Halo Reach Coming May

Microsoft has released its gaming line up for 2010 with the company expecting big things from Halo Reach.

Microsoft’s Halo: Reach, will be available on May 4th, and the mystery of Alan Wake will arrive May 20th — both only available on the Xbox 360 Arcade, with the console at a starting price of $299.

In other title news, Square Enix have created the Xbox 360 “Final Fantasy XIII” Special Edition Bundle and Microsoft will be offering the complete experience at an incredible value for $599.

Another sequel, Dead Rising 2, picks up the suspenseful action where the original left off, as gamers fight to survive swarming hordes of the living dead. Microsoft and Capcom Co. Ltd. have also announced that they are teaming up to set a new standard in storytelling through a Dead Rising 2 prologue, downloadable only on Xbox Live. Dead Rising 2: Case Zero, available shortly before the title releases in August, will allow Xbox 360 gamers to get their first glimpse into the “Dead Rising 2 story with exclusive content that will not be featured in the full game.

Last November, developer Infinity Ward took gamers back to the action-packed world of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Now Xbox 360 owners will be the only players in the world to experience the game add-ons, including a “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2” content pack arriving in autumn.

Features of the games include:

  • In Halo: Reach, gamers are part of Noble Team, a squad of heroic Spartan soldiers, who will be called upon to defend the planet Reach, humankind’s last line of defence between the terrifying Covenant and Earth. Access to the beta will be available through the “Halo 3: ODST” game disc on Xbox Live.
  • Alan Wake is about nightmares coming to life, which Microsoft claims is a “gripping psychological action thriller”. It is built like an episodic TV series, where your wits and light are your only allies.
  • Crackdown 2 is the sequel to the 2007 game and features over-the-top action, “a massive living world, unprecedented online and multiplayer capabilities, and stylish graphics”, claims Microsoft.
  • Dead Rising 2 has you following the 2006 bone-crunching, zombie-bashing action and puts a new offbeat defender in the heart of the fight to save the United States from complete zombification.
  • Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Conviction is the sequel in the Splinter Cell series, that is said to unite revolutionary gameplay enhancements with a high-octane, no-holds-barred storyline, the game also features intense co-op espionage missions.
  • Final Fantasy XIII Special Edition Bundle includes a 250GB hard drive, two wireless controllers, downloadable avatar items and a standard-edition copy of the sequel in the series.
  • Fable III delivers an action and adventure experience as players journey from revolutionary to the ruler of Albion and beyond. With your trusted canine companion, you will embark on an epic hero’s quest against injustice, forge alliances, crush your enemies and take control of your kingdom. But with great power comes great responsibility. Will you honour promises made in your rise to power, or sacrifice allegiance for personal gain? Choose wisely, as the decisions you make will forever impact your ever-evolving world.

  • Lost Planet 2 is a sequel to the third-person shooter where the story picks up 10 years after the original game as players follow the exploits of their own customised snow pirate on their quest to seize control of the changing planet.
  • Left 4 Dead 2: The Passing brings the original Left 4 Dead survivors down south for a meeting with the Left 4 Dead 2 cast, while delivering new single-player, multiplayer and co-operative game play. Left 4 Dead 2: The Passing will include new co-operative campaign and associated narrative and new arenas for Survival, Versus and Scavenge modes, and introduce a new co-operative challenge mode.
  • Toy Soldiers casts players into miniature world where antique toy soldiers fight in vintage World War I dioramas.
  • Game Room is part of the Xbox Live Arcade Block Party. It lets gamers relive the glory days of classic arcade and console games in their original forms, as the player’s avatar takes part in the original sights, sounds and game play.
  • Perfect Dark is also part of the Xbox Live Arcade Block Party. Agent Joanna Dark brings her tale of galactic conspiracies in future America to Xbox 360 with remastered visuals, Live-enabled multiplayer modes, leader boards, achievements and avatar awards.
  • Scrap Metal is also part of the Xbox Live Arcade Block Party, and allows gamers to drift around corners with guns blazing and take out competitors in this fast-paced, top-down racer. Gamers fight their way through explosive missions, defeat cunning bosses, or jump on Xbox Live to race against their friends.