This essential visual guide to Halo covers material from Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, Halo Wars, and the latest game, Halo: Reach. Created in full collaboration with Microsoft, the book gives fans an in-depth look at the brave heroes, deadly enemies, intriguing species, high-tech weapons and vehicles of Halo...

Halo: The Essential Visual Guide is a guide book that give a little more detail and understanding to various elements of the franchise. This is not a guide book for the games (with maps, hints and tips) but then it never pretends to so. This is a beautifully illustrated and laid out guide to weapons, characters, planets, vehicles, etc.

Unlike most guide books, which are a little too big to sit in your lap while you're playing the games they are based on (which is an unfortunate necessity when you're reprinting large, detailed maps that the reader want's to be able to easily refer to), this guide is a little smaller than A4, which means you can easily have it to hand while playing the games, should you want to know more about any of the vehicles or weapons you are using.

Unlike most books, there is no index as the contents are in alphabetical order. So we have an index that acts as a contents page. This could be a little problematic if you are trying to look up something and you don't know its name. Maybe a better way of laying this out would have been by category: weapons, vehicles, etc. However, laying it out the way it is means that you can read it cover to cover and improve your Halo knowledge without it feeling a little too dry.

It goes without saying that this is a book for Halo enthusiasts only, but if you're a fan this will provide entertaining reading.

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Darren Rea