The Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings is written by master English author J. R. R. Tolkien.

The story stars the hobbits Frodo Baggins, Samwise "Sam" Gamgee, Meriadoc "Merry" Brandybuck and Peregrin "Pippin" Took, but also the hobbits' chief allies and travelling companions: the Men Aragorn son of Arathorn, a Ranger of the North, and Boromir, a Captain of Gondor; Gimli son of Gloin, a Dwarf warrior; Legolas Greenleaf, an Elven prince; and Gandalf, a Wizard.

The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien is too well-known, and too complex, to be summarised in full. Succinctly, it is by far the most recent addition to the canon of Western epic literature and is the epic which set the stage for the entire High Fantasy genre that followed in its wake. Interestingly, the story was originally intended as a shorter sequel to The Hobbit, but as its author famously remarked, "the tale grew in the telling." The Silmarillion, posthumously published, serves as a prequel to this, though its material was first written of all.

A day will come when I stop loving these books...

HA! I'm kidding. That day will never come.

The Halo Video Games Series

The Halo game series was developed by Bungie Studies before being taken over by 343 Industires.

Star: John. Rank: Master Chief Petty Officer, UNSC Navy. Serial number: SPARTAN-117. Occupation: Professional Alien Ass kicker. Special notes: Supreme Badass.

In the 26th century, humanity is at war with a powerful collective of alien races known as the Covenant, whose religious beliefs have decreed that they should wipe out the human race. While the United Nations Space Command is vastly outmatched by the Covenant's superior numbers and Forerunner-based technology, mankind has one advantage in the form of the SPARTAN-II Super Soldier program. The Spartans, clad in Powered Armor and led by Main Character Master Chief Petty Officer John-117, are unmatched as warriors. Nonetheless, the UNSC is still steadily losing the war: right before the first game starts, the Covenant found Reach, the colony that serves as both humanity's main military base and the doorstep to Earth, and completely overwhelmed it. Close to a billion soldiers and civilians were killed... as well as the entirety of the SPARTAN corps, save the Chief himself. He and Cortana, his Girl In Back Artificial Intelligence, flee the scene aboard a UNSC cruiser which then stumbles across a Forerunner artifact: a giant ringworld, called "Halo", which the Covenant want, because it might have the power to change the course of the war... not to mention that of the entire galaxy.

Halo is one of the best-known Killer Apps. When the original Xbox was announced, there was a lot of skepticism from those who had already experienced the Console Wars and had no reason to believe the Xbox would go anywhere. Their reasoning wasn't inaccurate: Three Is Death in the console market, which (until then) had had trouble supporting even two consoles; and, as released, the Xbox did not (seem to) have anything worth playing. (The fact the original Xbox was an American-made console didn't help, after the disaster the Atari Jaguar was.) But once gamers got their grubby little hands on it, Halo singlehandedly kept Microsoft in the race, with Edge Magazine even going so far as to call it "the most important launch game for any console, ever." All of its sequels have set "biggest-opening-day" records. The franchise as of October 2012 is valued at a cool $3 billion.