Halo Anniversary

[Hero-of-Time]

The original is back with a HD makeover, online multiplayer and online co-op.

 

Discuss.

 

Edited June 6, 2011 by Hero-of-Time

[Magnus]

Not being an online gamer, I've never understood the love for Halo. I played through the trilogy a few years back in co-op with my brother, and we both hated the first game. It was really boring with its reused environments, standard shooting and hard-to-follow story. The third game was alright, at least.

 

But yeah, not a fan.

[Cube]

So, it's just exactly the same game (same game engine and everything) with HD models thrown on top, with a few maps for Halo: Reach.

[James]

First one is utter shit, going through the same corridor again and again. No thanks.

 

Online though makes it slightly interesting

[Agent Gibbs]

i'm honestly ok with this, the game was awesome so a HD remake can only be good

unless they want to charge full price....

i'd pay £30 tops

[The Peeps]

I have so many great memories of the first game. Playing co-op with my brother, so many close calls and amazing games. I've been feeling nostalgic for the first game and was tempted to buy it pre-owned or just download it through live but now I'll just wait for this.

 

Was there a release date announced with it? As long as they don't try to charge £40 for it, I will be getting it on day 1.

[Magnus]

Was there a release date announced with it? As long as they don't try to charge £40 for it, I will be getting it on day 1.

Says November 15th at the end of the trailer.

[Beast]

I never used to be a fan of the Halo games, just Halo 2, but I've really gotten into them the past year or two. I'm not a massive fan of them but I like them enough. I wouldn't buy this straight away but I'll definitely have it at some point.

[Nolan]

Better have Hang Em' High and Hunters better go down with a single punch to the orange. Those are my stipulations.

[ipaul]

Good stuff, but yeah they had better not charge the full £40 for it. The first campaign is still my favourite out of all the Halo games, definitely the best for it's time of release I think. The original holds up bloody well now to be honest so in HD with online it should be sweeeeet.

[Dyson]

1200 MSP I reckon. (Hope.)

[ipaul]

I'm pretty sure it will be a full retail release and not a cut price download, but i could be wrong.

[Charlie]

First one is utter shit, going through the same corridor again and again. No thanks.

 

Online though makes it slightly interesting

 

Exactly! I got banned from an Xbox forum once for saying that because it started a flame war. It's an incredibly dull and boring campaign.

 

Halo, for me at least, has always been about online. The Halo 2 online experience was my first time playing a game online properly. I loved it, I clocked up so many hours and spoke to so many different people. There was a great community here who played Halo 2 together; Meik, The3rdChildren, Bowser57, CVD, CubeChris... The glory days!

[Konfucius]

I played through the first Halo a year ago again and enjoyed it a lot more than the first time around. Sure there's a lot of level recycling but I really like the pacing of the game and on Legendary it's a nice challenge. So I'm actually tempted to buy this as long as they fix the look of the suit in the remake. Give me back the faint green glow and cool helmet - what were they thinking?

[Cube]

I'd buy it if they replaced the all Flood levels with good levels with fun enemies.

[Hero-of-Time]

Kinect features incoming.

 

In an interview with Gamespot, corporate Vice President of Microsoft Game Studios, Phil Spencer has confirmed that Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary will be packing Kinect support, although the exact nature of what the game's Kinect functionality will entail is still under wraps for now.

 

"Core focus for us in our press briefing this year with Kinect actually came from two sides," said Spencer. "As a first-party, we believe that Kinect will be important to all genres of games, be it racing games with Forza, combat games like Ryse. Even games like Halo Anniversary has Kinect integration."

 

It's entirely possible that voice control may play a part in Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary's implementation of Kinect, as hinted in a statement Spencer also made to Gamespot last week:

 

"It's not a mandate that everything we do in first party has to support Kinect right now. But I will say, specifically with voice, that there are some things that just seem to make navigating and playing games so much easier...that I would guess the answer will be yes in the end that you'll see all first-party games using some form of Kinect functionality," Spencer commented.

 

[Cube]

Using Kinect for voice recognition instead of the headset seems like using the photo mode on a camcorder when you have a 12+ megapixel Digital SLR camera with you.

[gaggle64]

I recently started playing Halo Reach and I feel Bungie pretty gave the whole franchise a good swan song with it (although I get the distinct impression they'd rather have walked away after 3). The first Halo game is a fantastic game but this, plus an entire post-Fight trilogy with Kinect jammed into the middle of it all, it's pretty clear Microsoft are just going to beat this horse to death now and they don't care who knows it. Pop me out of the cryo tube when Bungie come back with their space-shooter MMO or whatever it is they're up to.

[Aimless]

I'm surprised so many people apparently don't rate the original Halo. Not even Bungie have managed to recapture some of the things that made it great, and for a 10-year-old game it holds up remarkably well.

 

I know some will dismiss this as elitist rubbish, but you really do need to play the game on a higher difficulty — preferably in co-op — to appreciate the brilliance of its core mechanics. There's a tremendous amount of scope for smart, tactical, divergent combat that you simply will not find today with everyone chasing CoD's coattails.

 

Oh, the RRP for this is £35. Presumably you'll be able to find it for £5-10 less than that on launch date.

[Konfucius]

I know some will dismiss this as elitist rubbish, but you really do need to play the game on a higher difficulty — preferably in co-op — to appreciate the brilliance of its core mechanics. There's a tremendous amount of scope for smart, tactical, divergent combat that you simply will not find today with everyone chasing CoD's coattails.

 

Very true. On my second playthrough I played on Legendary and enjoyed it a lot more. It's nice to see that some thinking and tactical approach actually pays off.

[The Bard]

Why would you want to play it on a harder difficulty though? It just makes it frustrating, and all it does is shift the focus more heavily onto the mechanic of the recharging shield. Its not like it makes the AI any better.

Edited June 20, 2011 by The Bard

[Aimless]

In a sense it does, actually. As enemies are more hardy the AI has more room to breath, giving them time to run through their various routines. You can have some great cat and mouse combat with Elites on the higher difficulties; one of Halo's greatest strengths is that its enemies aren't omniscient, you can fool and outflank them.

 

Similarly the higher difficulties force you to make the most of the different weapons, and by extension the two-weapon system. For instance attacking shielded enemies with human weapons is more or less a waste of ammo, whilst a well placed pistol shot can take a Hunter down in one shot and headshotting the Flood becomes a vital tactic.

 

Think of it the other way around: would a game be more enjoyable if you were playing it with God mode on, making it impossible for you to die? Upping the difficulty forces you to make the most of the tools available, not just breeze through holding down the right trigger.

[The Bard]

I guess I'm mostly coming from the position that I've never really found Halo's gunplay that rewarding or entertaining in itself, and it was always the co-op that was fun for me. Running through the levels with a friend blowing shit up without setbacks was a great feeling and it just never felt that rewarding on higher difficulties. That said, I played the each of the first three games on Heroic, and didn't really notice a difference in comparison with normal difficulty other than the fact that the enemies had more hit points and better weapons, the extent of their AI routine pretty much amounting to an elite surrounded by a few grunts charging you while a jackal shot you from afar.

 

I had a lot of fun with the first game though, when it first came out, but I don't think it holds up in the present. Especially after the silent cartographer level, when everything turned to shit.

[The Mad Monkey]

I enjoyed the first game too, subsequent instalments less, but if they do this as DLC at a reasonable price I'll buy it.

[Konfucius]

Silent Cartographer Campaign Demo

 

 

Shows the tech and changes a bit.

While the new graphics look nice I can't help but feel they deviated quite a bit from Bungie's style.

Also although the soldier, gun and dropship (and probably more) models are taken from Halo Reach I still feel they don't quite fit and should have gone for the Halo 3 models instead.