Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary

A modern remake of Halo: Combat Evolved is the perfect way to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Halo. Combat Evolved Anniversary is a near-exactly-recreated version of the original game with a new layer of HD graphics put over it.

Overall, this is a brilliant package. For only $39.99, you get an entirely remastered CE campaign with new visuals, new sound effects, and re-recorded music. On top of that, several CE multiplayer maps are included in a downloadable (and playable on-disc) map pack for Halo: Reach's multiplayer, complete with tweaks to Reach's gameplay to help recreate CE's multiplayer as closely as possible.

The single-player campaign is, overall, a very good recreation of CE. The gameplay hasn't been altered in the slightest, except for now being rendered in 16:9—allowing for the widest field of view in any Halo game yet. Even the glitches in the original game still work. Sometimes, this is cool. It's always neat to find those hidden tricks you used before and discover that they still work. On the other hand, this can also be frustrating. The crouch toggle function, for instance, literally does not work because of a bug in CE's game code.

The reuse of much of the CE code creates a lot of problems, actually. Although CEA adds online capability to its co-op campaign, CE's code was not designed for that kind of use. Because of that, there is HORRIBLE lag between players, to the point of severely affecting the gameplay. The new graphics layer doesn't seem to help; it seems like the Xbox is being stressed by essentially running two games at once. Sometimes in order to counterbalance the lag, it becomes necessary to switch to classic mode and stay there—which kind of defeats the purpose of this game, doesn't it?

As for the new graphics themselves, they're a mixed bag. The real strength of the new look is the environment. Everything in the Halo world looks gorgeous. There are a few little oddities with the art direction choices, mostly with the choices in color, but overall things look amazing. If there's one criticism to level at the art in the environment, it's that it's over-designed. There's more vibrant detail than actually needs to be there.

The Halo ring itself (when viewed from space, in the main menu or the cutscenes) looks really bizarre, being more purple in color and given a ton of prong details that seem bizarre and distracting. Like the ring is going though a weird phase in high school where it's just gotten a dozen piercings and you're not sure you recognize it anymore.

The character and weapon models are sometimes brilliant, but sometimes terrible. Master Chief himself, following the example of the rest of the game, looks a bit more colorful, and his armor is actually made a little bit rounder than it was in CE. Personally, I'd have preferred it if they'd kept the original design exactly and simply made it more detailed, but as it stands, John-117 looks pretty spiffy. Other characters, however, look a little weird. Some models, like the UNSC marines and Captain Keyes, use old models from Halo: Reach. This makes total sense, and I like it. Cortana, however, uses the model from Halo 3, which is nothing at all like the CE design. Even worse, she wasn't given any new animations—unlike some other characters—so she seems horribly awkward in every possible way. Considering that Cortana is, in terms of story, the heart and soul of CE, this is very disappointing.

Some of the weapon models are new, while a few are re-used from older games. The worst offenders are the assault rifle, taken from Halo 3, and the shotgun, taken from Reach. The assault rifle looks close enough that unless you're looking for it you won't notice the difference, and hey, maybe this is a purposeful retcon. 3's version of the AR does look better anyway, and there are more than a few real-world guns that look exactly the same on the outside but function differently. The Reach shotgun, on the other hand, looks nothing at all like the CE shotgun. It's perplexing as to why they didn't just re-use the Halo 3 shotgun, at least, since that one looked more like the CE shotgun.

There are other differences, too, but those are the main ones that bugged me the most. Hardcore Halo fans will definitely notice these re-uses of old Halo assets, and, if they're like me, will be pulled out of the experience by it. It just feels like the development team used old models like duct tape covering the bits of the game they didn't have time to finish. It's very disappointing.

One way in which the game does not disappoint is the way that it brings together the new audio and visuals during gameplay. Every bullet slams into its target with vivid response, aided by the amazing new sound effects for weapon fire. The old pistol had a "bap" sound effect in CE, but in CEA it's a thunderous "BOOM" that makes the gun sound as powerful as it actually is. When enemy shields fall, they don't just fade out; they explode. It's immensely satisfying to snipe a jackal and watch his shield pop like a liquid firework. That kind of visual feedback in combat is something that CE always lacked in comparison with future Halo games, notably 3, ODST, and Reach. Now that it's there, it makes CE all the better.

The multiplayer component of CEA, as mentioned before, is really just a map pack for Reach. But it's a hell of a map pack, easily the best one for Reach yet. Maps like Hang Em' High and Prisoner are wonderful, but Timberland—a map only Halo PC players had seen before—is easily the best big team battle map of all time. We also get a new firefight map based on a section of the CE campaign, which is very very cool.

All in all, Halo CEA is a little bit of a jumble. Some of it is above and beyond what it needed to be, while some of it is far below the Halo standard. Overall, however, it's a decent remake of an amazing game, with a great multiplayer add-on for another game that you already love (or should, at least).

And you get achievements now, so... yeah. Play it.

8/10