Nine years of Master Chief and Halo
If you're reading this, that means that Halo: Reach, the fifth iteration in Bungie's multibillion-dollar video game franchise is finally for sale. Around the country, thousands of people have lined up to be among the first to buy a copy, and you can bet that there will be no small number of people calling in "sick" to work or school on Tuesday after having spent the night in front of their Xboxes.
Though there's no way to know if Halo: Reach will break any sales records, it's a sure bet to be one of the biggest sellers of 2010 and will give Microsoft yet another exclusive title to tout when it promotes the Xbox 360--none of the Halo games is available on Sony's PlayStation or Nintendo's Wii consoles.
But Halo: Reach didn't come out of nowhere. Bungie released the original Halo in 2001 for Microsoft's original Xbox, and the hits haven't stopped coming: first Halo 2, then Halo 3, then Halo Wars (developed not by Bungie, but by Ensemble Studios), Halo 3: ODST and now, finally, Halo: Reach.
To commemorate the game's release, CNET has put together this gallery of screenshots, artists' renderings, concept art, and magazine covers spanning the nine years and six games in the series.
