It's amazing what a bit of perspective can do. I, for instance, have long been of the opinion that we should have stuck with the original Xbox. Microsoft's bristly black OXO cube had plenty give left in it when Xbox 360 showed up, but more importantly, it was known technology, easily coded for. With the ins and outs of the hardware well in hand, developers finally had time to focus on designing games rather than chopping and changing them to fit the specs. Next gen ruined all that, sending the industry back to square one. Bloody kids.
Such was my presumed unshakeable opinion when I sat down to play Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, the high definition reboot of the Bungie shooter that probably sold you one of those fat obsidian blocks back in the day. As a piece of design, it's very little the worse for age - something 343 Industries has reiterated time and time again in between failing to say anything concrete about Halo 4.
It doesn't even look that bad, the Halo facility's angular Forerunner architecture standing up nicely in HD, its hard, graceful lines teetering on the edge of an Escher abstraction. Has the generational shift rendered any of this less necessary, less potent? I asked myself, and my inner spendthrift answered: no. But then my thumb nudged the back button, and my brain exploded.
Anniversary runs the original Combat Evolved code side by side with 343's new engine, letting you switching between them in the middle of play. You knew that already, but it's hard to overstate how jaw-dropping the shift can be, how deeply it scours the line between what was and what is. The Pillar of Autumn's corridors, once studies in dishwashed polystyrene, are now segmented, hand-worn, exquisitely lit, plastered with winking read-outs.
Halo's broad, sterile planes and platform-game boulders sprout thousands of waving stems, leaves and glowflies (suddenly, Cortana's astonished remark "I'm reading thousands of types of flora" sounds a lot more convincing). Beneath a Forerunner energy bridge, a purple fade-out is now a vertiginous shaft of individually machine-etched plates. Marines now wear bulky, textile fatigues with little Ghost-Recon-esque targeting monocles. The gamma's been bumped up, giving 343's host of new lighting systems a chance to permeate the original's pitch-black tunnels. And the iconic skybox art is no longer a pixellated vertical strip, but a sizzling, searing sweep of stars and atmospheric gases.
16 comments so far...
EdDeRs1 on 25 Oct '11 said:
if OXM dosent give the game 10/10 i will personaly layeth the smackdown on every candy arse in the building u boxes of frutiy pebbles, and AT THE SAME TIME i will dish out merry hell on a democratic basis.
now remember, thats if u dont give the remake 10/10 if u do, i can promise u cake, a Black Forest cake...
Guilty Sparks on 25 Oct '11 said:
Erm..... what he said ^
Grummy on 26 Oct '11 said:
If oxm DO give this game a 10/10, I'm not going to blithely quote The Rock like a monkey learning his first words, instead I will simply come down to your offices and take a massive dump in the middle of your floor so you either have to clean it up or all have to walk around it when you move from your desks.
A HD upgrade is not enough to warrant giving this game a 10/10. Hell, I still question that the original was worth a 10 at the time, but now, not a chance.
OXM ETboy on 26 Oct '11 said:
It's probably not going to be a 10/10
Not from me, anyway. I'll take merry hell over massive dumps any day of the week.
Bezza89 on 26 Oct '11 said:
Well if it doesn't get at least a 9... I wont be your friend Ed.
The campaign is 10/10 everyone knows this, but you have to consider it as a package with what; 6 multiplayer maps? I know it's 3/5 the price of retail games but still... the points don't matter, and when you put it up against the other 10/10s what you're offered doesn't quite cut it. Oblivion, Bioshock, GTAIV, Mass Effect 2... Halo's campaign alone just isn't enough to justify a 10. Though it doesn't matter.
bennyt on 26 Oct '11 said:
Personally, scores shouldn't matter, especially if you enjoyed the original.
I loved the first halo, perhaps one of the, if not the best and most fun, fps shooter and game itself i have ever played and this game will be a day one for sure.
Mainly to relive all those moments experienced all those years ago in glorious detail. I still have the original and play it from time from time (not to mention how technology itself has developed) but this 'remake' is something special, a gift to the fans and anyone else wishing to experience it.
The game itself looks amazing and if the game had the power of the next gen xbox, this game would be stunning and perhaps alive like avatar
just sit and wonder...roll on nov 15
EdDeRs1 on 26 Oct '11 said:
im allowed to "blithely quote The Rock like a monkey learning his first words" for multiple reasons, first: hes the freaking Rock, second: HES f**king BACK!! third: i want to and forth: i have the skill (10 years of martial arts expirence, and one hell of a right hand) to back it up
OXM ETboy on 26 Oct '11 said:
The unkindest cut.
I guess it all depends on the size of your bribe. Microsoft's promised me a weekend on Mars. Raise me a lifetime's supply of Mini Eggs and I'm your boy.
Bezza89 on 26 Oct '11 said:
I can go as far as a Mars bar? But that needs 8.5 at least, so you might as well put 9 lol Honestly the score doesn't matter, hell I prefer critical reviews.
EdDeRs1 on 26 Oct '11 said:
i can still offer u that cake, that black forrest cake...
and my Deadpool skills (a step above ninja skills) in a few multiplayer games...
or i could just let u get your K/D up, JUST AS LONG AS U GIVE IT 10/10!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Decent_Jam on 27 Oct '11 said:
People seem to have a number fixation around here. I'm sure it does look shiny, but for me an HD update and some re-tweaked maps don't a new game make...
Counter Strike (hopefully) will do more as it seems to have been suggested so far, and add in some significant new content. If I just wanted a nostalgia trip I would spend my weekends watching Star Wars on video.
I'm sure it's a great game, but it's already sitting next to my Xbox right now not being played...
Guilty Sparks on 27 Oct '11 said:
What you have to realise though is that a review is supposed to be impartial and this should be reviewed as its own product, not as Halo:CE HD + MP, although numerous people have played the original myself included, it should be remembered that there is a new generation of gamers that never experienced the glory/epicness of the original halo.
I myself can't wait for this to hit stores (I'm sure others will be of the same opinion), assassins creed will unfortunately have to wait until after XMAS, either that or it'll be a present from the missis.
Decent_Jam on 27 Oct '11 said:
So the blu-ray release of the Star Wars trilogy is a different product from the special edition DVDs which came out like a year or so ago?
Don't get me wrong I totally see your point, and I get bringing it to a younger audience, but with money tight people could easily pick up a version of the original from CEX for £3 and spend the remainder on wood for their stoves for the winter
Guilty Sparks on 27 Oct '11 said:
Didn't the Star Wars (blu-ray version) come with tons of extra including the updated visuals w/ audio remastering (I don't personally know) if it did include more extras it deserves to be released as its own product, which is why its received rave reviews, I completely understand where you are coming from.... why should you gave to pay top dollar to play a game that was released ten years ago ??........ but lets not forget a considerable amount of effort has been expended to produce the aforementioned products, if you purchase the original from 2001, you will miss out on a hell of a lot of interesting features.
As i said i totally understand your point, but as a fan of the halo universe this is a must buy, if people don't like the previous iterations of halo simply don't buy it.... but at £23.99 from blockbusters..... to me, this is a bargain.
Lancer Armstrong on 28 Oct '11 said:
This is a day one purchase for me as well. I never played Halo 1 and 2, but I absolutely love Halo 3, ODST and Reach. Can't wait to finally play this highly influential game. Not to mention the new Firefight mode. And at a bargain price.
I'm more excited about this than most other games released this year.
yunoyuluvit on 3 Nov '11 said:
I can't give you a score, but I can say, with some certainty, that this will be the greatest HD remake of a Halo game to date.