We left off with chief and the cadets rolling on after narrowly missing a sticky grenade.

What the…..look out!

A bug in the windshield this is not. Lasky hits a Jackal with the Hog. Okay, now I’m SO glad we got to see the Jackals closer up. The Jackals in the series look like the Halo 4 style, not the classic trilogy. I’m fine with that. I suspect 343 wants we viewers to get a little used to the new look before the game, so they dropped them in here. I actually don’t mind the look too much. They do look more fierce and almost dinosaur like. I know some  have compared them to mini Godzillas from one of the recent movies. Hell, I did. But I meant it more as a cool thing, not a detraction as others have.

Anyway…

In the next sequence we see Master Chief act quickly and tend to Sully with some medical foam. Sadly, Chyler’s been hit and needs medical attention. Unfortunately, Chief used up all the foam on Sully.

Okay, so I called it did I not? Last week I said Chyler had to die and yep, looks like she’s on the way to doing just that. I mean, she’s got this huge needle sticking out of her abdomen, there’s no life saving foam, they’re in the middle of a war zone.

If you read the article where I speculated on this, I mentioned along the lines that this was a necessary plot line. Chyler dying forces Lasky to become a military man for life. He has noone left that he loves. His relationship with his mother is not that of mother and son, but more Officer to Enlisted. Not much love there.

Orenski notices that the enemy forces seem to be withdrawing. Chief states that their now being “hunted.” Now if you watched the previews for this episode last week, you know what this means. If not you were/are for one hell of a surprise…

Next review of Episode 5: Part 5, The Hunted.

The action starts to heat up as Master Chief and the cadets come under fire from roadside Jackal raining needles upon them.

You can see how this could be perilous. Driving fast on a narrow road, in the dark, with enemies shooting at you from both sides. Yeah, DANGEROUS.

Yes folks, even in the 26th century you must FASTEN SAFETY BELT…

Above is a good showcasing of Chief and Orenski fighting back. Guns blazing! Again, good to see a female character that holds her own in battle.

Not to be outdone, Chyler takes down two Jackals in quick order. It’s at this time Chief says to burst your shots, don’t spray and pray. A funny line in an somewhat awkward place. However, for we FPS gamers, we can all relate to the phrase.

Again, it’s good to see strong female characters and that both Orenski and Silva are indeed good shots as said in the pervious episode.

Next review of Episode 5: Part 4, Roadkill

This scene opens up with Lasky driving down a very dark road in a Warthog with his fellow surviving cadets and Master Chief at the machine gun turret.

Lasky is looking a bit unsure of himself here. Granted we haven’t seen his skills at driving a Warthog before. Wheelman he is not, LOL.

Just before the point of the pic above, Master Chief tells Lasky to go faster as they only have a few minutes to make it to the Pelican drop. Loving the graphics on the Hog’s dashboard. Simple and very understandable. This could have been cut out of the project, but it’s a nice touch of detail. This is something that resounds through the whole series, is the sense of attention to detail.

A sticky grenade is through from the forest edge onto the dirt road narrowly missing the warthog.

It was close to be sure, but Lasky swerved just in time. The explosions aren’t too bad here. Definitely not over the top like Michael Bay (for which I’m VERY happy about). Pyrotechnics on a small scale can be hard to do. It can be extremely difficult to scale fire down or up. (Same goes for water too) In  the pic above, I think just the right amount of explosion was used. (Now if only Halo Reach played this way….grr, I hated being stuck on a hog only to die and the hog come through nearly unscathed…)

Next review of Episode 5: Part 3, Fear the Pink Mist.

Once again a new episode. And unfortunately for we fans, the final full new episode of Forward Unto Dawn. As always it stars out with Cortana aboard the drifting Forward Unto Dawn.

She’s on red alert form being scanned.

She’s still talking to herself, now mocking herself for having to wake up Master Chief when needed. It’s interesting that the Rampancy has flowed over into being resentful of Master Chief. We got this vividly in the last episode. Now it’s there just more subtle.

She starts to dematerialize herself from her orb form. This is something new that we haven’t seen before. It’s quite well done.

She condenses her form to a very small ball then bam like the big bang she explodes, but what comes of it is the familiar form of Cortana that we all know and love. Well 343’s version, which I think is very stunning.

This final shot of the opening scene is fantastic. If we are treated to graphics nearly as good as this in the game, then we’re in for something very special. To note, the face of this version of Cortana was taken directly from Mackenzie Mason ” @mackenziemason .” I asked her about this. She said that 343 captured her face. So what you see there is Mackenzie. The the body is not hers though she says stating the proportions are different.

Of all the opening scenes of the series, I’d say this is my favorite. While part 4 was good, and had a nice Halo ring reference, seeing Cortana in her human form just can’t be topped, in my book.

Next review of Episode 5: Part 2, FASTER!

Yep, that’s right, 14 parts! PLus one extra at the end as a tribute to the production folks.

Working on finishing up Part 5-Review 1 now. Hope to have within the hour.

-Sal

(Oh and keep watching the site for more Mountain Dew/Doritos XP codes!

I literally just finished a Podcast with DustandEchoes. Otherwise, I’d have already rolled out a review for this episode.

Be assured I’ll have them posting shortly. The contest will start immediately after I post the last review, so stay tuned for the reviews and the contest post.

-Sal