Every time I re-watch the ending of Halo 3 I get the chills. I’m not sure what it is, but the story of Master Chief sparks emotion in me that not many movies even can. It’s like Titanic for dudes—but without the Leo and Kate car sex and class struggles. Whatever the reason is for that emotion, that strong connection that Halo makes with fans is important to Microsoft, and they want to do more with it to sell a bunch of copies of Halo 4 later this year.

So, with the goal of bringing the series to more people—longtime fans and people who have never previously played the games—Microsoft has invested more money than ever before in live action. A new live-action series, Forward Unto Dawn has been announced that will get everyone on the same page in a non-intimidating way before the launch of Halo 4. Slotted to air exclusively on Halo Waypoint and Machinima, the series will tell “an origins story that teaches you a lot of different facets of the [Halo] universe.” says Frank O’Connor, 343 Industries franchise development director.

The series is planned to launch in weekly 15-minute installments for five weeks during the time leading up to Halo 4’s release date on November 6^th 2012. More details about Forward Unto Dawn will be revealed during Comic-Con this July.

Hopefully this gets us one step closer to a full-length Halo movie.

Our exclusive Halo community giveaway, Farewell to a Legend, has come to an end. First of all, we’d like to thank all of our great Halo community partners for helping to make this possible. Halo.Bungie.Org, HaloTracker, GrifballHub, Halo4News and HaloCommunity—you guys are awesome and we thank you for making this a proper salute to FPS Freek Legendary. We hope to work with you all again later in the year!

For Farewell to a Legend we put together one of our most exciting and unique prize packages to date. One lucky Halo fan is about to receive a limited edition Halo: Reach Xbox 360 console bundle, a rare Master Chief vs. The Flood commemorative WETA statue and a pair of FPS Freek Legendary signed by Master Chief himself, Mr. Steve Downes!

Without further ado, the winner of all this great swag is Mario Torres! We’ll be contacting you via the email address you provided very soon.

As promised, we’re also sending an extra token of thanks to the site(s) that went above and beyond to spread the word to their communities—HaloTracker.com and Halo.Bungie.Org. You guys were so close in the end we felt both of you deserved a little something extra—so you both get an autographed picture of Master Chief to do with whatever you like. It pains me to see these autographed photos leave my desk (where they’ve been hanging out for the past few weeks making my workspace much more epic) but at least I know they’ll be going to a loving home. Congratulations!

There are still a few FPS Freek Legendary’s left in stock so get them while you still can.

The pilot episode of the fan made Halo: Helljumper series hit YouTube last week. If you didn’t know, Helljumper is a short series of films that follows the life of one human ODST from his enlistment in the UNSC before the Human-Covenant War to around the Fall of Reach. The series, which is a spin-off of the Tobias Brickell Halo: Evolutions – Essential Tales of the Halo Universe short story “Dirt” was teased late in 2011 to a very captivated Halo audience.

In the first episode, main character Gage Yevgenny has just been saved from a losing firefight by a rookie soldier on the colony of New Jerusalem. Instead of letting the Rookie complete his rescue, Yevgenny forces him to listen to his story of the war, so that hopefully he doesn’t repeat the same mistakes. This prompts  a series of flashes into Yevgenny’s past that’s littered with cool special effects, an  evoking musical score and some rather awkward acting and dialogue—“You coming on to me, Soldier?” and “Excuse me, miss, do you happen to have a map… ‘cause I’m lost in your eyes” are a couple of my personal favorites.

Bad acting aside, it’s a cool concept that represents the highest form of video game love.

The next episode is due out on February 15^th.

Yesterday we asked FreekNation to vote: What game are you most looking forward to this year?

Some of your answers were disturbing (Hello Kitty Online), intriguing (Kinect Porno) and just plain racist (I am a Muslim). Rising to the top were most of the games you’d expect to see—but in an order that was somewhat surprising.

Here are the top 5 most anticipated games according to you:

• Grand Theft Auto 5 – 266 votes
• Halo 4 – 81 votes
• Next Call of Duty – 65 votes
• Diablo III – 47 votes
• Mass Effect 3 – 41 votes

This poll was given via our Facebook page, revealing the most anticipated game for 2012 is Grand Theft Auto 5. And I would have to personally agree. Rockstar Games’ premiere franchise is always something to get excited about. What surprised me, though, was the order of the next two.

Knowing you guys like I do, I surely thought the next Call of Duty would have beaten out Halo 4. I clearly misjudged you and I’d like to know why. Is it because a new CoD comes out every year and you’re finally getting sick of it? Is it because MW3 hasn’t been out very long and it’s still “new enough” for you? Is it because it’s been so long since you’ve seen your beloved Master Chief and can’t wait to kill Covees correctly? What is it? Leave a comment and let me know before I question even more about myself.