Naruto finally came out?

It's called We are ODST, an advertisement for Halo 3 ODST. Halo has always had magnificent trailers. I'd also recommend watching "Deliver Hope," "Starry Night." "Believe." "Scanned," and "Remember Reach." Since somebody already gave you the link to this one, here's "Deliver Hope."

No, Remember Reach was an entire ad campaign, but I was referring to this advert:

It really was. The hype train for Halo 3 was so real, and holy shit did it deliver.

I always though Halo 3 was the best of the series, not because it fantastically broke ground, but because it somehow succeeded as a good sequel to Halos CE and 2. I don't know if there were swaths of people that were dissapointed in it like with 4 and 5, but I think this one isn't all that talked about because it did its job well.

>Scanned
Anything past Halo Reach is shit and nothing anyone says will change that. Halo died where it began. With Reach.

Except 4 did a better job developing the protagonist than the other 3 games combined. Before 3 especially, he was the cybernetic badass guy. In 3, you see the depth of his relationship with Cortana. In 4, however, you see the emotional impacts of abduction from the age of 6. He has difficulty identifying with anyone outside of the Spartan program, and as such Cortana is one of his only emotional outlets, what with the vast majority of Chief's Spartan II classmates being dead. Her gradual loss in 4 is the first time we see Chief develop emotionally, and despite his stoic bearing as the quintessential soldier, he is unable to mask his suffering. It is a beautiful and painful sendoff to one of the franchise's most iconic characters. Which is the reason I dislike Halo 5's story: bringing her back so soon felt like it cheapened 4's ending.

Go re-read the books with him in it. Shows off his human side more. Also, the emotional scars were shown at the end of two, start of three with the whole "When I'm finished with Truth" quote, and the visions of Cortana going through all of Halo 3, eventually ending with him finding her on High Charity, ultimately in the best cinimatic in any of the games.

Keyword: the books. Which I've read, but that doesn't change the fact that the vast majority of Halo fans haven't. The handful of throwaway lines that appear do not equate to sufficient character development for such an iconic character as the Chief, and though the books do a better job with him, most fans never experience the books. You cannot defend a flaw in a book or movie by saying "if you read the expanded lore, this is much more impactful." The game needs to have that in it's own right, or Halo 5's campaign would've been much better received (because the expanded lore heavily assists its story).
Bungie catered to the casual fans who didn't want to think too hard while playing through the story. That is why their stories were often simple and their protagonists were so goddamn flat, especially the Rookie, with his zero lines of dialogue. I know there's an appeal to a silent protagonist, but ultimately I think it's mostly a tool to allow the player to project themselves onto the character so the creators don't need to write an interesting character themselves.
I do think the cinematic at the end of the level Cortana was the best cinematic of the original 3 games, but the opening of Halo 4, Cortana's death, and Noble 6's death and eulogy are right up there with it. They are all amongst my favorite moments in video game history.

You brought up the rookie, which is interesting. Because while he's a silent protagonist I don't feel ODST was at all about him, while the Halo games were about Chief. Except Reach of course. ODST was more about the city and the squad as a whole than one singular character, or two for that fact. Which is why it's one of the better Halo games, if Halo 3 didn't consume a year of my life in multiplayer alone, and I had made so many memories with friends in it, ODST would be my favorite.

Chief was never flat, in the games or books, he had personality, before I read the books I could tell there was something -to- him just by how he regarded Cortana in the control room, and 343 right after. Or hell even Johnson in a few scenes. He was bred for war but there were issues behind him. And coming back to the games not giving him any 'charactarization' and the fact you think the line sequence when he leaves High Charity has throw away dialogue is a JOKE. "Don't make a girl a promise if you know you can't keep it." and in 3 he spent the ENTIRE game looking for her, trying to keep that promise.

Just the change in tone in the Cortana scene when he comes in and says "When I make a promise" and "Thought I'd try shooting my way out, mix things up a little" gives him character. Also in Starry Night, which we still have no idea if that was Kelly, Linda, or someone completely different and not even a Spartan 2... He wondered if Humanity was alone, before the Covenant attacks happened, before the war began, before he was being trained to combat this new threat. There's characterization in the games before 4 and it shows if you know what to look for.

I'm standing by my original statement, Halo died with Reach.

In 3, Cortana isn't a minor concern until Floodgate, and even then he is primarily concerned with preserving humanity from the Covenant and Flood for most of the campaign. The levels in 3 are Sierra 117, Crow's Nest, Tsavo Highway, the Storm, Floodgate, the Ark, the Covenant, Cortana, and Halo (that's from memory, actually, it's the only video game I can do that with. God, I love 3). Of those, Cortana is only the primary objective during "Cortana," which is definitely not the entire campaign.
Throwaway dialogue was admittedly hyperbole, but it does speak to the fact that his primary means of communication was one liners, like "to give the Covenant back their bomb" and "I need a weapon" (they're amongst the most badass one-liners in history, but they're still one-liners). You're still talking about trailers and expanded lore, not the content of the games (and we actually do know who it was with him, I believe. It was a schoolmate of his before his abduction.).
ODST being a candidate for your favorite is certainly interesting; though not a bad opinion by any means, it's definitely an uncommon one. I'd personally rank it as my least favorite, strictly because it had no multiplayer, but it was still a great game. Being my least favorite Halo still puts it amongst my favorite games.

Do you want me to ruin it for you?

It was an assassination. I don't know who the political leader was who got assassinated, but the assailant was shot soon after stabbing him on national TV. Both died from their injuries.

I have read somewhere that this assassination had a major impact on shaping Japan's political future, as the assassinated dude was the leader of a communist party. If not for his death, we'd probably have communist japs. Don't quote it on me though, I don't remember the source.

Was there some kind of explosion as well?

It's a gunblade.

Nothing of value was lost.