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E3 2011: Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary Preview

Chris Watters
By Chris Watters, Editor

We get our first look at the shiny new graphics and revamped multiplayer of Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary.

From MacWorld 1999 to E3 2011, Halo: Combat Evolved has a long and influential history. As the game that inspired a generation of shooter fans and proved once and for all that first-person shooters have a home on consoles, it has rightly garnered the adoration of many. The much-clamored-for HD remake of the seminal shooter has finally been revealed, and we spent some quality time checking out the visual upgrades, the revamped multiplayer, and the new content that 343 Industries is carefully applying to this venerable title.

Our demo began with a scene that anyone familiar with the Xbox original will remember. At the beginning of the level titled "The Silent Cartographer," Master Chief is inserted onto a beach alongside a squad of UNSC marines. Though he immediately comes under fire from a Covenant fire team, you can't help but notice the distant arc of the titular halo sweeping skyward in the distance. It looked appropriately distant yet surprisingly crisp. The nearby scenery has a similar aesthetic. Islands, boulders, plants, and grass all had a sharpness that looked quite vivid. This visual liveliness gave the action a feeling of immediacy, yet it also felt a bit odd when compared to more recent entries in the Halo series. Our demoers pointed out that this was still an early build of the game, and we were ready to attribute the strange sensation to the game's unfinished state. That is, until 343 Industries unveiled one of the coolest features of Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary.

With the press of a button, our demoer turned back the clock. Almost instantly, the landscape was transformed. Water that rippled with the passage of waves and sparkled in the sunlight became a flat, blue sheen. Grass and rocks that caught our eye with rich textures and careful shadowing became dull and stolid. And even our allies, whose detailed armor glinted during their battlefield maneuvers, became polygonal and boxy. As it turns out, the strange sensation we'd felt earlier was the contrast between the natural upscaling of our memory and the actual upscaling undertaken by 343 Industries. The ability to switch the visuals on the fly was something 343 Industries merely experimented with until it became clear that it was one of the team's favorite features. It was certainly one of the most intriguing parts of our demo; one that will serve as a nostalgic pleasure for some and a history lesson for others.

Of course, our demoer couldn't spend all his time observing the scenery, and once he started disposing of the Covenant, things proceeded apace. Grunts, Jackals, and Elites all appeared to boast improved textures over their original looks--no imports from later designs were in evidence. Another Pelican soon delivered a Warthog for our driving pleasure, which once again afforded a vivid contrast in texture and modeling. Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary may not reach the visual heights of recent Halo games, but it definitely appears to belong in the current generation.

In addition to graphical upgrades, 343 Industries is adding terminals to this Halo experience. Originally introduced in Halo 3, these hidden stations conveyed backstory and history that filled out the Halo universe in interesting ways. The terminals added to Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary will be less out of the way, we were told, to better allow players to learn about the history of the first Halo ever encountered. Though we couldn't see an actual terminal sequence, we were told that these glimpses into the past wouldn't be merely written history. Instead, they apparently involve artistic and auditory elements. The one we saw was merely a prototype, but it featured the unmistakable voice-over of 343 Guilty Spark, the floating AI construct who addresses Master Chief as "The Reclaimer" and provides incongruously chipper (and frustratingly vague) exposition about the true function of Halo. The one we saw merely served as foreshadowing for events we already knew came later in the adventure, but 343 Industries alluded to the fact that accessing all the terminals might reveal hints about the freshly announced Halo 4.

And though Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary features two-player campaign cooperative play either via split-screen or over Xbox Live, it couldn't show its face without competitive multiplayer. Seven remastered maps will be making an appearance in a multiplayer mode that runs on the Halo: Reach engine. (As a technical side note, the campaign runs with two game engines simultaneously: the original Halo: CE engine with a remastered graphics engine layered on top). The ramifications of running on the Reach engine aren't merely aesthetic (though the revamped Damnation map looked significantly better): The multiplayer will feature the armor abilities that debuted in Halo: Reach. 343 Industries is working with Certain Affinity on the multiplayer mode, the developer who collaborated on the Defiant Map Pack for Halo: Reach. Furthermore, players who own Halo: Reach will be able to install the Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary maps from the disc to their hard drives and access them directly from the Halo: Reach menu, which is indicative of 343 Industries' goal to satisfy both current and old-school Halo fans.

Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary certainly piqued our nostalgic interest, yet it looked to deliver an eminently playable experience. There was a lot more we wanted to ask, but 343 Industries played it coy with details about extensive tie-ins to Halo: Waypoint, changes to the campaign that allow you to play levels as originally delivered or as "remastered versions" (did someone say Library?), and ways to tweak the difficulty of the campaign levels (if you're thinking skulls, you're on the right track). Be sure to watch the interview above for more on the game and check our E3 2011 live stage demo for a look at the game in action. A little shindig called HaloFest promises to deliver more information later this year as the November 15 release date approaches. Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary will retail for $39.99.

Chris Watters
By Chris Watters, Editor

With his Apple IIGS as the spark and his neighbor's NES the fuel, Chris Watters' passion for gaming caught fire in a very metaphorical way. It propelled him across the country and into "the industry," where you can see him striving to be grossly incandescent on weekly episodes of On The Spot.

66 Comments

  • jamesjasonjames

    Posted Aug 8, 2011 11:14 am GMT

    this game is going to be good

  • Pumpkinhead3

    Posted Aug 2, 2011 6:24 pm GMT

    I can imagine playing big team battles on sidewinder.

  • Wensea10

    Posted Jul 28, 2011 12:43 pm GMT

    hopefully there will be new weapons

  • Cortana101

    Posted Jul 24, 2011 2:25 am GMT

    Maps from all the games and the return of all Halo 1 maps is necessary. Why did they not add other cool features like the awesome original zoom in pistol?

  • u6demi9

    Posted Jul 22, 2011 10:26 am GMT

    ...read post below this first, because i ran out of room. Because at that time games that did that were pc only. If you can name ANY, I will be surprised. Now that I'm done with fact, I will state my opinion. The origional halo was an amazing game for a console, it was the reason i bought an xbox. It will stand as ONE of the greatest games of all time, because of everything it did for console games and it was the first to do it all well. I am in no way saying it is better than games made now adays because honestly it can't compare. To play it now, it is bland, empty, and lacking everything people have grown accustomed to over the last few years. But at it's time of release, there was nothing even close to it. So looking at it that way, yes One of the best games ever, because without it and the things it did that were never done on a CONSOLE before it, you might not have the games everyone loves today. The origional halo set the bar and the direction console games went.

  • u6demi9

    Posted Jul 22, 2011 10:25 am GMT

    Alright people, enough with all the arguing back and forth. To you pc gamers complaining you must remember back when halo ce origionally came out it was monumental for console gamers. Up until that point there had been nothing to even compare to it on consoles. It did things never seen on a console before and set the bar for all games after. You also have to remember back at the time it released games were geared to pc users. You always got the better graphics, more content, more interactiveness, and all the best games released were for pc only. Also halo ce was origionally a xbox only title, so it fits if the release the hd one the same way. Now, for all you console people having issues about it being empty and such, you have to remember when this was origionally released. It was a launch game for the origional xbox. You can't compare it to games now a days. Hardware, game engines, everything has changed drastically. If you want to compare it to something, go out and get the other games on any console the came out any time around when the origionally halo released. They can't even come close to comparing to this. What other games at the time the origional realeased had a great multiplayer, you could play through the campaign with 2 people, had graphics anywhere close to it, had npcs running around with you, interacting and fighting along side you, on a CONSOLE. Ran out of room, to be continued...

  • SpunkyB0B

    Posted Jul 19, 2011 7:12 pm GMT

    Halo1 was the best game.... a remake is all that was needed

  • McGregor

    Posted Jul 15, 2011 2:26 pm GMT

    @foojam

    You do realize that this is a game set in the future right? There is a chance that health regeneration would be possible at that point in time...Just saying.

    I do get that the health regeneration makes it a bit "easier" but in comparison to the PC, you have to give some sort of handicap due to the lack of precision controls on the xbox in comparison the PC.

    I will more than likely purchase this game for the revamped multi-player maps, but I don't really see myself replaying the campaign...although the terminals are tempting

    @vicsrealms

    I would have a huge problem paying $150 to fix a problem on my computer, however, I wouldn't have a problem spending $150 to upgrade parts on my computer. Repairs are repairs, no matter what format (car, pc, xbox, playstation, wife, etc...) and I hate paying for something, multiple times, that should continue to work for a reasonable amount of time.

  • scratchisme

    Posted Jul 15, 2011 7:44 am GMT

    Now they just need to remake Halo 3.

  • kazumashadow

    Posted Jul 13, 2011 4:33 pm GMT

    I recently bought Halo 3 since i got my 360 just a few months ago and was wishing for a way to better understand the story, thank you 343.

  • pisoni94

    Posted Jul 12, 2011 8:49 pm GMT

    this is definitely gonna be on my wish list

  • reavin81

    Posted Jul 3, 2011 7:56 pm GMT

    hay they did what monkey island did the abillitie to cross between old and new that is mad, i hope they bring beaver creek to multiplater that will be sweet

  • xboxcat22

    Posted Jul 1, 2011 12:48 pm GMT

    Great news, the first one had a real feeling of open space, bringing it up to date graphically is a sure winner and money maker. Like so many other people will be, I am looking forward to playing it.

  • Gunathar

    Posted Jun 26, 2011 7:54 pm GMT

    Halo was the first Xbox game I ever finished. It was great fun. I really like the story and the intuitive controls, but I don't know if I want to go through it again, even with better graphics. Give me something more than new graphics and gammicks and I'll buy Halo CE. Again.

  • JazzFromHell

    Posted Jun 23, 2011 12:40 pm GMT

    the multiplayer from halo combat evolved for pc was the best halo multiplayer ever, epic ctf battles, true headshots skills, people dont hide and suddenly appear like in halo 3.

  • jasonzilla11

    Posted Jun 19, 2011 7:32 am GMT

    I was completely uninterested with the terminals in Halo 3, but in the remake of CE, I am willing to do almost anything for more information on the story of Halo 4, and how it's gonna play. I hope it will be just as epic as Halo 3 and 2 and so on. They were amazing, and Halo Reach didn't get up to that epicness. I bet Halo 4 will.

  • smwat

    Posted Jun 16, 2011 9:58 am GMT

    @Newbie4lyfe

    If I rember right Fable and Halo 2 were part of the First HD games on the original Xbox. But I think they could only reach 480

  • smwat

    Posted Jun 16, 2011 9:55 am GMT

    as a good game, hope the remake is good. Sadly I had a falling out with the Halo games with Halo 3 Though seeing a remake of the best of the 3 will be nice. To me the games were time killers and a so so story that was only fun when you read the books. It will be nice to play Multiplayer Haven't done that on a Halo game sence 2 was at its hype.

  • Phil_Maholynn

    Posted Jun 14, 2011 2:49 pm GMT

    Now they need to remake a 360 version of Halo 2 (my favorite of the series) for the hiatus between halo 4 and halo 5. I will most likely add this to my halo collection come November.

  • AceCometh

    Posted Jun 13, 2011 8:52 pm GMT

    Maybe not the absolute best game of all time, but it's damn well one of my FAVORITE games of all time. Getting a revamped edition will be the perfect game to hold me over until Halo 4 is finally released.