I'll be perfectly honest with you, I'm not a very big sci-fi fan. Which means I'm not into that Lord of the Rings stuff or Star Wars movies(except for theearly ones in the 1970s). The only sci-fi I actually found interesting was H.P. Lovecraft's sci-fi stories that he wrote(The Rise of Cthulu being my favorite). However, the reason I put Halo on my list is because it shares its influence as much as Mario. What do they have in common?Just as Mario put the NES franchise on themap, Halo did the same thing withMicrosoft's first console, the Xbox. Back in2001, Halo was the launch title for the new console andthat day it became the franchise title for the system. It was just one month prior to the release of Halo and the Xbox that RockstarGames released Grand Theft AutoIII for the PS2, whichHalo would compete with as the top franchise in the gaming industry(that is until GTA was released on the Xbox a few years later, which no longer made it an exclusive tiltle for the PlayStation 2).

I first played Halo at my friend's house back in the day and I gotta tellya.The most fun I hadwas notwhile I was playing the story mode, but rather when I was playing multiplayer online. It is definitely the most addictive part of the game. When Halo came out, Xbox live had not been published yet, but people were still able to go online and play against each other.Microsoft would also come out with new multiplayer mapsfor the game and fans of the franchise would praise them for it.Halo gave us the first true online experience and it allowed gamers everywherearound the world to communicate(or trade insults) with each other. Master Chief Petty Officer John-117(strangest and longestname I've ever seen in games), we solute you!