According to TrueAchievements, I completed Halo 4 in 2014, so it took a while to get back into the franchise. Where I last left the story, Cortana had sacrificed herself to save Master Chief, Master Chief was floating in space, saved by Infinity, and returned to Earth.  I didn't get the Legendary ending (I seriously don't understand why they lock an important piece of storytelling behind the most difficult game setting...aaaanywhoooo). While Halo 5 does pick up the story, it's not a direct continuation.  The events of Halo 5 are a few months after the ending of Halo 4 and Master Chief has found Cortana again, and I guess she's up to no good?  So the story follows both Master Chief paths (to get that POV), and Fireteam Osiris who's after Master Chief...

Story Synopsis (from wikipedia)

Fireteam Osiris is deployed to the planet Kamchatka to retrieve Halsey amidst a battle between Jul 'Mdama's Covenant and Forerunner Prometheans. The team kills 'Mdama and retrieves Halsey, who claims to have information on a series of devastating attacks on several human worlds. Elsewhere, Master Chief leads Blue Team on a mission to secure a derelict research station; the arrival of a Covenant fleet prompts Blue Team to scuttle the station instead. Master Chief receives a cryptic message from Cortana, directing him to Meridian, a human colony world. Master Chief is ordered to return to Infinity, but he and Blue Team disobey orders and set out after Cortana.

Captain Lasky declares Blue Team absent without leave; Halsey believes that Cortana's survival through the use of Forerunner technology makes her unpredictable and untrustworthy. Fireteam Osiris is sent to Meridian to bring back Blue Team. On the planet, they find the colonists under attack by Promethean forces. Following Blue Team's trail, they encounter the Warden Eternal, a Promethean serving as Cortana's enforcer. After temporarily defeating the Warden, Osiris catches up to Blue Team, ordering them to stand down. Chief bests Locke in hand-to-hand combat and Blue Team boards a Guardian, a colossal Forerunner construct built as planetary enforcers. Osiris barely escapes the colony's collapse as the Guardian emerges from underground and teleports away to the Forerunner planet Genesis, where John and Cortana reunite. Cortana says that her terminal condition was cured by the same Forerunner technology that had saved her.

Osiris is deployed to the Sangheili homeworld of Sanghelios, where they plan to use the Guardian buried there to follow Blue Team. Sanghelios is embroiled in a civil war between the Arbiter's forces and the remains of 'Mdama's army; Osiris helps Arbiter assault the Covenant's last stronghold and board the Guardian before it disappears.

On Genesis, Osiris encounters the planet's caretaker, the AI 031 Exuberant Witness, who allies with them to stop Cortana. Osiris catches up to Blue Team, who reveal that Cortana is planning on using the Guardians to achieve galactic peace through forcible disarmament. Master Chief, aware of the devastation that Cortana's plan will cause, attempts to convince Cortana to stand down. She refuses and confines Blue Team in a Forerunner prison to prevent them from interfering with her plan. Osiris manages to transfer control of Genesis back to Exuberant, who frees Blue Team before Cortana leaves the planet. AIs across the galaxy begin swearing allegiance to Cortana and her plans. Cortana locates Infinity and prepares to disable it, but Lasky has the ship retreat until they can develop a way to combat Cortana. With Blue Team recovered, Osiris returns to Sanghelios to reunite the Spartans with the injured Commander Palmer, Arbiter, and Halsey.

In a post-credits scene, unlocked via completing the campaign on the Legendary difficulty, a Forerunner Halo installation powers up while Cortana hums.

Overall Thoughts

Overall, this was a fun game.  It was interesting to see both sides of the story (Master Chief and Fireteam Osiris), and how they converged.  That said, I do wonder how we got from Halo 4 to Halo 5 storywise.  I guess there's some associated media (books, comics, mini episodes?) that explain this, but I don't really like it when storytelling between main media properties of the franchise are so disjointed.  I guess it makes it easier for new players to come in and get an intro, but...not to my liking.  Overall, this game was a 8/10 for me.  Solid game play, would play again (my first run through was on normal since I haven't played in a while), and a good story.  Also, no flood, which was always my most hated part of the franchise.

Gaming Synopsis

Achievements: 23/73

Gamescroe: 230/1250

Percentage Complete: 31%

Time Played: 11.5 Hours

Well, closing off this year's April Fool's roundup, this one is apparently from Apple.  Android has cute vinyl collectible figures?  Why not Apple?  The funny thing is that I had just listed to the recent Vergecast podcast and they were talking about Apple's early days and Steve Jobs' idea of "Mr. Macintosh" - so my brain went directly to "Oh...this is basically Mr. Macintosh" 😹

Direct link to youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQkb31_R19Q

I never really got the "I lost my socks" trope that seems common in North America. I've had socks with holes in them, but never found only one of a pair. Still...tech that locates your socks using some kind of mesh network...funny...sort of.

I guess this is the last food-themed post for April Fool's that stood out.  IKEA seemed to go above and beyond this year, with the Chupa-Chups collab to bring Swedish meatballs to a lollipop factor, and a Bed Bath & Beyond collab (from what I can tell) to bring the iconic Swedish meatball to your  bubble bath.  I think I laughed more at the bubble bath than the lollipop, but both brought a bit of joy to the day ;-)

Continuing with the April Fool's Food theme, two other brands that got into it were Omaha Steaks and Califia.  Omaha Steaks created a Pocket Steak product, which is mildly amusing, although not that ingenious (isn't this just jerky?).  Califia went with a funnier (IMO) "spicy vodka" coffee creamer...for when you need your coffee to have that extra bit of kick ;-)

OK, this was an April Fools's from Hue, the smartlight folks.  You may get a good chuckle from this but this may, in fact, be one of those sleeper ideas.  Why just have moodlighting that changes and pulses with your TV?  Why not have a small dancefloor of LED lights that make the house feel like a disco? ;-)

Australians sure do love their Vegemite.  To be fair, I also like Vegemite ;-), Marmite is fine, but Vegemite is what I prefer.  Anyway - for April Fools' a variety of different Vegemite-themed collaborations were "unveiled," including Vegemite ice cream, tortilla chips, and...Vegemite by the bucketfull.

I have never heard of this brand before, but it looks like an Australian restaurant chain (wow, the Aussies really love April Fool's.).  Anyway,  Grill'd is offering burger-inspired massage service, complete with a limited-edition range of massage oils inspired by their iconic sauce flavors 💆‍♀️.  I wonder what a 99 or Texas Roadhouse version of this might be ;-)  Direct link to post, in case you want to see the video.

OK...so THIS one got me.  It was the first April Fool's thing I was reading today, and it came as an email...sooo...I got to the end of the email and slapped my head... APRIL FOOLS!!! Thank you, Juiced.GS

Apple-1 successor prototype discovered APRIL 1, 2026 — LEOMINSTER, MA — Fifty years ago today, Apple Computer Company was founded to sell their debut product, the Apple-1 computer. After swift sales at The Byte Shop, co-founders Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs developed the Apple II, which became the company's cash cow for the next decade. The year leading up to the Apple II's release was a flurry of innovation, experimentation, and dead ends. Now, fifty years later, one of those lost prototypes has been unearthed from a landfill in Alamagordo, New Mexico, and will be featured in the next issue of Juiced.GS. "This previously unknown artifact reveals a lost timeline of what could've been, had Apple not abandoned the Apple-1 line in favor of the Apple II," mused editor-in-chief Ken Gagne. This Apple-1 revision, codenamed "Samuel Clemens", sports notable enhancements over the original Apple-1. A hardware teardown shows the CPU has been boosted to 1.023 MHz, representing a calculable 2.3% increase over the previous year's tech. The Clemens also has a whopping 16K memory, double what the original Apple-1 had. Building on the single expansion slot on the Apple-1, the Clemens has user-upgradeable RAM, courtesy a reserved spot on the motherboard where additional memory can be soldered. Most notably, the cassette interface, which was previously an optional add-on, is now included, with inbuilt tape decks right on the motherboard. And unlike the Apple II and Mac, which offered no clear upgrade path for legacy customers, the Clemens is backward compatible not just with Apple-1 software, but with the original Blue Box, allowing users to call the Vatican for free.

The software support doesn't end there: the original Apple-1 was infamously built because Woz wanted a game machine in his home — and, true to its heritage, the Clemens comes with multiple games on cassette, including Lunar Lander Requiem; Hamurabi II: Dead Reckoning; Super Mega Colossal Cave; and Breakout Annihilation. More than just a games machine, the Clemens would've also made inroads into office productivity and education, much as the Apple II later did. VisiCalc Zero would've tabulated spreadsheets of up to 3x3 cells (9x9 with additional memory) with occasional accuracy, while Trail would let players shop for bullets and oxen in the town of Independence, Missouri. (Those purchases could then be used in expansion cassettes [sold separately].) Unlike the Apple-1, which came without an enclosure, the Clemens is carefully ensconced in what Apple would've dubbed an "Air case". The Apple-1 Air case cushions the motherboard in a transparent envelope of nitrogen and oxygen, eliminating any obstacles that would prevent the powerful hardware from being observed in action. A complementary line of colorful nylon cases would've allowed users to invest in customizing their rigs further. Sketches of these cases reveal an Apple-1 Pocket designed by Issey Miyake, suggesting the Clemens was a testbed for portability that was later incorporated into the Apple IIc. Alas, almost none of this ultimately came to be, thanks to the upstart Apple II supplanting its predecessor. "So many Apple II diehards swore off the Mac for killing their favorite computer," reflected Gagne. "Now we know this was a pattern, and that the Apple II was just as guilty for terminating its ancestor, too." "I told you I wasn't the bad guy," said John Sculley when asked for comment. To address this historical oversight, Juiced.GS is pivoting to focus wholly on the Apple-1 line. The inaugural issue of Juiced.One debuts this summer, and news, reviews, interviews, and how-tos about the vast quantities of new software and hardware being developed for the Apple-1 are expected to fill the usual twenty pages per issue. In a completely unrelated move, Juiced.One is also shifting its publication schedule from quarterly to decennially. Subscribers are invited to renew at an introductory price of $25 for five issues over the next fifty years, locking them in at a rate that will not be adjusted for five decades of inflation. "Stay tuned for more details about our new favorite retrocomputer," closed Gagne. "Apple-1 Forever!"