Remember me posting that Spike exclusive trailer for the upcoming Halo Animation some time ago? Now the full animated short Halo Legends: Babysitter has been released on the HALO Waypoint system and of course that also means that for those without XBOX Live it has been subsequently uploaded every where else as well. As the first of SEVEN animated Halo shorts does the complete short live up to the hype of the trailer?
OH HELL YA! Well OK it's not that exciting or epic but for something like this that is a mashup of Japanese and American influence the entire episode was dang good. The first time I watched it was on Youtube so the quality suffered and looked a bit washed out but I think that has more to do with the media format than the actual animation quality. I'm waiting for the DVD release to really check out the quality.
The story itself is pretty good and from the trailer you pretty much know what is going on for the the most part. The ODST squad is assigned at assist (babysit) a Spartan in a mission to take out a Profit. From the trailer you know that the Spartan gets in a fight with a Brute to save the backup ODST Sniper well in the complete story we see that the Spartan actually ends up saving the ODST Sniper a few times and he's just a bit whiny about the whole thing. So after trouncing around some Japanese-ish ruins they set up to take out the Profit only to be interrupted when the Brute comes back (I think it's the same Brute) and attacks the squad once more. Again the Spartan saves the backup Sniper but ends up taking the full force of the Brute attack to the helmet taking them out of the fight. The ODST squad is able to take out the Brute with a face full of SMG fire but find out that the Spartan is unable to continue the mission. The Spartan orders the backup to take the shot. He does and takes out the Profit without much issue.
The shocker of the story is that this whole time everyone (including the audience) thinks that the Spartan is a guy but the ODST Squad finds out after they remove the Spartan's helmet that the Spartan is actually a beautiful blond female. Wait What? That's right whiny backup sniper realizes he's been bitching about a hottie. Sadly her injuries are to severe and she passes away. Back on he ship the infantry dude from the trailer is back and in trying to chat up the ODST squad makes the big mistake of trying to make fun of the Spartan that died during their mission and finds himself being pelted by apples.
As the opener to Halo Legends I thought it did a good job and lived up to the anticipation of the trailer and what I had hoped for. Now then when are the rest of them coming out dang it. Well you're in luck as they have the release dates up of the first five episodes on the Halo Waypoint website and it looks like the episodes will be released every other Saturday with behind the scenes stuff being released on the opposite Saturdays. The DVD itself will be released on February 9, 2010. I'm looking forward to the remainder of the episodes and will be picking up the DVD as soon as I can.
Again here is the trailer for the first episode.
