The Halo Informer: February 2014

I found this recently on a website where parents give reviews on certain video games and say what they think the minimum age of players should be. This one on Halo 4 said it should be Teen for specifically 13 and up. This is what the parent said:

Better than the other games

Something that I have come to love about the "Halo" seriese is that the profanity has seemed to decrease throughout the series. For example, Halo 1(alot of profanity) Halo2(Not to much) Halo 3(barely any) Halo: Reach(Mabye one or two words, and Halo 4(This game, has none). This to me is by far the best Halo game I have ever played, and is better than any other FPS(First Person Shooter) out there today. There is no profanity or gore in this game and the only violence is blue blood from the alians(There is red blood if you shoot your own team mates, but the game will penalize you if you choose to attack your own team). I give this game a 9 out of 10 (because of minor fake blood)

There ya go! Doesn't get much better than that! But I will post other responses from other parents. When this parent said that there was no swearing in Halo 4, I actually disagree. There are, that I have personally heard from the entire game (Excluding Spartan Ops), was about two. They were so minor though, that I don't even remember what they are or when they were said. Everything else I completely agree with. So, this was yet another post to go into the wide collection of posts on The Halo Informer! Look forward for more posts coming soon!

Hello parents, guardians, and caregivers of your child. If you are looking for an essay on how to make cupcakes… GONGRATULATIONS! You found the wrong essay! If you are looking for an essay about Halo: Reach and how clean it is compared to other TEEN games, keep reading! If you did not wish to find an essay on Halo: Reach… Keep reading anyways. This essay is NOT a persuasive essay to make you want to buy Halo: Reach, it is rather an informational essay on why it is the cleanest of all the Halo games. (And probably of all M games.)

First off, don’t you hate games and movies that is either about the bad guys, or makes the good guys look bad? Me too. Another thing that I hate is that even if you play as the good guys, or watch them on a movie; they act badly, contradicting their role in the game or movie. Or perhaps, you play as or watch the good guys, and yet they fight for the wrong things or do the wrong things in combat. The thing that I hate the most is inappropriate scenes or images. Halo: Reach has NONE of that stuff. Allow me to explain in the next paragraph. PLEASE KEEP READING.

First things first. The basics of the game. The plot, game, and characters. First of all, you look at the name of the game. Halo, no, it is not meant to be irreverent; let me explain. In the first three games of the Halo series, you have to destroy a giant space structure that is the shape of a Halo. The structure was built by ancient humans that, when activated, will destroy all sentient life in the galaxy… mainly the Flood, an infectious parasite. But we are getting off track, back to Halo: Reach. You are in the future and you are playing as a super-soldier that was sent as a replacement for a teammate that was killed. The teammate was part of a specialized squad called Noble Team that has been stationed on a planet called Reach. Reach, however, is the last line of defense before Earth. That is why you are engaged by aliens towards the beginning of the campaign. These aliens are part of an alien alliance called the Covenant. Not the best name, but again it is not meant to be irreverent. The aliens are not scary evil horror movie monsters, but they are not cute little weak animals… except for maybe the Grunts… You have to remember, this an FPS. It has to have some seriousness in it.

Now, time to talk about the characters. You are playing as Noble Six. The reason why you never hear his real name or see his face is because he is supposed to be YOU. Throughout the game, you are able to customize your soldier to your liking. Although, it does take time to unlock armor, since you have to obtain a certain rank in order to equip your soldier with other armor. Now Six’s teammates are Karter, Kat, Emile, George, and June. Karter, Noble One, is the team leader and a very good guy. Kat, Noble Two, is the scout with a robotic right arm, cool accent, and is very good with technology. June, Noble Three, is the sniper of the team. Emile, Noble Four, is all around cool, he is the one with the shotgun and big combat knife. George, Noble Five, is the buffest and toughest of all of them, and that is why he is the one that carries around the giant menacing Minigun.

Next is cleanliness. NOTHING inappropriate. No suggestive themes, sexual themes, no innuendo, nobody is immodest, (Probably because they are wearing full body armor throughout the entire game.), and Halo: Reach is completely fine in this area. When you customize your Spartan, or soldier, if you are a girl, you have the option to make your Spartan a female and the only difference between male Spartans and female Spartans is that females are slightly thinner than the males.

Next is blood. First off, you have a shield, not health. Health is how many bullets you have in you and how long you have to live. Your shield absorbs all of your hits and it runs out the more you are hit. It does eventually regenerate if you are not hit for a period of time. The most blood you will see is that when you are hit, red stuff comes out, (It looks like dust from a distance, and it is slightly more graphic when up close), and you fall over; and maybe some blood here and there, but no large puddles all over the place. (I recently read that if there are small blood puddles, if you are playing campaign with someone else at the same time, the game eventually deletes puddles due to the fact that the more blood and colliding particles there is the more the FPS will slow down.) Proof that there is almost NO blood is that in a REAL M rated game, with a sword or a combat knife, you could chop off body parts and blood would splatter all over the place. In Halo: Reach, however, if you take an Energy Sword and kill someone with it, there is no blood! Just a flash of light from their shields being destroyed, and they fall over. If you melee someone, instead of slashing them with your combat knife, you just hit them with your gun! Again, no blood. Even when you ‘assassinate’ someone, when you sneak up behind an alien and kill them from behind with your combat knife, all you see is a flash of light, (Even the aliens have shields, not health.), and it just falls over. But in order to ‘assassinate’ a person or an AI, you have to hold down a certain button, so killing your opponent in this way is completely optional. The same effect happens when you get run over by any type of vehicle, a flash of light and you fall over. There is one exception to the subject of blood, however. In one of the cut scenes in the campaign, it shows a killed scientist on the ground, lying in a puddle of blood. Although it does not show a close up, the beginning of the video shows you inspecting the body for evidence of any scientific files left behind by the main antagonists. Other than this, there is nothing more intense than this brief moment.

After blood, people usually ask about this subject next, language. Out of the ENTIRE game, all you hear, (If you can even hear it, most of the time you can’t.), is about 5 swear words. Out of the entire game, not per level, but throughout all levels. They don’t say anything worse than the A word.

As we all know, nobody should be playing a game with extreme violence. Yes, it is a First Person Shooter, but you can set it to third person. Also, the game takes place in the future, which means it is not very realistic. But violence is a very large category, and to make the violence worse, it depends on other factors within combat including swearing in battle, gore, blood, horror monsters or scenes, and what or who you are fighting. And you are fighting aliens, not other people. The only way you can fight other people is if you play co-op, (or online multiplayer which requires a paid Xbox live membership), it’s just you and anyone else who wants to play with you. You can either be alone on a map with your friend or dad or whoever and just do whatever, or you can play the campaign with someone else, which allows you to play with someone else or your dad so that you can have parental guidance if you mom suggests it.

Good messages. First, Halo: Reach teaches that the Military is good and that not only does it save the world and everyone in it, but it teaches that the Military saves worlds! It also teaches that the soldiers in the Military are very good people. Two members of Noble Team sacrifice their lives in order to save the rest of the team. It also teaches about teamwork and to work with your friends. Another thing that surprises people is that the creators of Halo: Reach wanted the game to more like a sandbox game. They wanted people to do what they have been doing for years so that the players could have more fun. So, the creators of Halo introduced Forge. Forge is when you can become an ‘Oracle’ and fly around taking pieces of architecture that was put into the game and using those to build whatever you want! You can build bases, buildings, obstacle courses, or just cool looking stuff! You can make a CTF map, a team death match map, or you can create your own mini campaign! When you are done, you can turn back into a Spartan and just play around! Then, if you want, you can share your map with people all around the world and let them see your creation! And another thing, the higher the rank you achieve, the higher the rank of the Elites you are allowed to play as! In forge, you can choose if you want to play as an Elite or a Spartan. Even more fun!

Hopefully this essay helped you learn a little more about Halo: Reach and exactly what it is and what is in it.

P.S. I know all of this from actual gameplay and reviews. This is not made up or made of a bunch of guesses.

If you would like to learn more about this game, here are some links to some website pages on Halo: Reach.

http://www.halopedia.org/Halo:_Reach

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo:_Reach

Links to more stuff about Halo: Reach if you are still unsure.

A mother that is wondering why Halo: Reach is rated M.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100911184213AAU23mI

Halo: Reach- Should it be Teen?

http://www.gamerdad.com/blog/2010/09/17/halo-reach-should-it-be-t-teen/

Opinion on Halo: Reach’s M rating and the ESRB

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/123481/Opinion_On_Halo_Reachs_M_Rating_And_The_ESRB.php

Please read the section titled: Why is it that James Bond: 007 Bloodstone has a T rating for alcohol and tobacco reference, blood, mild language, mild suggestive themes, and violence, whereas Halo: Reach is rated M for only blood and violence?

The Halo Informer

Friday, February 14, 2014

Age Recommendations Average

What I Found

Better than the other games

Monday, February 10, 2014

Please Leave Comments!

Monday, February 3, 2014

Halo Interview

Halo: Reach - What It Is And What Is In It