To the fans, with love

I don’t want to blow anybody’s minds here, but Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary is Halo: Combat Evolved. Very little has changed, and that is far from a bad thing.

Captain Keyes still hands you an empty pistol with ammo in it. 
There are still overshields in the Covenant boarding ships. 
The flashlight is on the end of your gun and the light still whirls around when you melee with it enabled. That is still a subtly amazing little feature.
Everyone in the escape pods still dies when landing on Halo.
You can still jump really, really high.
There are health packs.
The sniper totally has a night vision mode.
The loading bay on Truth and Reconciliation is still a super tough room to get through.
You cannot pick up energy swords.
Your passengers’ health is displayed on your HUD.
The Silent Cartographer is still amazing.
Assault on the Control room is even better.
Vehicles totally have little to no friction on ice.
The Scorpion has terrible accuracy.
The Flood reveal is still surprisingly intense and remarkably well executed.
Combat Evolved is still the closest thing to a video game adaptation of Aliens.
Elites audibly and frequently shout, “WORT WORT WORT!” and it is hilarious every time.
The Library is still a drag to play.
The shotgun still destroys the Flood.
The pistol is still broken.
There is still a crazy and almost unacceptable amount of back tracking.
The Pillar of Autumn still blows up.
The Warthog run in The Maw is still the most toe scrunching, butt clenching level in a Halo game.
Halo: Combat Evolved is still awesome.

The most impressive thing about Anniversary was just how well a ten year old game has aged. It had been a good four years since I last played Combat Evolved from beginning to end and so I was unsure as to how it would play after three Halo games had come out since I last touched it. Much to my delight, Combat Evolved still plays and feels like Halo, but in ways that Halo has not felt in four games. The game has a certain air of vulnerability about it that I really love. You’re reliance on health packs and the remarkably slow shield regeneration time makes every encounter on Heroic or higher a genuine, enjoyable challenge. This has been lost in the more recent Halo games with either the removal of health packs or incredibly fast shield regeneration; you tear through everything and everyone. Combat Evolved also has the most open and free level design. Yes, there are multiple levels that rely on copy/paste corridors, but the levels that have open portions are remarkable wide and expansive, another thing I miss from the current Halo games.

However, Anniversary’s biggest feature isn’t replaying the best Halo campaign, is the dramatically overhauled visual experience, and boy is it sweet. 343 and Saber Interactive have accomplished quite something in that Anniversary uses Halo: CE’s engine, with no changes whatsoever, but they have layered a new graphics engine on top. It’s quite the unique accomplishment and it’s even more special in that you can change, whenever you want, from the graphics 10 years ago to today’s graphical overhaul. While there is a slight delay in the form of a black screen that hides gameplay, it is very brief and the change is magical every single time. On every level, no matter where you are, hitting the back button and seeing the game 10 years ago is amazing.

In addition to the new graphics, 343 has included motion graphic Terminals that supposedly link into Halo 4’s fiction. If you are a fan of the back story and the Halo Universe, these Terminals are fascinating. While they are extremely cryptic at times, they offer a phenomenal look at what happened with the Forerunners and 343 guilty Spark. They also set a very interesting and distinct tone that, if followed through with in Halo 4, gets me very excited for what Halo 4 could be like. They Terminal videos are wonderfully produced with quality voice acting and a gorgeous art style. If you are a fan of the stories that the Halo games never really offer, particularly with the Forerunners, the 20+ minutes of Terminals alone are almost worth purchasing Anniversary for. But, there is a whole lot more in the $40 package. 

    

 In addition to the gorgeously remade campaign and terminal videos, there is a 7 map map pack for Reach that comes built right into Anniversary. From the main menu you can jump right into Halo: Reach and play in the Anniversary playlist on the new maps. Alternatively, it comes with a download code for said maps so that you can play them from the Reach disc as well. The Anniversary playlist does its best to recreate the Halo: CE multiplayer experience with no Armour Abilities, no DMR’s, and no Plasma Lasers. While I would have absolutely loved for Halo: CE’s multiplayer to have been remade in the same way the campaign was, I know that it would have been way more work and these maps and playlists are the next best thing. The very best maps from Halo and Halo 2 have been beautified in some gorgeous ways along with modified versions for Reach’s multiplayer along with a new Firefight map taken from CE’s campaign. If you are still playing Reach and don’t want to get Anniversary, you should pick up the Anniversary Map Pack, but if you get Anniversary, you get the maps as a bonus.


While Halo: CE still has some significant issues, the new engine has helped make some of the more unenjoyably levels much more manageable, mainly The Library now has big blue arrows showing you where to go and 343 Guilty Spark now has lights pointing you in the right direction. But there are still problems, mainly in the excessive backtracking in the latter half of the game and some serious cases of copy/paste environments. But these faults don’t spot Combat Evolved from being the best Halo campaign to date. It’s a reminder of how ahead of its time CE was, 10 years later, little has changed in games. The gameplay is still top notch; most of the levels are right up there as the best of linear FPS’s, the voice acting is great, the music is even better, and it’s just damn fun. In a time when most games are 4 hours long and have 50% on rails sequences followed by quick time events, it is so refreshing to play a game with not a single rails sequence, or quick time event, or even that many set pieces. 

If you have ever been a fan of Halo, or you have never had the pleasure of playing Combat Evolved, you need to pick this up. For $40 there is a ton of content from the gorgeously remastered 10+ hour campaign, interesting Terminals with setup for Halo 4, and 7 new maps for Halo: Reach. Anniversary is a love letter to those that love Halo, it’s a reminder of the brilliance of Bungie Studios, and it shows me that 343 Industries knows how to handle the future of Halo, something that I was unsure of until this release. Go pick this up and remember why Halo has become one of the biggest franchises in existence.