The epic storyline from the XBOX hit, Halo, continues in Halo: First Strike. For those folks who haven't played the game, the year is 2552 and the human race faces extinction. The Covenant, a bunch of religious nut jobs made from alien races, are hell-bent on humanity's destruction. They believe that their gods, who are actually an ancient race called the Forerunners that became extinct, left behind a portal to the realm of the gods. In reality, that portal is actually Halo. Halo is a giant ring-shaped superstructure that the Forerunners built to contain the Flood, an omniparasitic life-form that turns its host into a very realistic zombie. The Covenant's mission to activate the ring would actually destroy all life in the galaxy, since the Flood has to have a an organism to infect it. The Forerunners studied the Flood but fired the rings after the Flood started to spread and destroy all life within "3.2 radi of the galactic center." Spartan 117, a.k.a. the Master Chief, has just destroyed Halo, and is trying to get back to Earth. Along the way, he picks up other survivors, captures a Covenant flagship, and pilots it to Reach, the planet on which he was trained. Believing he is the last Spartan, he flies towards Reach to see if the rest of his team is alive. After catching a transmission containing a signal that only he and his team know, Chief goes down and rescues his team, what's left of the Command base staff and Doctor Halsey (bearing with her an artifact that the Covenant really wants). After a really bad dogfight, they find out that the Covenant knows the location of Earth. They throw together one of the deadliest missions the Chief has ever taken. Their target: the Covenant battle station, the unyielding Hierophant. Their mission: to blow up an entire armada of over 500 Covenant ships.
Will they make it? It's up to you to find out!
Review by Jacob Dittemore
