And Tricia Helfer is there too. Her character bears a resemblance to her as well. Anyone who wants to spoil themselves on the opening cutscene can see an off-screen video here:
http://e3.gamespot.com/video/6211451/

Alan and Adam's characters don't have any resemblance to them.

UtterlyJP | June 06, 18:07 CET

Nathan and Tricia together again! They used to date, you know.

electricspacegirl | June 06, 19:37 CET

As an historical aside, somebody was just telling me about how Halo was originally developed for the Macintosh, and was even demoed by Steve Jobs at a conference where Bill Gates saw it and seduced Bungie to develop for the xBox instead.

I venture to suggest that neither the xBox nor Halo would be as popular today if they didn't jump.

peacemonger | June 06, 21:23 CET

So super excited about this!!! Firefly is my favorite show and Halo is one of my favorite game franchises!!! And thrilled to hear that Tricia Helfer is also in. Loved that Halo 3 had our BDH and Starbuck and now we get our BDH and Six!

Peacemonger having seen that footage of the Mac's version thank God MS bought out Bungie! It didn't look that great compared to what ended up on the Xbox. Also, when it was being made for the Mac it was a RTS game and ended up being a FPS - two vastly different genres. I believe there were a bunch of Spartans where the finished project just had the Master Chief. MS & Bungie made a great team.

And although I do think that Halo was great for the Xbox I think the Xbox would still have been popular if they hadn't bought Bungie - there are many gamers who have Xboxes and hated Halo (crazy people!!). I still see on the forums people asking if they would like Halo 3 if they've never played the other Halo games.

Halo & Buffy were the first two games I played on the Xbox - Buffy alone made me love it!! Halo was the icing on the cake!!

I wonder if Nathan, Alan & Adam will be doing voices in Halo Reach as well. Seems like Bungie really likes them and, obviously, with all the Firefly references in Halo 3 they must be big Firefly fans. I loved the Halo Reach book and can't wait to see what they do with the game.

Firefly Flanatic | June 07, 07:47 CET

I don't play any FPS games (I'm more of a Lego Star Wars, with a side of Fable II, kind of gal), but from UtterlyJP's link, I'd totally be willing to watch someone else play, if only for the familiar voices. I could pretend it's some sort of miniseries or something starring lots of people I like. :D

nanceoir | June 07, 08:28 CET

I've never been impressed by Halo's graphics. This one's seems a huge step up from the first, but the rendering has always left alot to be desired--not to mention how hideous the characters look without their helmets on.

iwearthecheese | June 07, 11:38 CET

Don't get me wrong, I love Firefly and these actors (and Halo), but I kinda wish that Bungie had just saved them for these roles rather than use them in Halo 3 itself, because now we've got redundant actors in the same universe. As far as I know, this is a first for Bungie in that they've never before had the same celebrity actors in two separate games.

I also don't know how I feel about seeing Fillion's face in the game... on the one hand, it's neat that they can do that, but on the other, it takes me out of the immersion that FPS can have with me.

All that said, I'm still absolutely buying this puppy ASAP.

archon | June 07, 13:19 CET

It's definitely the case that the facial animations are not Halo's strong suit. And, it will be slightly odd to have the BDHs doing voices for ODST as well as Halo 3. But, I think that since they have much more major roles in ODST (actual names and characters, rather than anonymous marines), I think it'll be okay.

I'm really looking forward to ODST, though. And it sounds like our BDHs will be a big part of it, which is very cool.

Septimus | June 07, 16:25 CET

Yeah, hopefully they've worked on the character graphics with this and the upcoming Halo Reach. I felt the environmental graphics in Halo 3 were pretty good but have to agree on the character graphics not being very good - especially when other games that came out before and around the same time looked so good.

Nathan's character did have a name in Halo 3 - Sgt. Reynolds, but yes, they were more like background characters and not main ones so I don't think it's overuse yet using them in this Halo game as well. Looking forward to them being more of the main characters in this game.

I don't have a problem at all with seeing Nathan's likeness in the game. I enjoy seeing him in different acting roles so I don't see how this is any different if done right. But, that said, I was totally aware everytime they did a Firefly/Serenity shout out in Halo 3 so I can see where that could take you out of the moment.

Firefly Flanatic | June 07, 18:24 CET