of Reach''. The latest main game, ''Halo Infinite'', was released in 2021. ''Combat Evolved'' started life as a real-time strategy game, before morphing into a first-person shooter and releasing as an exclusive on Microsoft's new Xbox video game console after Bungie was acquired by the company. Bungie regained its independence in 2007, releasing additional ''Halo'' games through 2010. Microsoft established 343 Industries to direct the franchise going forward, and has produced games itself and in partnership with other studios. ''Combat Evolved'' was a critical and commercial success, serving as the Xbox's "killer app" and cementing Microsoft as a major player in the video g ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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343 Industries
343 Industries is an American video game developer located in Redmond, Washington, part of Xbox Game Studios. Headed by Pierre Hintze, the studio is responsible for the ''Halo'' series of military science fiction games, originally created and produced by Bungie, and is the developer of the Slipspace Engine. Named after the ''Halo'' character 343 Guilty Spark, the studio was established in 2007 after the departure of Bungie. After co-developing downloadable content for '' Halo: Reach'', Bungie's final ''Halo'' game, 343 Industries released '' Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary'' and ''Halo 4'', the latter starting the studio's " Reclaimer Saga" of the mainline games. History Formation Developer Bungie were acquired by Microsoft in 2000, and their in-development project ''Halo'' turned into a launch title for Microsoft's Xbox console. In 2007, shortly after shipping ''Halo 3'', Bungie announced its split from Microsoft. The rights to ''Halo'' remained with the latter. To oversee ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Twin-stick Shooter
A twin-stick shooter is a subgenre of shoot 'em up video games. It is a multidirectional shooter in which the player character is controlled using two joysticks: one for movement on a flat plane, and one to aim and fire shots at enemies, Usually shots are fired as soon as the second joystick is moved, but in some games there is an additional button which must be held. Keyboard and mouse or touch input can supplant one or both of the joysticks when an arcade machine or controller is not used. Virtual joysticks can be used when a game is played on a touch screen. This control scheme was used in arcade games starting with ''Gun Fight'' in 1975, but came into prominence with the high-action '' Robotron: 2084'' in 1982. The ubiquity of gamepads with two thumb-controlled sticks overcame the difficulty of playing twin-stick shooters at home and eventually led to a resurgence of the genre following the release of '' Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved'' in 2005. History The 1975 arcade ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Flood (Halo)
The Flood is a fictional parasitic alien lifeform and one of the primary antagonists in the ''Halo'' multimedia franchise. First introduced in the 2001 video game '' Halo: Combat Evolved'', it returns in later entries in the series such as ''Halo 2'', ''Halo 3'', and ''Halo Wars''. The Flood is driven by a desire to infect any sentient life of sufficient size; Flood-infected creatures, also called Flood, in turn can infect other hosts. The parasite is depicted as such a threat that the ancient Forerunners constructed artificial ringworld superweapons known as Halos to contain it and, as a last resort, to kill all sentient life in the galaxy in an effort to stop the Flood's spread by starving it. The Flood's design and fiction were led by Bungie artist Robert McLees, who used unused concepts from the earlier Bungie game ''Marathon 2''. The setting of the first game, the ringworld Halo, was stripped of many of its large creatures in order to make the Flood's surprise appearance mo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Factions Of Halo
The ''Halo'' video game and media franchise takes place in a fictional science fiction universe. In the distant past, a race known as the Forerunners fought the parasitic Flood. The Forerunners ultimately activate weapons of mass destruction, the Halo Array, in order to starve the Flood and stop the threat. By the 26th century, humanity, led by the United Nations Space Command (UNSC), is caught in a war with an alien coalition known as the Covenant. The Covenant worship the Forerunners as deities, mistakenly believing that the Halos are a tool of salvation, not destruction. The Flood, meanwhile, escape the confines of Halo and threaten to spread across the galaxy again. A large portion of the series' success lies in the creation of a believable world, and Bungie reinforced the fictional factions the player interacts with via a lengthy design process with the release of each game. The overall design of each faction was slowly developed before the release of the first game in the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Halo3 Ark-and-halo-reborn
''Halo 3'' is a 2007 first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie for the Xbox 360 console. The third installment in the Halo (series), ''Halo'' franchise, the game concludes the story arc begun in 2001's ''Halo: Combat Evolved'' and continued in 2004's ''Halo 2''. ''Halo 3''s story centers on the interstellar war between twenty-sixth century humanity, a collection of alien races known as the Covenant (Halo), Covenant, and the alien parasite Flood (Halo), Flood. The player assumes the role of the Master Chief (Halo), Master Chief, a cybernetically enhanced supersoldier, as he battles the Covenant and the Flood. The game features vehicles, weapons, and gameplay elements not present in previous titles of the series, as well as the addition of saved gameplay films, file sharing, and the Forge (level editor), Forge map editor—a utility which allows the player to perform modifications to multiplayer levels. Bungie began developing ''Halo 3'' shortly after ''Halo 2'' shippe ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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List Of Halo Media
''Halo'' is a science fiction video game franchise created by Bungie and owned and published by Microsoft Studios. Central to the ''Halo'' series are the three first-person shooter video games '' Halo: Combat Evolved'', ''Halo 2'' and ''Halo 3''; novelizations, soundtracks, and other media are also available. The story of the series is about the Master Chief, a cybernetically enhanced human super-soldier and his artificial intelligence (AI) companion, Cortana, as the humans of a futuristic universe battle the Covenant, a theocratic alliance of alien races. The ''Halo'' series has inspired machinima productions, such as '' Red vs. Blue'', and other fan fiction; however, this list only covers media produced or endorsed by series creator Bungie, or the intellectual property overseer 343 Industries. The ''Halo'' video games have been highly successful and influential; the first game was labeled the killer application of Microsoft's Xbox and was credited with selling many consol ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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List Of Highest-grossing Media Franchises
This article lists notable highest-grossing media franchises. Due to companies and corporations rarely reporting the total revenue(s) figures of their franchises, the list uses estimated figures based on publicly available data and includes the total estimated revenue figure(s) and their breakdown. List See also * List of best-selling comic series **List of best-selling manga **List of best-selling light novels *List of best-selling video game franchises *List of highest-grossing mobile games *Lists of multimedia franchises *Lists of highest-grossing films **List of best-selling films in the United States **List of films by box office admissions **List of highest-grossing films **List of highest-grossing animated films ** List of highest-grossing Japanese films **List of highest-grossing non-English films These are the highest-grossing, primarily non-English language films in the world. The vast majority of them are Chinese films. Film and language In terms of gross ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Killer App
In marketing terminology, a killer application (commonly shortened to killer app) is any computer program or software that is so necessary or desirable that it proves the core value of some larger technology, such as computer hardware, a video game console, software, a programming language, a software platform, or an operating system. In other words, consumers would buy the (usually expensive) hardware just to run that application. A killer app can substantially increase sales of the platform on which it runs. Early use of the term "Killer Application". Early use of the term "Killer App". Examples One of the first recognized examples of a killer application is generally agreed to be the VisiCalc spreadsheet for the Apple II series. Because it was not available on other computers for 12 months, people spent $100 for the software first, then $2,000 to $10,000 on the Apple computer they needed to run it. ''BYTE'' wrote in 1980, "VisiCalc is the first program available on a microc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Real-time Strategy Game
Real-time strategy (RTS) is a subgenre of strategy video games that do not progress incrementally in turns, but allow all players to play simultaneously, in "real time". By contrast, in turn-based strategy (TBS) games, players take turns to play. The term "real-time strategy" was coined by Brett Sperry to market ''Dune II'' in the early 1990s. In a real-time strategy game, each participant positions structures and maneuvers multiple units under their indirect control to secure areas of the map and/or destroy their opponents' assets. In a typical RTS game, it is possible to create additional units and structures, generally limited by a requirement to expend accumulated resources. These resources are in turn garnered by controlling special points on the map and/or possessing certain types of units and structures devoted to this purpose. More specifically, the typical game in the RTS genre features resource-gathering, base-building, in-game technological development, and indirect ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Fall Of Reach
''Halo: The Fall of Reach'' is a military science fiction novel by Eric Nylund, set in the ''Halo'' universe, and acts as a prelude to '' Halo: Combat Evolved'', the first game in the series. The book was released in October 2001 and is the first ''Halo'' novel. It takes place in the 26th century across several planets and locations. The novel details the events which led up to the game and explains the origins of the SPARTAN-II supersoldiers, narrating the story of the series protagonist, the Master Chief. ''The Fall of Reach'' was conceived after Nylund had discussed the possibility of a ''Halo'' novel with Microsoft's Franchise Development Group. A "Halo Story Bible" was created to assist Nylund in keeping with ''Halo'' canon. The novel was written in seven weeks, Nylund's shortest writing deadline. The book was well received by critics, who thought it added depth to the plot of the game, but the large number of characters was highlighted as a shortcoming. Going on to sell o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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First-person Shooter
First-person shooter (FPS) is a sub-genre of shooter video games centered on gun and other weapon-based combat in a first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action through the eyes of the protagonist and controlling the player character in a three-dimensional space. The genre shares common traits with other shooter games, and in turn falls under the action game genre. Since the genre's inception, advanced 3D and pseudo-3D graphics have challenged hardware development, and multiplayer gaming has been integral. The first-person shooter genre has been traced back to ''Wolfenstein 3D'' (1992), which has been credited with creating the genre's basic archetype upon which subsequent titles were based. One such title, and the progenitor of the genre's wider mainstream acceptance and popularity, was ''Doom'' (1993), often considered the most influential game in this genre; for some years, the term ''Doom'' clone was used to designate this genre due to ''Doom''s i ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washington, United States. Its best-known software products are the Windows line of operating systems, the Microsoft Office suite, and the Internet Explorer and Edge web browsers. Its flagship hardware products are the Xbox video game consoles and the Microsoft Surface lineup of touchscreen personal computers. Microsoft ranked No. 21 in the 2020 Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue; it was the world's largest software maker by revenue as of 2019. It is one of the Big Five American information technology companies, alongside Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, and Meta. Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen on April 4, 1975, to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800. It rose to do ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |