Halo: Combat Evolved

Cortana is a fictional artificially intelligent character in Bungie's Halo video game series. Voiced by Jen Taylor, she appears in Halo: Combat... Evolved and its sequels, Halo 2 and Halo 3, in the prequel and epilogue of Halo: Reach, as well the novels Halo: The Flood, Halo: The Fall of Reach, Halo: First Strike, and Halo: Ghosts of Onyx. During gameplay, Cortana provides backstory and tactical information to the player, who assumes the role of the Master Chief. In the story, she is instrumental in preventing the activation of the Halo installations, which would have destroyed all sentient life in the galaxy. Cortana's original design was based on the Egyptian queen Nefertiti; the character's holographic representation always takes the form of a woman. Taylor, despite her extensive voice acting for video games, is not a gamer; she described portraying Cortana as challenging, due to the character's lack of a physical form. Bungie first introduced Cortana—and Halo—through the Cortana Letters, cryptic emails sent during Combat Evolved's production in 1999. Since then, the character has been used extensively to advertise the series.
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Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 is a fictional character and protagonist of the Halo fictional universe, created by Bungie. Master Chief is a... player character in the trilogy of science fiction first-person shooter video games Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, and Halo 3 and will appear in the upcoming Halo 4. Outside of video games, the character appears in novels – Halo: The Fall of Reach, Halo: The Flood, Halo: First Strike, and Halo: Uprising – and has cameos in other Halo media, including Halo: Reach, Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, The Halo Graphic Novel and Halo Legends. He is voiced by Chicago disc jockey Steve Downes in the video games in which he appears. The Master Chief is one of the most visible symbols of the Halo series. Originally designed by Bungie artists including Marcus Lehto, Rob McLees, and Shi Kai Wang, the character is a towering and faceless cybernetically-enhanced supersoldier; he is never seen without his green-colored armor or helmet. Downes built his personification of the Chief off a character description which called for a Clint Eastwood-type character of few words.
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