Music, Style & Culture

Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary (Xbox 360)

343 have attempted a difficult feat, and just about succeeded.

Nostalgia’s a funny thing. As you may have been able to tell from our preview, we were just a little bit excited about playing through our beloved Halo once more. This is a game that went on to kick-start a new generation - of consoles and people - into forming fresh experiences and, more crucially, expectations of gaming. If Doom started the first-person shooter genre on its way, Halo: Combat Evolved was the moment it truly broke through. The simultaneously self-contained yet galaxy-spanning plotline, the cinematic grandeur of the set-pieces and score, not to mention a surprising foray into (partial) realism – playing Halo was an incredible and wholly new experience, that was for sure.



After doing so again, however, we can’t help but feel that, without our ten-year old rose-tinted spectacles on any longer there are rather more shades of grey here than we remember.
With original developers Bungie firmly divesting themselves of the franchise, it has been left to 343 Industries, a studio specifically set up to continue Halo’s now-tenuous reign as king of the FPS, to remind us all of our favourite cyborgic superhuman’s roots. To bring you up to speed, mankind has taken to the stars and they have not liked what they found there. The Covenant, a theocratic union of alien races, have declared war on the heretics of humankind and, as the game begins, have chased the human warship the Pillar of Autumn through subspace and straight to the titular ringworld, an ancient artefact concealing a deadly power and a magnificent plot twist.

So far, so space opera.

Where you come in is to take control of Master Chief (the aforementioned cyborg), humanity’s one hope in discovering the secrets of Halo. It’s a story, and a game, that has become a classic, and one that most gamers would have a huge amount of trouble adjusting to being altered. 343’s solution to this problem was simple – change nothing, but present it in a whole new way. Halo’s new developers have painstakingly brought up to date every visual and aural aspect (barring the original voice-acting) of Halo: Combat Evolved but, ten years hence, have changed nothing about the core gameplay. The only true modifications to the campaign lie in the ability to play co-operatively over Xbox Live, some limited Kinect voice controls (sadly not available when we tested the game) and the addition of game-modifying skulls and terminals – which play back potentially spoiler-ific pieces of the surrounding plot which pre-figure 343’s next project, Halo 4.



The result is a true labour of love. Cashing in this may be, but there’s no doubting the work that has gone in – much of this game is absolutely spectacular. Plasma pistols spark and sputter their burning payload and the tribal drums of the theme song plays out, all whilst the incredible view of Halo itself rises above you in the evening sky. It’s enough to give you shivers. Of course, to really appreciate the graphical overhaul here, you have to be able to see what came before. Luckily 343 have noticed this too, and a simple press of the “Back” button performs this exact function – the screen fades out and when it’s back, you have the Xbox visuals (and, if you so choose, the original soundtrack too) in front of you. It’s an admirable choice – allowing true purists the opportunity to play the game without new influence, exactly as they remember.

With the original gameplay intact too, that memory is sure to be jolted. Bungie’s choice to mix sci-fi fantasy and the more down-to-earth grittiness of life as what is essentially a U.S. Marine (albeit a seven-foot tall, genetically and technologically engineered U.S. Marine) still works perfectly. It’s difficult to comprehend nowadays, but the restriction to two weapons and the ability to throw grenades at the same time was, at the time, considered bold and inspired – a grounding in reality for an experience that was distinctly fantastical. It makes for an invigorating mix. As fellow soldiers drop around you and you leap 15 feet from standing over a ravine to club a screaming alien to death, you truly feel superhuman, but as the story pressure mounts, the game forces you to feel distinctly mortal. Ammo and health runs out very quickly, even on normal difficulty, and fighting becomes as much about survival as action heroism in many situations. A lot has been made recently of games getting easier, and playing this again certainly seems to support that claim – get caught in a crowd of enemies and you will die quickly and, frankly, get caught out against one larger enemy (and there are many) and the same will apply. It’s definitively old-school and a refreshing change – if you can stomach some frustration.



But that same old-school gameplay has its own drawbacks too. Level design, pretty visuals or not, can become extremely repetitive, with seemingly endless corridors and carbon-copied rooms becoming far too much like old friends towards the tail-end of the game, whilst an over-reliance on the brutal Hunter enemies to simulate the intensity of boss battles wears its welcome quickly. Similarly, the effect of overlaying new visuals does not eliminate some graphical issues. Animations are often jerky and unnatural, whilst certain effects such as large explosions still bear the underwhelming hallmarks of older technology. Checkpoints become the most serious problem however, especially on harder difficulties. With some particularly arbitrary positions chosen as automatic save points, being killed further down the line can seem to be unfairly punished, especially when a point you’d already passed further along magically becomes a checkpoint the next time you reach it. These are frustrations that may have seemed par-for-the-course ten years ago, but the limitations of last-generation consoles come heaving into view when viewed through the contact lenses of current-gen visuals.

Although flawed, the campaign is a satisfying look back at a classic game – the same cannot be said for the multiplayer, such as it is. Bearing the promise of six classic maps from Halo and Halo 2, plus updated versions of each, the game appeared to be offering a nostalgic experience in the rarefied atmosphere provided by the Halo: Reach engine. Unfortunately, it amounts to not much more than a map pack, with no attention paid to the classic weaponry or the distinct feel of the original’s multiplayer. Coupled with the fact that these maps are all available with Reach itself ahead of launch and the result is disappointing; with so much attention paid to the campaign, the negligence with which multiplayer has been treated just doesn’t seem understandable.



That said, 343 have attempted a difficult feat, and just about succeeded. Stuck in something of a catch-22 – tampering with the gameplay would rankle existing fans, but leaving it has allowed problems through – Halo: CE Anniversary is, rather than a brand new experience, an augmented view of the past, a retrospective that makes clear the problems as well as the successes of a classic, but aged game. It will please a wide audience, fulfilling the need of nostalgia-fuelled oldsters like us but equally easing newer fans into the start of a truly important franchise. It may have been bettered since, but Halo remains a milestone for gaming and one deserving of a revisit.

Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary will be available for Xbox 360 on 15th November.

Rating: 7/10