About to reread this one for the first time in years.
Feels like Halo had it good to get books this kino made about them.
Any other games with something like this?

I guess I wont find any more cool books :(

Three ME novels by the trilogy's main writer.

>>>/vg/528814914

>>713647691
Oh? Do they do as well with the lore building as ME1 did?
Halo had different writers across its books but seemed to do well enough

Thrall grows up to be a pretty cool guy.

>>713646328 (OP)
Doom had 4 novels in the 90s
The first one is rad, the second is OK, and the 3rd and 4th are batshit insane.

>>713647786
Was a long time since I read them but I think so. Two of them expand on the Illusive Man and one is a prequel to the first game.

Bungie cherry-picked what they liked about the Halo books but always put the games first. Two novels are by Jo Staten so they're arguably more canon. But I also recall Eric Nylund's stuff to be solid fun.

>>713646328 (OP)
Is the Fall of Reach and the other Halo books actually any good? Bookfags love to say that the novel was better than Halo Reach itself but from what I've seen of the synopsis it didn't really seem all that better

The first 2 Splinter Cell novels are kino, but the ones after that are dogshit (written by a different person using the same pen name)
There are two Hitman novels. The first one is decent, second one is a little weird (47 dresses up as a woman at one point and has a sort-of love interest). Interesting thing about the first novel is that it actually contains a minor plot point that would seem to make it non-canon as of the WoA trilogy, but IOI actually went out of their way to call out and address this issue in a tie-in comic for WoA, which seemingly reaffirms that the first novel is canon.

>>713648352
>About TIM
But I don't like TIM...
What's the prequal?

>>713648516
The Fall of Reach, Ghosts of Onyx, Contact Harvest and Shadow of Intent are good. The Flood and First Strike are shit. The Forerunner trilogy is decent sci-fi but not Halo. Whatever happens in new Halo doesn't interest me.

>>713648640
Different Anon here
The first one is about Anderson and Saren's history pre-ME1
The second one is about some Cerberus stuff happening between 1 and 2 (briefly referenced in 2 when Tali talks about Cerberus attacking one of the quarians' ships)
The third one is set between 2 and 3 and is about a guy getting possessed by the Reapers.
All three books involve Kahlee Sanders, the woman you meet on Grissom Academy in 3 who has a history with Anderson
TIM appears in the second book but it isn't about him, that Anon is thinking about one of the comics (Mass Effect Deception) which is about TIM's backstory

>>713648516
Oh yeah.
The fall of reach sets up the human tech levels, the Spartans, how they became Spartans, and how the humans fight both on the ground and in space.
It shows you exactly why Chief was special for a spartan, why Cortana was special for a smart AI, and why Captain Keyes was special for a human naval officer.
Naval combat and ground combat are great.
The Flood is a great expansion of the Halo CE video game and acts to fill in everything the humans and aliens are doing while also adding a bit of flavor to what you the player presumably did. It looks like everyone is pulling their weight but your actions as the player are still just as important.

In the video game you just see bits of reach and see a human colony falling.
Halo: The Fall of Reach gives it the proper weight by building up to that fall.

>>713648938
>In the video game you just see bits of reach and see a human colony falling.
>Halo: The Fall of Reach gives it the proper weight by building up to that fall.
thats fiar, I think the main critique of the book from what I hear is that the fall itself isn't that interesting

>>713648901
*Evolution, not Deception, my bad

The two Elder Scrolls novels are fun. Critics say they don't feel like the games at all and they're absolutely right. More like TES-flavoured Spirited Away.

>>713648901
You're right, I forgot about the comic and was confused. Gotta reread all of them next time I play ME.

>>713649072
Its difficult for the fall itself to be interesting because everything leading up to it towers over the fall itself.
So much of the book is about humans desperately working to develop the tech needed to have an edge against the covenant on the ground while also trying to find ways to NOT get curbstombed in space, which is the entire reason humanity keeps losing ground in the first place.
The covenant are studied, their shields are reverse engineered, MJOLNIR is developed, the Spartans prove their worth, naval tactics are innovated and adopted, sacrifices are made.
And finally, right before the fall, a plan that never got to be put in place was made.
A staggeringly ambitious plan that could have turned the war into a temporary stalemate.

They figured out who the prophets of the covenant were in loose terms.
They had a plan to hijack and finally capture a covenant super carrier intact.
That was what the pillar of autumn was refitted and upgraded for.

They were going to use the captured ship to jump to the covenant home base (not that they knew what that was) conduct a raid, and capture one of the 3 prophets, then GTFO.
And use him as leverage to try and get a ceasefire.
It was such a ballsy and desperate plan in its audacity... Reach falling was a sad inevitability that you KNEW was going to ruin the plan anyways, because Halo CE was always gonna happen.

That humanity was getting so close to potentially kneecapping the covenant from such a bad position was so incredible to me that it overshadowed the loss of reach.

>>713646328 (OP)
It’s absolute kino. The sequel was meh and rush.

>>713648352
Does this have any 343 lore shit in it?

>>713649976
No. To be fair, idk what happens after Halo 4 but the novella reinforces once again that yes, humans are Forerunners. It mostly focuses on Half-Jaw and blargy boys cleaning up after the Prophets post-Halo 3.

>>713649807
Are the TES novels even canon? As far as I know the only reference to them in Skyrim is one person saying "I heard a story about a floating island but it sounded like bullshit" which doesn't make sense since the Umbra incident was major shit that wouldn't be able to be covered up

>>713650501
Will check it out, cheers anon.

>>713650586
Real lorefags could fight for days if TES even has a canon (it doesn't) but the Greg Keyes novels are certainly less canon than other non-game lore, like Kirkbride's unofficial texts.

A decent prequel Human Revolution. You get to know more about the bosses in HR and a couple of old Deus Ex fellows show up as well.

>>713647814
How about the flip side? Fuck this ending.
>If you want to know what happens to arthas, play our game
Fuck you, blizzard.

>>713646328 (OP)
Elder Scrolls. The Infernal City and The Lord of Souls.
Deus Ex. Icarus Effect (prequel to DX HR) and Black Light (prequel to DX MD).

>>713648352
>Bungie cherry-picked what they liked about the Halo books but always put the games first
Bungie 90s-2007 truly were incredible. They knew Halo books sucked.

>>713657745
no, the spartan 3's sucked as did the writing for the books that put them in.
making the guy who hated spartans, hated the program, did his best to sabotage it, AND got sent to the front line by cortana's fuckery wind up in charge of Halsey's program was utterly fucking retarded.
NEVERMIND the stupid "le magicke DRUG" handwaves everywhere.
fuck the spartan 3's.

One of three books that bridge the gap between GW1 and GW2, written by a former narrative designer at Anet. It's the only one in the bunch that's well-written.