Halo CE Anniversary Review

It’s hard to think that it’s been ten years to the day since Halo and Master Chief graced our screens for the first time, and what a long way he has travelled. So when 343 industries set about re-releasing Combat Evolved for the Chiefs tenth birthday, I was slightly worried that the gameplay would be tampered with and the graphics would leave fans disappointed. So has this iconic game stood the test of time or is it a rather disappointing fall for the Chief and Cortana?

Thankfully right from the first time you see the menu you will see that 343 haven't changed a thing and this theme goes on throughout the game with the gameplay and story line not changing from the original.  But the things that they have changed are for the better. Firstly the most obvious change is the campaign mode is now in HD as well as being in 3D.  The graphical upgrade to HD really brings Halo to a new audience. With the new graphics you would never know that this game is ten years old.  In the campaign mode you follow the same missions as the original. For those that don't know the story here's a quick insight.

The game starts with you being defrosted from the cytogenetic chamber that you have been left in to preserve you as you are the last "mark five" solider.  From this you will go on a journey on Halo, a mysterious ring planet in space that holds unknown powers. The covenant are an alien race that are intent on finding out these powers. The flood are the other enemy that you will encounter, they are parasites that will eat anything in their way, but with your trusty sidekick Cortana you will battle though both of these enemies to save the universe.  

The best update that 343 has produced in this game is the ability to switch between HD graphics and the standard graphics from ten years ago, this is a feature that never gets boring throughout the game. The graphics give fans a look into how the game used to look. To say that I was shocked with the old graphics is a bit of an understatement, I wasn't expecting top spec graphics but to think that ten years ago we all thought that these graphics were life like, and now it looks like something you can make in your bedroom. But this doesn't take away from that fact the long time players will want to see what their favourite parts of the maps looked like all those years ago, and will probably want to play through the campaign in HD then go back and play it how it was meant to be played in standard graphics.

A feature brought over from Halo 2 and 3 is the introduction of the terminals and skulls.  The terminals are computers placed in random places with one on each level. These tell the story of the 343 guilty spark in his quest through the halo universe. The skulls are exactly what they say, skulls that are hidden in every level. Each one that you find will have the ability to turn on or off from the menu, with each skull making the game slightly harder.  Like the covenant have double the health and you are unable to use covenant weapons.  These skulls when turned on add another challenge to the game because you will think about whether it is saving your ammo on the covenant ships or tactical attacking to enemy because they have double the health.

343 Industries have also added features to the game that try and bring it up to new and younger gamers with the introduction of Kinect compatibility. You can use the Kinect features on nearly all aspects of the game from shouting commands like "reload" and "grenade",  to pausing and playing the terminal videos.  To scanning objects Halo's environment which then gets stored in the encyclopedia for you to look at after. The use of Kinect is a good and different idea but the commands take too long to carry out, when you need a grenade quick there is a slight lag between you shouting and then you throwing it on screen.  The other new feature for a Halo game is the introduction of 3D compatibility, this will add another dimension to playing the game and make you feel that you are right in the middle of the action.

Thankfully 343 haven't forgotten about multiplayer and have remade seven classic maps on the Halo: Reach software. With using the Reach multiplayer there are both up and down sides.  The up sides include features like, if you have been using Reach over the past year your game data and achievements will still be there, so you will have an advantage over the people who have just bought Anniversary.  Another up side is that you will be able to use the power-ups from reach so you will be able to reach parts of the maps that you have never have been able to. The down sides are that with not using the original multiplayer software is that you do lose the feel of an "old" online game which Halo Anniversary should be all about.

Overall Halo Anniversary is a ten year old game re-released and should look like that and not a new game, but saying that, with the new HD graphics this game could pass as a new release. This is a must have for any fans of the series, even if you are just getting into Halo this would obviously be the best place to start. True fans of the original may be slightly disappointed with the multiplayer and with it using the Reach engine because Halo brought online First Person Shooters to the consoles and it now has just lost its classic feel of playing your mates over a LAN network after a hard days work. But given the few flaws in the game I can say that I am now looking forward to what 343 can do with there own Halo game, Halo 4.