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Halo: Combat Evolved

Halo: Combat Evolved is a 2001 first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox. It was released as a launch game for Microsoft's Xbox video game console on November 15, 2001. The game was ported to Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X in 2003. It was later released as a downloadable Xbox Original for the Xbox 360. Halo is set in the twenty-sixth century, with the player assuming the role of the Master Chief, a cybernetically enhanced supersoldier. The Chief is accompanied by Cortana, an artificial intelligence. Players battle aliens as they attempt to uncover the secrets of the eponymous Halo, a ring-shaped artificial world.

Bungie began the development of what would eventually become Halo in 1997. Initially, the game was a real-time strategy game that morphed into a third-person shooter before becoming a first-person shooter. During development, Microsoft acquired Bungie and turned Halo into a launch game for its first video game console, the Xbox. Halo was a critical and commercial success and is often praised as one of the greatest video games ever made. The game's popularity led to labels such as "Halo clone" and "Halo killer", applied to games either similar to or anticipated to be better than it. Its sequel, Halo 2, was released for the original Xbox in 2004, and the game spawned a multi-billion-dollar multimedia franchise that incorporates games, books, toys, and films.

More than six million copies had been sold worldwide by November 2005. A remaster of the game, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, was released for Xbox 360 by 343 Industries on the 10th anniversary of the original game's launch. Anniversary was re-released alongside the original competitive multiplayer as part of Halo: The Master Chief Collection in 2014.

Gameplay
Halo: Combat Evolved is a first-person shooter (FPS) game in which players primarily experience gameplay in a 3D environment from a first-person view. The player can move around and look up, down, left, or right. The game features vehicles, ranging from armored 4×4s and tanks to alien hovercraft and aircraft, many of which can be controlled by the player. The game switches to a third-person perspective during vehicle use for pilots and mounted gun operators; passengers maintain a first-person view. The game's heads-up display includes a "motion tracker" that registers moving allies, moving or firing enemies, and vehicles, in a certain radius of the player.

The player character is equipped with an energy shield that nullifies damage from weapons fire and forceful impacts. The shield's charge appears as a blue bar in the corner of the game's heads-up display, and it automatically recharges if no damage is sustained for a brief period. When the shield is fully depleted, the player becomes highly vulnerable, and further damage reduces the hit points of their health meter. When this health meter reaches zero, the character dies and the game reloads from a saved checkpoint. Health can be replenished through the collection of health packs scattered around the game's levels.

Halo ' s arsenal consists primarily of science fiction weapons. The game has been praised for giving each weapon a unique purpose, thus making each useful in different scenarios. For example, a charged plasma pistol shot can fully deplete an enemy's energy shield whilst the pistol is one of only two weapons that can instantly kill with a head shot, as long as the target lacks a shield. In contrast to the large weapon inventories of contemporary FPS games, Halo players may carry only two weapons at once, calling for players to make tactical decisions when managing firearms.

Halo departs from traditional FPS conventions by not forcing the player to holster their firearm before deploying grenades or melee-range blunt instruments; instead, both attacks can be utilized while a gun is still equipped, supplementing small-arms fire. There are two different types of grenades; the fragmentation grenade bounces and detonates quickly, whereas the plasma grenade adheres to targets before exploding.

The game's main enemy force is the Covenant, a group of alien species allied by belief in a common religion. Their forces include Elites, fierce warriors protected by recharging energy shields similar to the player's own; Grunts, which are short, cowardly creatures who are usually led by Elites in battle, and often flee in terror instead of fighting in the absence of a leader; Jackals, who wear a highly durable energy shield on one arm and a plasma pistol on the other; and Hunters, large, powerful creatures with thick armor plates that cover the majority of their bodies and a large assault cannon that fires explosive rounds of green plasma. A secondary enemy is the Flood, a parasitic alien life form that appears in several variants later in the game. Another enemy is the Sentinels, aerial robots designed by an extinct race called the Forerunners to protect their structures and prevent Flood outbreaks. Sentinels are able to hover around in enclosed spaces and produce an energy shield when under attack. They lack durability, but use powerful laser weapons.

The player is often aided by United Nations Space Command (UNSC) Marines, and the crew of the ship, who offer ground support, such as following the player and mimicking their tactics, and manning gun turrets or riding shotgun while the player is driving a vehicle. Marine AI and crew member AI are differentiated by their uniforms, but also act distinctly, the marines engaging aggressively while the crew members often cower or fire while retreating to cover. If the player kills too many of their teammates, they end up turning on the player and attacking them back.

Multiplayer
A split screen mode allows two players to cooperatively play through Halo's campaign. The game also includes five competitive multiplayer modes, which all can be customized, for between two and 16 players; up to four players may play split-screen on one Xbox, and further players can join using a "System Link" feature that allows up to four Xbox consoles to be connected together into a local area network. Halo lacks artificially intelligent game bots, and was released before the launch of the Xbox Live online multiplayer service; therefore LAN parties are needed to reach the game's 16-player limit, a setup that was a first for a console game, but was often deemed impractical by critics. Aside from this limitation, Halo ' s multiplayer components were generally well received, and it is widely considered one of the best multiplayer games of all time.

Although the Xbox version of Halo lacks official support for online multiplayer play, third-party packet tunneling software provide unofficial ways around this limitation. The Windows and Macintosh ports of Halo support online matches involving up to 16 players and include multiplayer maps, not in the original Xbox release. However, co-operative play was removed from the ports because it would have required large amounts of recoding to implement. In April 2014, it was announced that GameSpy's servers and matchmaking, on which Halo PC relied, would be shut down by May 31 of the same year. A team of fans and Bungie employees announced they would produce a patch for the game to keep its multiplayer servers online. The patch was released on May 16, 2014.

Setting
Halo: Combat Evolved takes place in a 26th-century science fiction setting. Faster-than-light travel called slip-space allows the human race to colonize planets other than Earth. The planet Reach serves as an interstellar hub of scientific and military activity. The United Nations Space Command (UNSC) develops a secret program to create augmented supersoldiers known as Spartans. More than twenty years before the beginning of the game, a technologically advanced collective of alien races called the Covenant begins a religious war against humanity, declaring them an affront to their gods. Humanity's military experiences a series of crushing defeats; although the Spartans are effective against the Covenant, they are too few in number to turn the tide. In 2552, Covenant forces attack Reach and destroy the colony. The starship Pillar of Autumn escapes the planet with the Spartan Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 on board. The ship initiates a jump to slip-space, hoping to lead the enemy away from Earth.

Plot
The game begins as the Pillar of Autumn exits slip-space and its crew discovers a large ringworld structure of unknown origin. The Covenant pursues the Autumn and attacks. With the ship heavily damaged, the Autumn 's captain, Jacob Keyes, entrusts the ship's artificial intelligence (AI) known as Cortana to Master Chief in order to prevent the Covenant from discovering the location of Earth. Keyes orders the crew to abandon the Autumn and pilots the ship to a crash-landing on the ringworld.

On the ring's surface, Master Chief and Cortana rescue scattered survivors and help organize a counter-offensive against the Covenant. Learning that Keyes has been captured by the Covenant, Master Chief and a small contingent of soldiers rescue him from the Covenant cruiser Truth and Reconciliation. Keyes reveals that the Covenant call the ringworld "Halo" and that they believe it to be a weapon. Intent on stopping the Covenant from using Halo, Keyes searches for a potential weapons cache, while Master Chief and Cortana mount an assault on the ringworld's control room. Cortana enters Halo's computer systems and, after discovering something horrifying, sends Master Chief to find and stop Keyes from continuing his search and uncovering what lies within the ring.

Searching for the captain, Master Chief encounters a new enemy, the parasitic Flood. The release of the Flood prompts Halo's caretaker, the AI 343 Guilty Spark, to enlist Master Chief's help in activating Halo's defenses. After Master Chief retrieves the ring's activation index, 343 Guilty Spark transports him back to Halo's control room. Cortana intervenes before Master Chief can activate the ring; she has discovered the purpose of the installation is to destroy all sentient life in the galaxy, starving the Flood of potential hosts. When Cortana refuses to surrender Halo's activation index, 343 Guilty Spark attacks her and Master Chief.

To stop Halo's activation, Master Chief and Cortana decide to destroy the installation. Needing Keyes' neural implants to destroy the Autumn and Halo with it, Master Chief returns to the Truth and Reconciliation. He finds that Keyes has been assimilated by the Flood, and retrieves the neural implant from the captain's remains. After 343 Guilty Spark stops them from using Autumns self-destruct, Master Chief and Cortana destabilize the Autumns reactors instead, narrowly escaping the ensuing detonation in a fighter. Cortana justifies their actions to destroy the Covenant fleet and stop the Flood threat and believes the fight is finished, but Master Chief states they are only getting started. In a post-credits scene, 343 Guilty Spark is seen floating in space, having survived the ring's destruction.

Prototypes
Halo was conceived as an indirect successor to Bungie's previous first-person shooter games, Marathon and Marathon 2: Durandal. After the 1995 release of Durandal, Bungie considered ideas for their next game and wanted to try something other than a direct sequel. One of the ideas that the team began to develop was that of a first-person shooter game described by co-founder Jason Jones as "the natural extension of Marathon, which would have turned out to be something along the lines of Quake". Concurrently, the team explored the concept of a vehicular combat game that featured tank battles in a futuristic setting, internally dubbed "The Giant Bloody War Game". Jones started the design of a 3D engine that could generate height-mapped graphics to visualize elevated surfaces, and he eventually suggested that Bungie use the technology to realize the "tank combat" idea. The team was enthusiastic about that prospect and proceeded to cancel their first-person shooter project–to commit to the creation of "The Giant Bloody War Game". However, Jones struggled to implement a physics model to simulate vehicles in the game, which led Bungie to change their plans and develop the real-time strategy game (RTS) Myth: The Fallen Lords, released in 1997.

Around this time, Bungie comprised around 15 people working in south Chicago, Illinois. After Myth was completed and Bungie decided on a sequel, Myth II: Soulblighter, Jones delegated its development to the company's other designers and resumed his work on the technology that had not been applied to the 1997 title. A group of three Bungie staffers began to develop an RTS with a focus on science fiction, realistic physics simulations and three-dimensional terrain. Early versions used the Myth engine and isometric perspective. The project had the initial working title Armor, but was changed for being "boring" and for the project's dramatic changes from what was first envisioned. It was switched to Monkey Nuts, then Blam! after Jones could not bring himself to tell his mother the original name.

Experimenting with ways of controlling units, Bungie added a mode that attached the camera to individual units. The vantage point continually moved closer to the units as the developers realized it would be more fun for players to drive the vehicles themselves, rather than have the computer do it. "And controlling [the vehicle], just that double tactile nature of load a dude in, get a dude out, hands on the steering wheel—it was like, this shouldn't be an RTS game," recalled Seropian. By mid-1998 the game had become a third-person shooter.

Peter Tamte, Bungie's then-executive vice president, used his contacts from his former position at Apple to get lead writer Joseph Staten and project lead Jason Jones an audience with CEO Steve Jobs. Jobs, impressed, agreed to debut the game to the world at the 1999 Macworld Conference & Expo. Anticipation built for the unknown Bungie game after favorable reviews from industry journalists under non-disclosure agreements at Electronic Entertainment Expo 1999.

Days before the Macworld announcement, Blam! still had no permanent title; possible names included The Santa Machine, Solipsis, The Crystal Palace, Hard Vacuum, Star Maker, and Star Shield. Bungie hired a branding firm that came up with the name Covenant, but Bungie artist Paul Russell suggested alternatives, including Halo. Though some did not like the name—likening it to something religious, or a women's shampoo—designer Marcus Lehto said, "it described enough about what our intent was for this universe in a way that created this sense of mystery." On July 21, 1999, during the Macworld Conference & Expo, Jobs announced that Halo would be released for MacOS and Windows simultaneously.

The game's premise at this point involved a human transport starship that crash-lands on a mysterious ringworld. Early versions of the Covenant arrive to loot what they can, and war erupts between them and the humans. Unable to match the technologically advanced alien race, the humans resort to guerrilla warfare. At this point, Bungie promised an open-world game with terrain that reacted and deformed from explosions, persistent environment details such as spent shell casings, and variable weather, none of which made it into the final product. These early versions featured Halo-specific fauna, later dropped following design difficulties and the creatures' detraction from the surprise appearance of the Flood. The Master Chief was simply known as the cyborg. When Halo was shown at E3 in June 2000, it was still a third-person shooter.

Move to Xbox
Bungie's financial situation during Halo's development was precarious. Ahead of Myth II: Soulblighter's release, Bungie was surviving on Myth sales and had missed release dates. A glitch that caused Myth II to wipe the contents of the directory it was installed to was only discovered after 200,000 copies had already been produced for the December 1998 launch. Bungie recalled the copies and issued a fix, costing the company $800,000. As a result, Bungie sold a share of the company and publishing rights to Take-Two Interactive.

Still facing financial difficulties, Bungie's Tamte contacted Ed Fries, the head of Microsoft Game Studios, about a possible acquisition. Fries was working on developing the software lineup for Microsoft's first game console, the Xbox. Fries negotiated an agreement with Take-Two Interactive wherein Microsoft gained Bungie and the rights to Halo, while Take-Two kept the Myth and Oni properties. Jones and Seropian pitched the purchase to the rest of Bungie as the way they could shape the future of a new game console. Microsoft announced its acquisition of Bungie on June 19, 2000. Halo was now to be the tentpole launch game for the Xbox.

In less than a year, Bungie had to turn Halo from a loose collection of gameplay and plot ideas into a shipping product on an unproven console. To make players feel more connected to the action, Jason Jones pushed to turn the game's perspective from third-person to first-person. A key concern was making sure the game played well on the Xbox's gamepad; at the time, first-person shooters on consoles were rare. Spearheading the effort, designer Jaime Griesemer wrote code to discern player intent and assist the player's movement and aiming without being obvious. The game buffered player inputs so that the result was the desired player movement, rather than the movement players were actually making.

Other Bungie projects were scrapped, and their teams absorbed into Halo in the rush to complete it. Griesemer said that after the Bungie team moved to the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Washington, he was so busy he did not unpack his belongings for six months. The designers prototyped encounters and enemy AI on a sandbox level, "B30". The success of gameplay on this small chunk of the game energized the team, and B30 became "The Silent Cartographer", the fourth mission.

To make the release date, Bungie made drastic cuts to the game's features and scope. The open-world plans were scrapped, and it became clear the lengthy planned campaign was not feasible. One level was cut and replaced with an expositional cutscene. Staten described his role as putting "story duct tape" over gaps that appeared to smooth them over. To save time, Lehto suggested reusing campaign levels; glowing directional arrows were added after playtesters got lost backtracking. Microsoft game writers Eric Trautmann and Brannon Boren performed last-minute rewrites to the script. An online multiplayer component was dropped because Xbox Live would not be ready. Only four months before release, it was decided that the multiplayer was still not fun, so it was scrapped and rebuilt from scratch, using team members who moved from the defunct Bungie West team after completing Oni. Some personnel took to sleeping in the office for the last few months to make sure the game made its deadline.

Design
Bungie's social culture—and the rush to complete the game—meant that team members provided input and feedback across disciplines. Aspects such as level design demanded collaboration between the designers creating the environments for players to explore, and the artists who developed those environments' aesthetics. Initially, artists Robert McLees and Lehto were the only artists working on what would become Halo. Bungie hired Shi Kai Wang as an additional artist to refine Lehto's designs. The aliens making up the Covenant began with varied exploratory designs that coalesced once each enemy's role in the gameplay was defined.

Spearheaded by Paul Russell, the game's visual design changed in response to the changing gameplay and story. The artists made efforts to distinguish each faction in the game by their architecture, technology, and weaponry. The UNSC's original curved look was made blockier to distinguish it from the Covenant; likewise human weapons remained projectile-based to provide a contrast to the Covenant's energy weapons, and their vehicles based on animals, with the Warthog being inspired by Lehto's love of off-roading. The interiors of Pillar of Autumn drew significant influence from the production design of the film Aliens. Organic, curvilinear forms along with a color palette of greens and purples were used for the Covenant, while the Forerunner came to be defined by their angular constructions; the interiors originally drew on Aztec patterns and the work of Louis Sullivan, before becoming more refined just five months from the game's completion.

Audio
Composer Martin O'Donnell and his company TotalAudio were tasked with creating the music for Halo's MacWorld debut. Staten told O'Donnell that the music should give a feeling of ancient mystery. O'Donnell decided Gregorian chant would be appropriate, and performed the vocals alongside his composing partner Michael Salvatori and additional singers. Because he did not know how long the presentation would be, O'Donnell created "smushy" opening and closing sections that could be expanded or cut as the time required to back up a rhythmic middle section. The music was recorded in Chicago and sent to New York for the show the same night the piece was finished.

Shortly before Bungie was bought by Microsoft, O'Donnell joined Bungie as a staff member, while Salvatori remained at TotalAudio. O'Donnell designed the music so that it "could be dissembled and remixed in such a way that would give [him] multiple, interchangeable loops that could be randomly recombined in order to keep the piece interesting as well as a variable-length". Development involved the creation of "alternative middle sections that could be transitioned to if the game called for such a change (i.e. less or more intense)."

O'Donnell sat with the level designers to walk through the levels, constructing music that would adapt to the gameplay rather than be static; "The level designer would tell me what he hoped a player would feel at certain points or after accomplishing certain tasks." Based on this information, O'Donnell would develop cues the designer could script into the level, and then he and the designer would play through the mission to see if the audio worked. He made sparse use of music because he believes that "[music] is best used in a game to quicken the emotional state of the player and it works best when used least," and that "[if] music is constantly playing it tends to become sonic wallpaper and loses its impact when it is needed to truly enhance some dramatic component of gameplay." The cutscenes came so late that O'Donnell had to score them in only three days.

Release
Ed Fries described the period before the Xbox's launch as chaotic; "You've got to imagine this environment of panic combined with adrenaline, but money's mostly no object at the same time. So we were spending lots of it, trying to do all this crazy stuff," he recalled. After several planned video game tie-ins to Steven Spielberg's film A.I. Artificial Intelligence were scrapped it became clear that Halo had to serve as the tentpole title for the Xbox, a role which the game was never intended to fill.

Halo's debut had been well-received, but its move to the unproven Xbox console caused press treatment to be colder than it was before. While a playable demonstration of the game at Gamestock 2001 was well-received, critics had mixed reactions to its exhibition at E3 2001,  where the game was shown off in a very broken state, with poor frame rates and technical issues.

Even within Microsoft, Halo was divisive. After Bungie refused to change the Halo name to appease marketing research teams, the subtitle "Combat Evolved" was added to make it more descriptive and compete better with other military-themed games. Fries recalled analysts had suggested that Halo had the "wrong" color palette compared to competing console games; Fries never showed the results to Bungie.

The game was released in North America simultaneously with the Xbox, on November 15, 2001.

Halo: The Fall of Reach, a prequel novel to Halo: Combat Evolved, was released a few weeks before the game. Science fiction author Eric S. Nylund penned the novel in seven weeks. The novel was nearly killed halfway to completion; Nylund credits Trautmann with saving it. The Fall of Reach became a Publishers Weekly bestseller with almost two hundred thousand copies sold. The game itself would be novelized with Halo: The Flood, written by William C. Dietz and released in 2003.

On July 12, 2002, a Halo port for Windows was announced to be under development by Gearbox Software. Its showing at E3 2003 was positively received by some critics, with skepticism by others. It was released on September 30, 2003, and included support for online multiplayer play and featured sharper graphics, but had optimization issues that caused poor performance. Halo was later released for Mac OS X on December 11, 2003. On December 4, 2007, the game became available for the Xbox 360 via download from the Xbox Live Marketplace.

Sales
While Halo was not an instant runaway success on release, it had a long tail sales rate and a very high attach rate for the Xbox; during the two months following Halo's release, the game sold alongside more than fifty percent of Xbox consoles. One million units had been sold roughly five months after release, a faster pace than that of any previous sixth-generation console game. The game sold three million copies worldwide by July 2003, and four million by January 2004. By July 2006, its Xbox version had sold 4.2 million copies and earned $170 million in the United States alone, while its computer version sold 670,000 copies and earned $22.2 million. Next Generation ranked it as the second highest-selling game launched for the PlayStation 2, Xbox or GameCube between January 2000 and July 2006 in the United States.

Reception
Halo received widespread critical acclaim, with a 97 out of 100 on review aggregator Metacritic, based on reviews from 68 professional critics. Ste Curran's review for Edge praised the game as "the most important launch game for any console, ever" and commented, "GoldenEye was the standard for multiplayer console combat. It has been surpassed." GameSpot claimed that "Halo ' s single-player game is worth picking up an Xbox for alone," concluding, "Not only is this easily the best of the Xbox launch games, but it's easily one of the best shooters ever, on any platform." IGN remarked similarly, calling Halo a "can't miss, no-brainer, sure thing, five star, triple A game." Gary Whitta of Official Xbox Magazine calling Halo as "a stunning achievement." AllGame editor Jonathan Licata praised Bungie for doing "a remarkable job with Halo, taking many successful elements from previous standouts in the genre to make one very playable game". Among the specific aspects that reviewers praised were the balance of weapons, the role of drivable vehicles, and the artificial intelligence of enemies.

The Xbox version of Halo received more than 40 awards, including numerous Game of the Year awards, including from AIAS, EGM, Edge, and IGN. GameSpot named Halo the third-best console game of 2001, and it won the publication's annual "Best Xbox Game" and, among console games, "Best Shooting Game" awards. It was a runner-up in the "Best Sound" category. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts awarded Halo "Best Console Game" and Rolling Stone presented it with their "Best Original Soundtrack" award. Halo also won The Electric Playground's 2001 "Best Console Shooter" award, the "11th Annual GamePro Readers' Choice Awards" for "Best Combat Game of The Year", and Golden Joystick Awards for "Xbox Game of the Year" in 2002. as well as Spike Video Game Awards for "Best PC Game" in 2003.

Halo: Combat Evolved won four awards at the 5th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards (now known as the D.I.C.E. Awards): "Game of the Year", "Console Game of the Year", "Console Action/Adventure Game of the Year", and "Outstanding Achievement in Visual Engineering"; it also received nominations for "Outstanding Innovation in Console Gaming", "Outstanding Achievement in Game Design", "Outstanding Achievement in Game Play Engineering", and "Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction"

Next Generation reviewed the Xbox version of the game, rating it five stars out of five, and stated that "If you didn't think there was a reason to buy an Xbox, Halo will change your mind."

Although Halo's overall reception was largely positive, the game received criticism for its level design. GameSpy commented, "you'll trudge through countless hallways and control rooms that all look exactly the same, fighting identical-looking groups of enemies over and over and over...it is simply frustrating to see a game with such groundbreaking sequences too often degenerate [into] this kind of mindless, repetitive action." Similarly, an article on Game Studies.org remarked, "In the latter part of the game, the scenarios rely on repetition and quantity rather than innovativeness and quality." Eurogamer concluded, "Halo is very much a game of two halves. The first half is fast, exciting, beautifully designed and constantly full of surprises. The second half is festooned with gobsmacking plot twists and great cinematics but let down by repetitive paint-by-numbers level design." Halo was released prior to the launch of Xbox Live, and the lack of both online multiplayer and bots to simulate human players was criticized by GameSpy; in 2003 GameSpy included Halo in a list of "Top 25 Most Overrated Games of All Time."

Halo ' s PC port received generally favorable reviews, garnering a score of 83% on Metacritic. GameSpot stated that it was "still an incredible action game ... [and] a true classic," awarding it 9.0 out of 10. It received a score of 8.2 out of 10 from IGN, who stated, "If you've played the game on the Xbox, there's not much for you here." Eurogamer called the game "a missed opportunity," but stated that the online multiplayer component was "a massive draw ... for Halo veterans." The PC Port of Halo was heavily criticised for having poor performance issues even on a Athlon 64 or Pentium 4 Extreme Edition-Based High-end PC at that time.

Halo has been praised as one of the greatest video games of all time, and was ranked by IGN as the fourth-best first-person shooter made. In 2017, The Strong National Museum of Play inducted Halo to its World Video Game Hall of Fame.

Legacy
Halo is credited with modernizing the FPS genre. According to GameSpot, Halo's "numerous subtle innovations have been borrowed by countless other games since". The game is often cited as the main reason for the Xbox's success, and it began what is commonly regarded as the system's flagship franchise. In July 2006, Next-Gen.biz published an article estimating Halo as the second-highest revenue-generating 21st century console video game in the United States, behind Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. The game's popularity sparked the usage of terms like "Halo clone"  and "Halo killer", applied to games either similar to or anticipated to be better than it. The Halo engine has been used for the game Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse.

Halo has been featured at both Major League Gaming and the World Cyber Games. The game's sequel, Halo 2, made US$125 million with unit sales of 2.38 million on the first day of its release, earning it the distinction of the fastest-selling United States media product in history. Three years later, Halo 3 shattered that record with the biggest opening day in entertainment history, taking in US$170 million in its first 24 hours.

In addition, the game inspired and was used in the fan-created Red vs. Blue video series, which is credited as the "first big success" of machinima (the technique of using real-time 3D engines, often from video games, to create animated films).

Halo: Custom Edition
On March 15, 2004, Gearbox Software released Halo: Custom Edition for Windows, which enabled players to use custom-made maps and game modifications via the Halo Editing Kit developed by Bungie. Halo: Custom Edition consists of multiplayer maps and requires an original copy of Halo for PC to install. Custom maps can be both single and multiplayer.

Remaster
During the Microsoft press conference at the 2011 E3 Expo, it was revealed that Halo: Combat Evolved would be remade by 343 Industries with an in-house game engine and would include achievements, Terminals, and Skulls. It was released for the Xbox 360 on November 15, 2011. The release date marks the 10th anniversary of the original game's release. The remastered version of the original game includes online multiplayer and cooperative play functionality. The remaster is also the first Halo game to include Kinect support. The game is a mix of two game engines—the original Halo engine created by Bungie, which provides gameplay, and a new engine created by 343 Industries and Saber that is responsible for improved graphics—and the player is able to switch between the improved and classic modes of the game at any time. The game's multiplayer component uses the Halo: Reach gameplay engine, tailored with a map playlist to mimic the original multiplayer, as opposed to including the original game's multiplayer mode.

Anniversary was later included as part of Halo: The Master Chief Collection.

The Anniversary version of the game is the version featured in The Master Chief Collection for Xbox One. The single-player game is nearly identical to the Xbox 360 version, including the ability to swap between the updated "anniversary" graphics and the original game graphics, but excluding Stereoscopic 3DTV support. However, unlike the Xbox 360 release, the multiplayer component is the original multiplayer engine from Combat Evolved as opposed to Halo: Reach and is playable over Xbox Live.

title: Halo: Combat Evolved


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Talk:A cappella

Focus of discussion
Rather than concentrating on how to improve the "A capella" page, these interactions seem more a debate over the use of instruments in worship. While I have no problem with your engaging in such a debate, I question the appropriateness of doing so here. Please return the focus of discussion to this Wikipedia page. (See WP:TALK.) Otherwise, email or a blog environment may be better for general debate on the issue. If a disagreement won't be settled here, I'd advise including a summary of both viewpoints in the article, aiming for neutrality. —ADavidB 14:02, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Adavidb, wise words. --Trackn (talk) 09:27, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
 * ADavidB and Trackn, for my part, I will see how it plays out. I may let Wiki go on without me. I had thought that the purpose of an alternate point of view was to cite scholars on the other side of an issue without having to debate and choose one side or the other. I have spent too much of my time responding to charges that the scholars supporting the alternate point of view do not say what I quote them as saying. I do not know how Wiki resolves that, but it has driven the debate, and I am weary of defending it.
 * In the short term, I will shorten the pro-accompaniment section. I would suggest that we rethink what is most central to the debate and narrow the church section down to that. The Jewish section needs the same discussion. Hopefully at some point we can clear out much of these comments on this talk page. 4unity (talk) 23:00, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

 * I did not intend for either of you, 4unity or Trackn, to give up Wikipedia editing or discussion. Other than a debate on external issues, I'm sure there are other parts of this project that can benefit from your time and effort, with as much or as little time as you're able to provide.
 * When I've encountered other disagreements which iterative discussion alone hasn't resolved, a more determined effort to reach consensus is applied. If that cannot be achieved by the editors themselves, there are ways to bring in arbitration to help decide (though I haven't been involved with that myself). I like the idea of examining other sections of the article and improving them as well. —ADavidB 02:41, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

 * Scattershooting on how can we return this talk page to talk without the debate… May we delete the existing interaction between Trackn and myself, since almost all of it is debate? If not, it seems to me that this Wiki talk page remains as bait for the unwanted debate, frozen in time when the music stopped, er, the whistle blew, a snapshot holding charges beckoning answers. We could tag the deletion with a summary line so that anyone interested in the deleted snapshot could look in the history. Is there a better alternative? 'Any objections? 4unity (talk) 18:53, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

 * Deletion of talk page content is generally discouraged unless it's vandalism or has absolutely no bearing on article improvement. You make a good point that leaving the discussion as it is may encourage an unwanted later debate by others. Other talk pages with lots of content use "archive" pages to contain the older writing.  A box at the top of the page then includes links to these pages.  Such archiving can either be done manually or automatically.  My own preference would be to set it up automatically, such that any discussion topics left unchanged for so many days – I think 90 is a typical default, though it can be shorter – are moved to an archive page.  If it's agreed to do this, I'll be glad to set it up. —ADavidB 02:41, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I would like to believe that the information shared in the discussion over the last few months between 4unity and I provided a wealth of knowledge to the average person studying the issue. I enjoyed it and never took any personal offense. Though there is allot of information posted, it does pertain to the statements and authors cited in the main article. Given that there is the potential for people to debate the topic at anytime, I would prefer to leave what is posted in the talk page until a problem arises. If such becomes a problem, action/archiving can be taken/performed at that time. Looking at the past posts, apart from 4unity, AdavidB, and I, I don’t think this is the most popular topic on Wikipedia (smile). --Trackn (talk) 23:08, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't agree with "deleting" the discussion, though long chat sections are typically archived, especially when no longer updated for a period of time (WP:ARCHIVE). A link to the archive page would be at the top of the talk page.  Anyway, as you wrote, this talk page hasn't shown a lot of popularity.  I'm not in any particular hurry.  :-)  —ADavidB 02:50, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Archiving done. --Kslotte (talk) 20:38, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I have a question about the archiving last July. Rereading this "Focus of Discussion" section, I’m curious why the “acceptance of instruments in worship” section seems to have been singled out for exclusion from the archive designed for it. Except for the question from October and its answer, may we archive the "Christian 'acceptance of instruments in worship' viewpoint" section along with the others? 4unity (talk) 03:50, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I finished the archiving begun in July 2010, which had only archived one side of a debate from that time. 4unity (talk) 22:55, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Debate over instruments in Christian worship
The instrument upon which Christians are told to play is the human heart! The is: making melody "in your heart to the Lord".74.37.109.123 (talk) 18:21, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

The question you raise is addressed in the archive. You may search for the phrase “heart is not the musical instrument.” As noted in the section “Focus of this discussion" (below), the goal of this section is not a forum to debate instrumental music in worship. 4unity (talk) 03:57, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Opposite?
How do you call the opposite of A capella? When an instrument sounds like a human voice. I once heard the word "voccata" but I'm not sure whether I remember it right and the spelling is surely wrong.--TeakHoken193.187.211.118 (talk) 07:58, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
 * See the Vox humana article for information about an organ stop that supposedly sounds like a human voice. The opposite of a cappella singing is accompanied singing, however. 68.20.21.33 (talk) 17:28, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Spelling of the term
I know the correct spelling is "a cappella," but I rarely see it printed that way in modern popular culture. Are "a capella" or "acapella" considered correct alternate spellings, or are they simply misspellings of the term? Can anyone address this? Davidgra (talk) 08:47, 11 May 2011 (UTC) —Wahoofive (talk) 23:47, 11 May 2011 (UTC) (However, i'm unlikely to finish all of that in one sitting, so don't panic that it's not done yet.) --Jerzy•t 06:58 &10:10, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
 * That's outside our scope. Who decides what's "considered correct"? Not Wikipedia editors. Both of those spellings redirect to this page, so it doesn't really matter for us.
 * I found the article carrying a HatNote Dab
 * "A Capella" and "Acapella" redirect here. For other uses, see A cappella (disambiguation).
 * but there were approximately 30 redirects to the accompanying article, some of which differed only by spacing and/or casing. About half differ at least as to spelling, including names that are correct spellings of groups or works. Arguably, those should go directly to articles really spelled that way, with HatNote Dabs, and i'm violating MoSDab by putting Dab pages at those titles. The situation i found, where users who took the trouble to copy down the exact spelling, or memorize which misspelling of a cappella was used, grossly mistreats them by making them search thru a morass of other misspellings (and perhaps worse, correct spellings of things with a name different from that of the article being sought). If someone wants to make a case for primary-topic Dab'n of some of these titles, i've done part of the leg work for them, so i hope they'll not complain based on their opinion that i've left the job incomplete, rather than make the case.

--Jerzy•t 10:10, 22 August 2011 (UTC) --Bytemaster (talk) 18:32, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Quick inspection suggests that i'm finished, but i want to look again and at more leisure. Many eyes will be welcome in any case.
 * "a capella" is the Latin spelling of the term. "a cappella" is the Italian spelling of the term.  Since most music is notated with the Italian phases for direction, the second spelling is "most correct".  As one word, "Acappella" either refers to the music group Acappella, or is a butchered spelling, in my opinion anyway.  See: http://www.singers.com/a-cappella.html.

According to my Langenscheidt Latin-English dictionary, 'capella' is the Latin for 'she-goat'. There is no entry for 'cappella'. In the English-Latin section, it gives the Latin for 'chapel' as 'aedicula' or 'sacellum'. According to my Pocket Oxford English dictionary, the word 'chapel' derives via French from the medieval Latin diminutive of 'cappa', meaning cloak. I can find nothing to suggest that in Latin 'capella' (with one p) ever meant 'chapel'. I speculate that the English spelling of 'chapel' with one p is the source of the confusion: people know that 'a cappella' means 'in the chapel', and they assume that the correct spelling has one p.  Unfortunately, in this case the word dropped a letter in the transition from Latin 'cappella' to French 'chapelle', and English followed the French spelling.109.158.41.48 (talk) 13:21, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

“Recording artists” section is off topic
Most or all of the "Recording Artists" section is really off topic, should be pulled in its entirety. Does "a cappella" mean the unaccompanied voice or not? 72.228.177.92 (talk) 10:42, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

This does not make since to me, thousands of "a cappella" artists/singers are recorded and have released CDs/DVDS world wide. Yes it is "just" voice. But they are still "Recording Artists" as they sing and are recorded. Tricia Ziemer (talk) 20:30, 18 July 2013 (UTC) 19 July 2013

List of European a cappella groups
The inclusion of a section with only a list of European groups has been questioned. I agree that it isn't appropriate in its current form. Is there any opposition to moving the section content to a new List of European a cappella groups article and linking to it from this article, perhaps in the 'See also' section? —ADavidB 10:09, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
 * An admin took it upon herself to delete the section without comment; seeing no urgency, I've restored it for now. —ADavidB 03:37, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Luther opposed instruments?
''Instruments have divided Christendom since their introduction into worship. They were considered a Catholic innovation, not widely practiced until the 18th century, and were opposed vigorously in worship by a number of Protestant Reformers, including Martin Luther (1483–1546),''

What about A Mighty Fortress Is Our God?174.137.237.65 (talk) 19:49, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I'll be removing the Martin Luther reference in about a week (unless given a reason not to).174.137.237.65 (talk) 18:15, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

 * Both references to Luther are sourced (though I don't have access to the sources). What in the "Mighty Fortress" article suggests Luther supported instrumental music in worship? —ADavidB 07:01, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

 * Yeah, and I don't know the WP policy off-hand on the not-so-accessible sources--online ones would help. I've never heard the hymn without music. This Youtube dynamic url indicates as much.174.137.237.65 (talk) 19:22, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Okay, so this Steve Green does it a cappella, but it's solo.174.137.237.65 (talk) 19:25, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I wonder if it would be okay to post this in the A Mighty Fortress talk page.174.137.237.65 (talk) 19:36, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Offline sources are acceptable; of course they're much easier to verify if freely available online. If the source content is questioned, a "Verify source" or "Request quotation" template can be added to encourage anyone with access to check on it. As you suggested, introducing the concern on the 'Mighty Fortress' talk page may be helpful. —ADavidB 05:23, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I guess I'm not questioning the veracity or accuracy of the quote as much as the (online) accessibility. In this archived section (quick search on my part), the editor wrote “There is no requirement that sources be online, but we do require them to be cited in such a way that a reader of the article could, if they so wished, find the hard copy sources, say in a library, and verify what they say.” I did a cursory Google check using the reference, “^ Martin Luther, Mcclintock & Strong's Encyclopedia Volume VI, page 762,” for the search and got Bible Topics In The Christian Library. I'll leave the credibility debate for others (it's definately POV on instrumental music on church without much Biblical backing cited), but it had an interesting (alleged at least) quote from Luther: "The organ in the worship of God is an ensign of Baal. The Roman Catholic borrowed it from the Jews." (Not being Jewish, I didn't even know that Jews were really into church organs). Very well, I will leave it well enough alone (at least for a good long time), and will go to the A Mighty Fortress article and maybe Wikiquotes. Thank you for your help.174.137.237.65 (talk) 18:10, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Okay, I put postings on this Talk:A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, Talk:Martin Luther, and in WQ Talk:Martin Luther. FYI: no mention of Luther in the German version of this article. I'll be back in several days. Cheers.174.137.237.65 (talk) 19:26, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

 * For those that are watching, I updated all of the references on this article and verified accuracy. The discussed reference...Mcclintock's and Strong was slightly incorrect as Martin Luther was not an author which was the impression I got by my reading of it, regardless, it as well as the rest of the references have all been verified (or deleted if they were bad links to commerical websites), and standardized. I hope no one minds that I did this. On another note, I enjoyed the read and believe this needs to be re-assessed because there is no way this is merely a "Start". speednat (talk) 19:29, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

"Solo" a cappella
Lately there are quite a few videos on Youtube of people singing a cappella with themselves. They record themselves singing one particular part of the song, and then layer the different parts on top of each other. This is only possible with modern technology, and the individual/small-scale nature of the internet is probably making it more popular/feasible as well. I think some mention could be made in the article about this, at least. CodeCat (talk) 18:30, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

 * Agree that this deserves a mention, but it goes back further than you might think. See History of multitrack recording. Didn't find any a cappella examples there, but I'm sure there were some. —Wahoofive (talk) 06:30, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

 * In addition to finalized songs, many a cappella musicians use solo multitrack recordings for training purposes, which may be worthy of inclusion. An example site with links to sources of such "learning tracks" is http://www.barbershopconnections.com/learning/. —ADavidB 08:56, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

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Peter Paul and Mary reference
As part of #1lib1ref, I am adding references. I checked the liner notes of the album for that "Norman Normal" song, because I couldn't find any other information about the fact that it was entirely a cappella. In the listing of the songs on each side of the record album, it does say "Norman Normal : Paul Crowd, crowd; Paul Esophagus, electric bass; Paul Larynx, second guitar; Paul Mouth, percussion; Paul Stookey, lead voice; Paul Stookey, second voice; Paul Throat, lead guitar". So, it is indeed a fact that all sounds are created by Paul Stookey, even though it is only there in a punny and non-explicit way. I hope this citation is okay/ helpful. LibraryVoices (talk) 18:56, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

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Request for Comment: New WikiProject for A Cappella-related articles
Hi there! To any and all interested: I've proposed a WikiProject dedicated to a cappella. This would be a group of editors interested in improving the quality of articles related to a cappella. If you're passionate about a cappella—ranging from professional groups like the Pentatonix to collegiate groups like the Whiffenpoofs, or perhaps pop culture representations like Pitch Perfect and The Sing-Off—please check out the proposal and share your thoughts!

Here's a link to the proposal for WikiProject A Cappella.

If you could see yourself contributing to an article related to a cappella (like this one), please consider joining!

 * —Shrinkydinks (talk) 20:16, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:A cappella


text:
Sansoen Phra Barami

"Sansoen Phra Barami" (สรรเสริญพระบารมี, ; ) is the current royal anthem of Thailand. It was a de facto national anthem of Siam before 1932.

History

The first song to be used as royal anthem and de facto national anthem of Siam/Thailand appeared in the reign of King Mongkut of Rattanakosin Kingdom. In 1851, two former British military officers named Captain Impey and Lieutenant Thomas George Knox served with the Siamese Army. They trained the troops of King Mongkut and the Second King Pinklao with British military tradition. So, they adopted the anthem "God Save the King" as honor music for the king of Siam. Phraya Srisunthonwohan (Noi Āchāryānkura) wrote Thai lyrics for this anthem later and named it as "Chom Rat Chong Charoen", which means "long live the great king".

In 1871, King Chulalongkorn visited Singapore and Batavia (now Jakarta) in the Dutch East Indies; it appeared that Siam used the same anthem with Great Britain, who ruled over Singapore at that time. It was necessary that Siam must have a new unique tune for using as the royal anthem and de facto national anthem. A group of Siamese traditional musicians had selected a Thai song named "Bulan Loi Luean" (The Floating Moon on the Sky) which was the royal composition of King Rama II for use as the new anthem. King Chulalongkorn later ordered Christopher Hewetson, a Dutch bandmaster who served in the Royal Siamese Army, to arrange the song in western style for performing by the military band. According to a research of Sugree Charoensuk, an associate professor from Mahidol University, the melody of this anthem may be the same tune with another anthem named "Sansoen Sua Pa" which had been used as the anthem of the Wild Tiger Corps since 1911.

History about the royal anthem of Siam after 1871 are ambiguous, and evidence is rare to find. An evidence of music composition of the royal anthem of Siam appeared again in 1888 when a sheet music of the Siamese national anthem, arranged by the Russian composer Pyotr Schurovsky, was printed in Russia. The main melody of the song in that sheet music is the same tune of "Sansoen Phra Barami" in present time. According to a research of Sugree Charoensook, Pyotr Shchurovsky was the composer of the music of "Sansoen Phra Barami", to serve as Siam's national anthem. Prince Narisara Nuvadtivong later composed various lyrics of "Sansoen Phra Barami" for using in the Royal Siamese Army, in all Siamese schools and in Siamese traditional music bands. Prince Abhakara Kiartivongse also composed a version of lyrics for used in the Royal Siamese Navy. In 1913, King Vajiravudh decided to relinquish all lyrics of "Sansoen Phra Barami" that mentioned before and revised it to current version only.

"Sansoen Phra Barami" was the de facto national anthem of Siam from 1888 until 1932, when it was replaced by "Phleng Chat Siam". It is still used as the royal anthem of Thailand today.

In 1940, the Thai government under the administration of Prime Minister Plaek Phibunsongkhram issued the 8th Thai cultural mandate, concerning the lyrics of "Sansoen Phra Barami", which were shortened and the word "Siam" replaced with "Thai" (see below). After the end of World War II, these lyrics were quietly abandoned due its unpopularity, and reverted to the version that revised by King Vajiravudh in 1913.

The sound recording of "Sansoen Phra Barami" was recorded for the first time ever on the Edison wax cylinder by Carl Stumpf, an ethnomusicologist from the University of Berlin. In that recording, the anthem was performed by Boosra Mahin Theater Group, a Siamese theater group visiting Berlin in 1900.

Usage of the anthem
The royal anthem is performed during state occasions, as well as when a high-ranking member of the royal family is present for a function. In addition, the royal anthem is still played before the beginning of each film in movie theatres, as well as before the commencement of the first act in plays, musicals, concerts, and most other live performances of music or theatre in Thailand. The anthem is also played at the sign-on and closedown of television and radio programming; for example, in 2008, 7HD aired a video with pictures of King Bhumibol Adulyadej from his birth to his 80th birthday in 2007. Radio Thailand (or NBT) also broadcast the sign-off with the anthem at 24:00 every night. In 2019, the Royal Thai Government Gazette has published the Royal Office Regulation on Performing Honors Music of B.E. 2562. This regulation is detailed about using the royal anthem and other honors music for the king and members of the Thai royal family in several occasions. According to this regulation, The royal anthem "Sansoen Phra Barami" should be performed for the following:

 * The King of Thailand
 * Queen Sirikit the Queen Mother
 * The Queen of Thailand
 * Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, the Princess Royal
 * Heirs-apparent to the throne
 * Royal remains
 * Some Thai Royal Standards when hoisted or shown:-
 * Royal Standard of Thailand
 * Standard of Queen Sirikit the Queen Mother
 * Standard of the Queen of Thailand
 * Standard for Senior members of the Royal Family (Standard of the Princess Mother)
 * Standard of Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, the Princess Royal
 * Standard of the Crown Prince of Thailand

Lyrics
The following are the current lyrics of "Sansoen Phra Barami", which was revised by King Vajiravudh in 1913.

title: Sansoen Phra Barami


text:
Claude de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon

Claude de Rouvroy, 1st Duke of Saint-Simon (August 1607 – 3 May 1693), was a French soldier and courtier, and favourite of Louis XIII of France, who created his dukedom for him. His only son Louis de Rouvroy, Duke of Saint-Simon (1675–1755) was the famous memoirist of the court of Louis XIV.

He was the second son of Louis de Rouvroy, Seigneur du Plessis (died 1643), who had been a warm supporter of Henri, Duke of Guise and the Catholic League.

Life and career
With his elder brother Charles (who later became the marquis de Saint-Simon), Claude de Rouvroy entered the service of Louis XIII as a page and found instant favour with the king. Named first equerry in March 1627, he became in less than three years the captain of the châteaux of St-Germain and Versailles, master of the hounds, first gentleman of the bed-chamber, royal councillor and governor of Meulan and of Blaye.

On the fall of La Rochelle in 1628, he received lands in the vicinity valued at 80,000 livres. In 1635, his seigneurie of Saint-Simon in Vermandois was erected into a duchy, and he was created a peer of France. Despite the estrangement of later years, he had a true regard for the king, and he brought his son up to revere him as the model of kingship.

He was at first on good terms with Richelieu and was of service on the Day of Dupes (11 November 1630). Having suffered disgrace for taking the part of his uncle, the baron of Saint Léger, after the capture of Catelet (15 August 1636), he retired to Blaye.

He fought in the campaigns of 1638 and 1639, and after the death of Richelieu returned to court, where he was coldly received by the king (18 February 1643). Thenceforth, with the exception of siding with Condé during the Fronde, he took small part in politics.

By his first wife, Diane de Budos de Portes, a relative of Condé, whom he married in 1644 and who died in 1670, he had three daughters. By his second wife, Charlotte de l'Aubespine, whom he married in 1672, he had a son Louis, the "author of the memoirs".

title: Claude de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon


text:
Create, read, update and delete

In computer programming, create, read, update, and delete (CRUD) are the four basic operations of persistent storage. CRUD is also sometimes used to describe user interface conventions that facilitate viewing, searching, and changing information using computer-based forms and reports.

History
The term was likely first popularized by James Martin in his 1983 book Managing the data-base environment.

Conceptual
Data can be put in a location/area of a storage mechanism.

 * The fundamental feature of a storage location is that its content is both readable and updatable.
 * Before a storage location can be read or updated it needs to be created; that is allocated and initialized with content.
 * At some later point, the storage location may need to be destructed; that is finalized and deallocated.

Together these four operations make up the basic operations of storage management known as CRUD: Create, Read, Update and Delete.

Databases
The acronym CRUD refers to the major operations which are implemented by databases. Each letter in the acronym can be mapped to a standard Structured Query Language (SQL) statement.

Although relational databases are a common persistence layer in software applications, numerous other persistence layers exist. CRUD functionality can for example be implemented with document databases, object databases, XML databases, text files, or binary files.

Some big data systems do not implement UPDATE, but have only a timestamped INSERT (journaling), storing a completely new version of the object each time.

RESTful APIs
The acronym CRUD also appears in the discussion of RESTful APIs. Each letter in the acronym may be mapped to a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) method:

In HTTP, the GET (read), PUT (create and update), POST (create - if we don't have `id` or `uuid`), and DELETE (delete) methods are CRUD operations as they have storage management semantics, meaning that they let user agents directly manipulate the states of target resources. The POST method, on the other hand, is a process operation that has target-resource-specific semantics which typically exceed the scope of CRUD operations.

User Interface
CRUD is also relevant at the user interface level of most applications. For example, in address book software, the basic storage unit is an individual contact entry. As a bare minimum, the software must allow the user to:
 * Create, or add new entries
 * Read, retrieve, search, or view existing entries
 * Update, or edit existing entries
 * Delete, deactivate, or remove existing entries

Because these operations are so fundamental, they are often documented and described under one comprehensive heading such as "contact management" or "document management" in general.

Other variations
Other variations of CRUD include:
 * ABCD (add, browse, change, delete)
 * CRUDL (create, read, update, delete, list)
 * BREAD (browse, read, edit, add, delete)
 * DAVE (delete, add, view, edit)
 * CRAP (create, replicate, append, process)

title: Create, read, update and delete