Overview

Just in time for the gift giving season, this impressive over-sized set features music from all the Halo video games re-released and packaged together here in a five-disc set. The music from the first Halo two games in the series are featured on the first two discs in the box. There is also a DVD preview of the Halo Wars soundtrack and an expansive rendering of the music from Halo 3 presented over two discs.

Body

First, a little discussion of the original music itself. The blend of techno and Media Ventures-style music of the first two scores in the series gradually gives way to larger more contemporary orchestral sounds as the music progresses here and it is interesting to hear the evolution of the sound of this game over the four discs. The addition of choral material into the texture also provides another listening highlight.

The actual presentation of the music in the box set has both strengths and flaws. The music from Halo 2 comes from the second of the two volumes previously released in 2006 and consists of a number of "suites" arranged across the 12 tracks. Unfortunately, the Halo 2 Original Soundtrack Vol. 1 is completely absent from this set, leaving some of O'Donnell's finest compositions and a number of licensed theme songs absent from this set. It is therefore not a complete collection of music.

Of real interest to fans who have perhaps neglected to pick up the earlier single releases of these scores is a special DVD presentation featuring music from the forthcoming Halo Wars. The preview features music from Steven Rippy — four selections actually — in fantastic 5.1 surround sound. Of additional interest is a behind-the-scenes look at the production of this new score featuring the new main theme music for the game.

Fans of the series now have a great way to keep all the music together in an artistically pleasing book-sized package. Unfortuntely, Sumthing Else has done little else than repackage the music foregoing any accompanying booklet and reprinting the track titles on the back cover in a hard to read black against silver design. The two sides of the package are in that newer overlay design where one has to remove one CD to get at the disc below it which can be a bit irritating but is becoming a standard way of packaging even DVDs these days to cut down on extraneous materials. An accompanying booklet would have made this a must have for fans of Halo.

Summary

As it stands, this set will be a quick way to be wrapped up in swaths of music while giving an advance glimpse of what is to come. The retail price of $30 makes this quite a bargain over individually purchasing each volume, but note that fans of the music from the first volume of Halo 2's soundtracks will be disappointed as that disc is not part of the bargain.