HALO: COMBAT EVOLVED ANNIVERSARY offers new visuals on top of its old experience. Does it do enough to impress? Read our updated hands-on preview to find out.
There are eight of us sitting around the Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary setup. We know what’s coming: we can see the telltale multiplayer setup screen on each of our oversized TVs. We give each other a knowing glare, a single look that silently taunts, “You’re mine, buddy. Let’s rock.”
Classic deathmatch on the Damnation map is our one and only option, but that limitation doesn’t matter: we are about to enter into battle. And so it starts, all eight of us spread out across the map, learning the layout and curiously peaking round corners, searching, hunting. Then, suddenly, it sparks into full-blown madness. Frag and plasma grenades dance in the air before gracefully landing and exploding in beautiful flames of red and blue. Weapon fire rings out from every corner of the small map. No one is safe, and there is nowhere to hide.
The blur of multiple-coloured armour floods our peripheral vision. There are targets everywhere. You must choose one and make it your mission to ruin their day. It’s hectic and fast-paced action, broken up by tense silence as the dead respawn. 25 kills later the battle is over, the adrenaline spent. And after standing up to mock the losers we all leave the setup and begin to reflect on our short time with Halo Anniversary.
It’s only then that the realisation strikes: this is the same bloody game we played ten years ago.
Something old, something new
Indeed, Halo Anniversary multiplayer’s greatest strength turns out to be its greatest weakness as well: it brings back a lot of memories of the original game, as far as classic Deathmatch on Damnation goes. Basically: Halo with online support and the Reach engine, providing updated mechanics of play that accurately mimic those of Bungie’s iconic shooter. It’s fun and pure, a true celebration of that title, with all the flare of a newer game.
But it does feel a little antiquated in this form. It follows the same formula as the classic arcade style multiplayer from the early 2000s. It’s certainly fun in a mindless sort of way, but it also feels like a step back from the in-depth experience of Halo: Reach itself.
However, this build is designed to specifically show us the Halo: Combat Evolved multiplayer map Damnation in all its glory within the Reach engine and with the setting of classic Deathmatch. The rest of the Reach multiplayer will be present as well and, essentially, the Halo Anniversary multiplayer is a map pack featuring classic locations. The bigger question is what the campaign will play like, and with no demo of the singleplayer we remain in the dark about key elements of this package.
Halo was once an incredibly tight, punchy shooter that set new benchmarks for the action genre. But its armour-plated sci-fi narrative feels a little flimsy when stacked up against newer iterations, and many other shooters have come along and done the Halo formula better. Not least later Halo games. Will an aesthetic tidy-up – and really, that is all it is – be enough to make Halo’s singleplayer campaign relevant in 2011?
What’s clear is that it feels like Halo, but updated: It’s a celebration of the game that launched the original Xbox, and a chance for us all to dive back into a game that so many of us remember with a great fondness. Will that be enough? There’s not long left until we’ll find out for sure.
Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, from 343 Industries and Microsoft, is due for release on Xbox 360 on the 15th November 2011. Keep up to date with all the latest Halo Anniversary news right here at BeefJack!
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