Gamertell

Halo has gone from being a mere video game to a full scale phenomenon and the engine shows no signs of stopping. Its third installment has sold an amazing 8 million copies and sold $170 million worth of games in the US in its first 24 hours. In his keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced two new Halo games will ship this year.

First up is Halo Wars, a radical departure from the first-person shooter heroics that made the franchise famous. Instead, it’s a real-time strategy game and it’s being done by Ensemble Studios, not Bungie who originally developed the series. Microsoft hopes this incarnation will reach an even greater audience because it is the first Teen-rated Halo game. That makes it readily available to players 13 and older while all previous games in the series have drawn a “Mature” rating. It’s slated to hit shelves in North America on March 3, 2009.

The next Halo project is a more traditional first-person shooter, Halo ODST (ODST stands for Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, the game universe’s elite special ops unit). Microsoft Entertainment and Devices division president Robbie Bach said this one will feature the series’ signature action and feature “new characters, new scenarios and new events taking place in the universe.” They infiltrate enemy territory by orbital dropping into areas conventional marine groups couldn’t reach. This one is expected to drop into North American landing zones Fall 2009.

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