So the Brute documentary is out. I'm going to stop using Bungie's VIDOC or Video Documentary term, because I really couldn't think of any other kind of documentary except perhaps for film, and since George Lucas says film is dead and HD Video is the way to go, I suppose it's redundant.

Certain pockets of the fan community, while they enjoyed the very slick and polished Halo 3 Announcement Trailer, have been bothered by the stream of apologia that accompanied first the non-real-time, non-Halo-engine CG television commercial, and now the pre-pre-alpha, not-yet-finished visuals of the Brute documentary.

I'd like to praise Bungie for its candor, however. The documentary on the Halo 2 Limited Edition was quite frank about some of Halo 2's shortcomings, as well as some of the reasons for them. This latest documentary is no different: first and foremost Bungie is admitting that Brutes in Halo 2 were a late addition to the game. They were tough only because they could take a lot of damage; there was no differentiation between different Brute individuals except for Tartarus himself and a few honor guard headdresses, and fighting Brutes was more like fighting Super Flood than fighting Elites or other Covenant units.

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Captain Jacob Keyes started to have bad luck from the first moments of Halo 1. His ship, preparing for a secret mission, was ambushed when the Covenant attacked Reach. They fled blindly, only to arrive at Halo 04 and find the Covenant waiting for them. After a valiant effort, the ship crashes on Halo and Keyes is taken prisoner.

The Master Chief and Cortana mount a daring rescue, so the player has to get inside a Covenant cruiser, find the captain, and keep him alive until the end of the level.

Almost immediately after, however, the captain's search for hidden weapons to use against the Covenant lead to the discovery of the Flood, who take him captive for the second time in the game. The Chief's second valiant rescue attempt fails, as they recover only the neural implants he needs to set the Pillar of Autumn to self-destruct, destroy Halo 04, and supposedly end this whole nightmare.

Crashed, captured and Floodified.

So perhaps Julie Benz should have known going in that there's a bit of bad luck associated with characters sharing the last name "Keyes" in Halo games.

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