I am really looking forward to Halo 4, which surprises me.

A friend of mine and I have had a back and forth about this lately. He was really pumped for Reach and absolutely loved it when it came out, I wasn't at all enthusiastic about Reach, and after it came out felt it was a total disappointment and a waste of time. Like the video game version of a clipshow episode. It felt like I had played it before, only now it was less exciting, lacked any kind of emotional connection with my generic character, and with a story line not even remotely interesting enough to want to consider trying to follow.

Interestingly, my friend and I have swapped places with the announcement of Halo 4. While I was excited at the news, thought it was great 343 was taking over and Bungie was out, and felt it had been just long enough since we have seen Master Chief to make his return a welcome one; my friend's reaction was to roll his eyes and say, "Wait, who asked for more Halo?"

His arguments are that it will be the exact same game as Halo 3, that 343 will feel the need to make it as much like the others as possible to reassure us that it really is Halo, and that Master Chief's storyline was nicely wrapped up in Halo 3 and should have been left that way. For my part, I kind of think 343 will bring a new feel to the game, and I had always thought the Halo 3 ending felt like a cliff hanger rather than a definitive ending.

Having watched the trailer a couple of days ago, I am still excited and really looking forward to it. Looks like my two release date purchases this year will be Borderlands 2 and Halo 4. Nothing else has struck my interest. And I am even skeptical of Borderlands 2, since I don't have any Xbox Live buddies to play it with anymore, and it isn't the kind of game you play alone.