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

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Skyward Sword is in many ways a new genesis for the Legend of Zelda series. Not only does it provide a new beginning for the story, it's the only Zelda built from the ground-up for Wii, the first Zelda to finally include real motion-controlled sword combat, and the first to have fully-orchestrated music.

Story

This new story is set earlier in the Zelda timeline than any previous game, before the formation of Hyrule kingdom and before many other recognizable elements of the Zelda universe have come into being. Because Skyward Sword is set so early, there aren't any towns, villages, castles, or people to meet in the world beyond the single small town you begin your adventure in. The few characters you come across are rarely humanoid; they're closer to talking wildlife than anything else. Only a few of them could be considered friends to Link; most just act like talking signposts directing Link to his next objective. This makes much of the game largely impersonal and lonely, a sharp contrast to previous games like Ocarina of Time, which gave each area and dungeon a character (or cast of characters) for Link to get to know and care for, making the entire journey a very personal one. Here, Link is motivated only by finding Zelda and nothing else. Because of that, the story feels a little sparse. You need to complete three dungeons before each new step is taken in the main story, and many of those steps are very small. While this isn't terribly different from most other Zelda games, the fact that everything aside from the main story is so uninteresting doesn't really help.

What does help, however, is the fact that this game introduces and explains so many epic facets of the Zelda universe. For fans, getting to see some of the very foundations of Zelda mythology lain before our eyes is a special thing. At times, it's totally enthralling. Skyward Sword also has the deepest and most meaningful relationship between Link and Zelda seen yet. There may not be much actual story, but what's there is great motivation for players to continue on. Perhaps that's why some of the game's story is so disappointing: you desperately want to find and save Zelda, so every dungeon that doesn't end with you finding her is frustrating, and every new obstacle that gets thrown in your path (and there are many) is just maddening.


Gameplay

The aspect of exploration is practically expunged from the game entirely. Practically every single area in the game, save for the tiny home area of Skyloft, is an obstacle for Link, almost like some sort of mega-dungeon. The world of Skyward Sword feels less like a living, breathing place and more like a gigantic puzzle to work your way through. I found myself bored and frustrated with most of Skyward Sword's world instead of enthralled by it as in every other 3D Zelda game.

The puzzles in Skyward Sword, however, are fortunately brilliant. Beforehand, most Zelda games had dungeons that relied more on finding a hidden trick, and most games in the series used the same tricks over and over again. Skyward Sword, however, feels much more organic in its puzzle-solving, encouraging players to use their brains and realistically think about how they can use their tools to work their way past obstacles. I personally feel that although I didn't have as hard a time getting through Skyward Sword's puzzles as other games, I had to be much smarter about this game than other games in the series. It was less of "oh, I stumbled across the right answer" and more of "I logically figured this out." If there's anything Skyward does better than any other Zelda, it's puzzle-solving.

Playing as Link in Skyward Sword feels brand-new in a few small ways, but in many other ways feels like The Wind Waker 3. Although Ocarina of Time set up the basic gameplay that all 3D Zelda games have followed thus far, Skyward Sword—even moreso that Twilight Princess, which was also based on the same engine—feels like The Wind Waker. And while Wind Waker is an incredible game, it has definitely aged a bit. In today's gaming world, where games like Assassin's Creed and Uncharted show off incredible fluidity and ease of movement, Zelda still feels like it's lagging behind quite a bit. Maneuvering Link throughout the environment can sometimes feel like a bit of a chore. That wasn't as big of a problem for Wind Waker, with its more simply-designed worlds, but Skyward's world is a bit more complex.

Additionally, the art style of this game is notably set in-between Twilight Princess and Wind Waker, possessing Wind Waker's bright colors and a bit of its cel shading along with some of Twilight Princess's more realistically-proportioned character models. The end result works pretty well, but there are some sacrifices. The level of detail is nowhere near as high as Twilight Princess, and the level of stylization isn't as strong as Wind Waker. What we're left with is a bright, vivid muddle of outdated visuals. Even with such heavy stylization, a lot of the game (notably the textures) just looks distractingly old. Other Wii games have shown that this doesn't need to be so; games can look better.

Environment design aside, this game feels near-exactly like Wind Waker, albeit with the addition of new controls for the sword, the shield, and item aiming.

Sword and Shield

The sword controls feel like what Twilight Princess's controls should have been. Nintendo fans were promised something like this all the way back in 2005 when the Wii controller was first unveiled, then known as the Nintendo Revolution controller. The swordfighting bit at the end of that original teaser video left Zelda fans with their jaws on the floor at the sheer possibilities created by such a new controller. But when Twilight Princess was released, the sword controls hadn't actually been changed at all from the traditional button-press action we'd seen in previous Zelda games. They just mapped the button press to a controller shake, which only made things frustrating. Finally, with the advent of Wii MotionPlus and a Zelda game built from the ground up for Wii, that original idea has come to fruition. Players can now control Link's sword movements near-perfectly. Whenever a player swings the sword, the game registers which direction the controller is moving in and selects one of 9 different options (8 directions plus a stabbing motion). If you want to slash from left to right, you can do it. From right to left? You can do it. From left shoulder to right ankle? You can do it. And for the most part, it's highly accurate. Initially, on my first day of playing Skyward Sword, I was getting frustrated with the controls, convinced that it wasn't correctly interpreting my actions. The next day, however, I noted that my moves were much more accurate. It wasn't that the game had calibrated itself more correctly; it was that I had simply gotten better at using the sword. The game was actually interpreting my movements so accurately that my own error was showing up.

On the other hand, it's not as though my errors weren't understandable. One quirk of the Wii Remote is that it doesn't actually sense where the controller itself is in three-dimensional space or how it moves, like PlayStation Move or even the Kinect. The Wii Remote just senses vaguely how it's being tilted and moves, and estimates what's going on. You can imagine it as though the Wii Remote is a person riding in a car and then being asked which direction the car is moving and how fast. It can be trusted within reason, but only so far.

One big problem with the sword controls is that they demand that the Wii remote stay perfectly horizontal while the sword is being swung, no matter the direction. It can be tilted up or down (as is necessary for vertical swinging), but not rotated along its axis. If you rotate the Wii remote even slightly while swinging, the remote will misinterpret the intended angle of the swing. The problem is that this is nothing like how a real sword works. A sword is only sharp on two sides; a swordfighter rotates his sword when he swings in different directions—otherwise he'd just be slapping his opponent with the flat of the blade. Link actually does this in the game when he attacks, regardless of the Wii remote's angle. But you don't need to be a swordsman to know that it doesn't make sense. You don't chop with the flat side of a kitchen knife, do you? That disconnect between the game and reality hurts the overall experience. Sword combat often still feels realistic and immersive regardless, but sometimes the holes in the realism can be a harsh reminder that the Wii remote is video game controller that needs careful precision, not a "real" sword. That said, it does work most of the time.

The shield controls are handled entirely with the nunchuk's motion sensor, and they work very well. All you need to to is shake the nunchuk once to raise your shield, and shake it again once there to knock back enemy attacks. This works in tandem with the sword controls, creating a fun sense of realism. Players see Link on-screen holding his sword and shield, and they get an instant sense of just how they're supposed to interact with the world.


Bow and Arrow

In Twilight Princess for Wii, you simply aimed the pointer at an object and hit the A button to fire. It was far too easy, in some cases allowing players to snipe enemies with arrows from miles away with pixel-perfect accuracy. Here in Skyward Sword, it's a little more difficult without feeling frustrating. Skyward uses the MotionPlus tilt sensor to aim rather than the Wii remote pointer, which means that it's measuring your 3-dimensional controller movement rather than the pointer's placement on the 2-dimensional TV screen. Realistically, this is how you'd really aim with objects in the real world, and it feels very natural. One particularly cool feature is the fact that you can use two different control methods for firing arrows: you can either hold down the A button and wait for the tension in the bowstring to build to maximum, or you can physically pull back on the nunchuk while holding the C button—as if pulling back an actual bowstring—thus instantly charging your arrow to maximum speed.


Sound

The music in this game is the best-produced of any Zelda thus far. Having a fully-orchestrated soundtrack makes a lot of difference. The themes in Skyward aren't as plentiful or notable as in Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, or even Twilight Princess, but what's there is good. Better yet, there's more emotion in those few moments of music than in pretty much any prior Zelda game.

One major way in which Skyward feels like an old game is the lack of voice acting. That worked fine for Wind Waker in the early 2000s, but even five years ago in Twilight Princess it felt odd. There's some controversy among fans (as well as the Zelda development team) about whether or not adding voices would make the game better. A lot of people say that adding voices would only make it seem odder that Link doesn't talk. Personally, I'm all for voice acting; it's one of the last things keeping the series from being totally immersive.


Finale

Skyward Sword, overall, is a slightly odd experience. On one hand, it feels completely vibrant and new. The fresh combat, imaginative puzzle-solving, and orchestrated music are definite high points. On the other hand, the game is horribly stiff at times, and in many ways it simply feels outdated. This game needed to be released five years ago, not now. At the same time, does that objectively make the game bad? No. After all, old games can still be good; it only matters if they pass the test of time. And Skyward Sword mostly passes that test. Yes, the outdated portions of it are drawbacks, but only to the point of mild annoyance. It's something that should definitely be corrected before the next Zelda game is released, but it doesn't mortally wound this one.

In the end, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is a great game. One drawback to the Zelda series is that its standard is set so high, it's easy to forget that even an average Zelda game is truly better than most anything else.

8/10