Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary

FULL REVIEW

2011 was most definitely the year of the HD remake. With the gaming giants gleefully rummaging through their old titles at the back of the cupboard, ready to regurgitate, remake and reboot. The trouble with rummaging the back of your cupboard, you find things that are best left there, in that haze of nostalgia, wrapped snug in the memories of those gaming days gone by. That and the fact there might be a poisonous spider waiting to bite off your finger. Does Halo: Combat Evolved hold up in this day and age or should it have been left in the golden showcase of nostalgia?

10 years ago, Halo Combat Evolved bought to the first Xbox, a fantastic FPS that was way ahead of its time in many respects and therefore, it is in the FPS hall of fame, sharing the wall with the likes of Half-Life. Combat Evolved introduces the player to the rich Halo universe featuring a fantastic story and some immersive environments. Not only that, it also introduced the world to the faceless, utterly badass protagonist, Master Chief. 10 years ago, the only person who was not enjoying Halo Combat Evolved was probably Steve Jobs for letting Bungie Studios slip from between his fingers. Now, 10 years later, Bungie has re-released Halo Combat Evolved completely refurbished and ready to rock with the next gen.

Everything about Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary remains true to the original with the exception of the revamped graphics. Added to that is a multiplayer experience built on the highly successful Halo: Reach platform that’s more in tune with today’s multiplayer needs.

For the benefit of those who are not familiar with the Halo Series, Combat Evolved takes place way into the future where a sentient alien force known as The Covenant embark on a holy journey to cleanse the universe of the filthy homo sapient race. To combat the threat the humans bought out a new breed of super-soldier under the SPARTAN II project, to take the fight to the Covenant home base. That’s where you’re explosively introduced to the titular mysterious Master Chief.

The visuals of the game were fantastic for its time to begin with, and now it has been bumped up a massive percentage to look great on existing hardware. You can experience the changes in real time by just pressing the “Back” key on the controller to toggle between the original and the up-scaled version. Believe me, at this point the original looks ugly. The Halo remake, even with the polygon bumps, is still a dated experience. Especially since Halo was one of the jump pads that launched FPS’s into higher levels in terms of both graphical quality, but more importantly storytelling. The point though of the Anniversary edition is to repackage a great title, so that the fans can experience it all once again. Especially those who are latecomers to the Halo universe, now have a reason to play the first in the series, without running away screaming at the originals graphics as seen today.

Not to be bested by the likes of Sony and their foray into deep 3D, Combat Evolved Anniversary also has stereoscopic 3D option if you so choose to experience the game with an extra dimension.

There’s also Kinect support. Before you get excited, the support is only limited to voice commands, like throwing grenades. The support is quite limited and takes a bit of time to execute, as Kinect tries to recognize if you said grenade or something else, then your Master Chief happily lobs a grenade.

For the multiplayer component, there are six Halo 1 maps recreated in the Halo: Reach engine as close to the original with two different variations to every map. All of this works over XBox LIVE. So gone are the 16 player LAN parties and hello to another game sapping your trusty LIVE gold membership. So the remake hands you a higher powered version of the original pistol and shoves you in Squad, BTB, FFA, Firefight and Classic, all familiar modes and quite the explosive walk down memory lane.

All in all, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary is a perfect HD remake that would make both fans and hardcore game collectors happy. With enough material packed in and more importantly, a chance to experience the game again on today’s tech. Definitely recommended.