Whether it is a sequel or a completely new title, video games tend to create a lot of buzz around their release. Gamers are especially lucky at the moment, with various highly-anticipated sequels getting ready for release. One such title is that of ‘Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary’. This will arrive on November 15th of this year and the video-gaming world will finally be able to see what developments have been made to the first-person shooter game that set the precedent for all other games of this type.

The previous title of ‘Halo: Combat Evolved’ was released on November 15th of 2001 and really impressed gamers with its unique storyline and intense gameplay. It is likely that even some people who did not usually play video games, preferring instead to play things like partypoker or Scrabble thought that this game looked impressive and gave it a go. It was announced during the Microsoft press conference at the 2011 E3 Expo that ‘Halo: Combat Evolved’ is to be remade by 343 Industries, Saber Interactive and Certain Affinity, including an in-house game engine and a release suitable for the Xbox 360.

This remake will mark the 10th anniversary of the release of the original game and will come with many new developments. Players will find achievements, Terminals and Skulls and for those who want to play with others, there will be online multiplayer and cooperative play functionality. As well as all of these great features, ‘Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary’ will be the first in the Halo series that features Kinect support. It will be interesting to see how the gaming world receives this new version of Halo, and hopefully it will be a positive development for the world of video games.

Agent Dylan slowed his pace as he approached the high end hotel where his target was staying. Just as he had been trained, he quickly approached the guard at the front doors and prepared to disarm him. Slapping on a pair of pink sunglasses he walked up to the doors. The burly guard grunted in disgust and pretended not to see the big man in pink sunglasses standing in front of him.

“Hey there! I’ve got a tazer joke for you!” exclaimed Dylan a little too loud for comfort.

With embarrassment for the pink sunglass adorned man in front of him, the guard gruffly replied, “Sure, whatever. Get a move on.”

“Knock, Knock!”

“Fine then, I’ll humour you…If you’ll leave right after. Who’s there…”

Before the guard even had time to finish the intended response, Dylan had whipped out an oversized pocket taser from the 90’s and gave the guard a good zap in the face. Screaming like a girl with a mix of shock, and horror the guard didn’t even bother to fight back. Instead, he ran off down the street yelling something in half Italian about how he hated the “stupid Americans who just couldn’t keep their tasers to themselves”.

With apparent smugness, Dylan strolled through the revolving doors into a brightly lit lobby with adorned marble flooring. He hurried across the large room as fast as possible without drawing attention to himself and boarded the elevator. As the elevator music began, Dylan flashed back to the day he had joined the FISH, Federal Intelligence Spy Hangout. Looking at himself in the elevator mirror, Dylan pulled up his belt buckle up tight as he felt a sense of pride in his career achievements. He had rescued a little girl from a hostage situation involving a man with an air gun and taken bullets in the foot one night when a drunk had accidentally fired his sidearm. He quickly became a legend with the local police department. FISH, who told him they had their eye on him for a long time, secretly requested he come work for them. He received a new codename, “Dylan”, a new identity, and passed the “training for disabled agent’s” exam. Now it was his time to prove he could do better.

His target, a FISH highly wanted international stuffed animal thief, had acquired the hotel penthouse. No doubt he paid for his room with the money he made from fake limited edition stuffed bunny sales, thought Dylan, proud of his own skill in deduction. The elevator bell chimed and the sleek brushed metal elevator doors slid smoothly open. Dylan slid his tranquilizer pistol from it’s holster and loaded a dart. Walking up to the penthouse door he rammed his full body weight against it, forcing it to break open at the hinges. He coughed loudly as he levelled his gun through the cloud of woodchips and dust, he realized he was looking straight at a group of men sitting around a table of stuffed animals. With horror it dawned on him, this wasn’t any old guys night out, these were the leading creators of all limited edition stuffed animals! Fluffy Joe and his legendary fur jacket, Bill Stuffmor and his son, and many more of the leading stuffed animal creators sat with Dylan’s target, the evil international stuffed animal thief.

If FISH had know about this meeting they wouldn’t have sent him, Dylan thought. Something big is going down. Pulling himself back together he focused back on the table.

“What are you doing here?” he commanded them to give an answer in an obviously fake English accent. None of the men, shocked by the sight of a pink glasses-wearing guy with a tranc gun showing up in their lair, dared answer until Fluffy Joe squeaked,

“I surrender! I only wanted to make more fluffy things!”

“Great help you are,” mumbled Dylan.

Suddenly there was an explosion of shattering glass as black-ops commandos swarmed in through every side of the penthouse. Swarming around the table, the commandos shouted commands like “Get on the ground!” and “Drop the stuffed animal!” Through the confusion Agent One, the big boss, strutted up to Dylan and flipped up his dark shades.

“Unfortunately we only received intelligence about the illegal deal going down here today after you left on your mission, Dylan.” Agent One informed him in a thick British accent. “For all your hard work and trouble, I now promote you…too…whatever the rank above whatever you are now. You are dismissed!” Agent One coughed uncomfortably, turned on his heel and disappeared into the crowd of massive black-ops.

Once again, Agent Dylan felt he had saved the day; he was the hero. Once again, he was oh so wrong.

OR

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Google: “Official Name Change”

Early in March, 2010, the mayor of Topeka signed a proclamation that for the duration of the month, the town would be known as “Google”. This seemingly outrageous action turns out to be an attempt at promoting the central US state capitol as a central hub of Google’s new lightning fast network testing. In return, Google decided to prank the world by announcing their change of name to “Topeka” in honor of the town changing it’s name to “Google”. Their April fools blog post really didn’t fool many people as the such an announcement really came as a bit over the top although very well executed.

Youtube: Textp saves bandwidth and new design shocks world.

For a moment, Youtube’s “Textp” almost seemed like it could possibly be a real, although slightly silly project. The idea was that “Textp” could be selected instead of High Definition to save Youtube’s monthly bandwidth bill.

Unfortunately, the extremely eye pleasing ACSII text effect rendering was disabled by Youtube at the end of the day causing a huge stir of discontent among users who missed out. To top it off, Youtube released a new site design the same day causing most users to think the over-simplified new look was another April fools joke. With a new style looking like it was made by a novice web developer and an awesome April fools joke which was disabled after only one day, Youtube lost plenty of brownie points with it’s users. Let’s just hope they find a way to earn them back with something groundbreaking.

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In June 2000, Bush ran and won the US Presidency. His views which demanded for a shift in policy for amendments banning abortion, gender-neutral marriage, carbon emissions controls, and immigrant work program won him much support. Even so, he received a huge anti war response when he sent US troops into Iraq because of terrorism by Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein. Two million people marched through London and many riots started. People in England who knew almost nothing about what was really going on decided they didn’t want to be paying taxes to send their troops to fight a war. The biggest hit was yet to come when on September 11, 2001, I drew back, shocked, when I saw the iconic twin towers billowing smoke. Only months into his presidency, Bush had to deal with the loss of hundreds of lives as the buildings fell, struck by hijacked planes.

Despite all the major events and economic crises, Bush stood firm in his values and guided the United Stats to a path of peace and strength. A few of his actions include bailing out American International Group for eighty-five billion, dealing with soaring oil prices, and trying to hold on to the dollar’s value during the longest post-World War II recession ever. He lived his presidency as a light in the midst of much confusion and degrading morals and demonstrated amazing leadership skills as our country went through some tough events. Even today, I pray for him that he will continue to use his skills, out of presidency, for the good of our nation. Promoting Godly foresight made George Walker Bush an incredible leader and role model who I will look up to for the rest of my life.