You’ll end up backtracking through a lot of areas, too. The tight alleyways and corridors are certainly a change from the usual vistas of other Halo games, while it’s hard not to feel underpowered compared to Master Chief’s usual capabilities (or underwhelmed by some of the scripted cutscenes). The so-called ‘detective’ elements are light, with Bungie content to use a smashed-up vehicle or waylaid helmet as a prompt for a ‘flashback’ to another ODST’s mission. Instead, you play one of the UNSC’s Orbital Drop Shock Troopers – a rank of soldier that plummets into battle inside a protective missile – waking up from a crash landing in a ruined, Covenant-covered city and piecing together the events of the night before. ODST is a curious entry in the Halo franchise, in that you don’t play as Master Chief at all. The biggest tragedy? That the campaign ever ends at all. The spaceship battle level is a startling break in the pacing, too, pitting you against Covenant warships before putting you back, breathless, on the ground.
Reach’s campaign is a thrilling and off-beat look at the Halo universe, introducing new power-ups for sprinting, invulnerable ‘armor locks’, and hologram decoys. The last-stand endgame, too, is one of the finest and most memorable levels in the franchise, and it’s hard not to shed a tear for what was lost. This is a game that is all about goodbyes, both from Bungie and its array of Spartan characters, as Reach’s team of super soldiers are slowly picked off in a brutal battle for survival. This prequel game takes place on the planet of Reach, a farming planet that fell to the Covenant in the early years of humanity’s struggle with the galactic cult. Halo Reach holds a special place in many gamers’ hearts, as the swansong of Bungie before it passed the mantle onto 343 Industires. For all its successors, this is where the formula was forged, and that makes it the best Halo game, bar none. The opening levels of Halo: CE may still be the franchise’s best, with the chaos of a claustrophobic ship boarded by Covenant soldiers, leading into the calm and open vistas of a Halo ring – and it’s this tussle of on and off, fast and slow, hurting and healing, that makes Halo what it is. The iconic pistol and assault rifle were introduced here, while the chance to flip between human and alien weaponry was inspired, making each encounter a thrilling chance to shake up the way you played.
More than anything else, though, Halo: CE showed off what Bungie’s team could do with gunplay. Its vision of galactic warfare, alien technology, and humanity on the brink of defeat – while introducing one of gaming's best supporting characters, Cortana – captured the hearts of so many players, and showed that Xbox was here to stay. Microsoft making a game console seemed like a laughable prospect only 20 years ago, but its lineup of launch games proved otherwise, and Halo: CE was a massive part of that. It’s nice to know that, not very long ago, a simple and robust key-switch ignition was able to make its way from a humble economy car all the way to the ultimate halo of the Lexus brand.Halo: Combat Evolved is the game that started it all, and it’s hard to give the game as much deference as it deserves. In today’s supercars, you start the engine with a switch, button or knob, usually made of a high-quality metal or composite that echoes the advanced materials found in the body or chassis-and activated by a gorgeously designed electronic key fob in your pocket. Today, Toyota’s start button is so widespread, it even appears in the company’s race cars: The Lexus RC F GT3 car that I work on as a pit crew member uses the same start button you’d see in a street-legal Lexus, and the Toyota GT86 TCA race car also has a production-style start button. A push-button start switch appeared first on the 2004 Toyota Prius, then spread across the rest of the hybrid lineup. Toyota started slowly phasing out turn-key ignition in the United States in the mid-2000s. This was one of many innovations that debuted on the 1990 Lexus LS 400, the car that launched the Lexus brand in North America.
But coincidentally, Toyota was at the forefront of a recent revolution in ignition keys, as one of the first automakers to introduce laser-cut keys. The LFA may have been one of the last supercars with a conventional key-switch ignition.
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Much like the manual transmission, traditional metal ignition keys are on their way out.