Monday, June 06, 2011

Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary Revealed at E3 2011

The long standing rumours are indeed true, 343 Industries is working on an HD remake of Halo: Combat Evolved for the Xbox 360.

Announced today at E3, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary will feature remastered HD graphics, Xbox LIVE functionality including online Co-Op, Achievements, and the ability to toggle back to the original release's graphics on-the-fly. It will also ship with seven of the most popular Multiplayer maps in Halo history, and considering that Halo: Combat Evolved shipped with thirteen maps total, I sense DLC milkage in this remake's future.

You can check out the trailer below or here, followed by a ViDoc with 343 Industries discussing the remastering of this classic and monumental shooter below or here. A screenshot gallery with comparison shots can also be viewed here.





Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary will be released on the 10th anniversary of the original title, November 15th, 2011, and while Microsoft Game Studios is not talking cost yet, they've stated it will not be a full priced game. This was also said about Halo 3: ODST and that was a lie, so I won't take any talk of cost at face value until it's properly being advertised at retail.

For the trailer itself though, it looks very nice and it's great to see Halo: Combat Evolved in HD with better textures. It'll be interesting to see if 343 Industries really can keep the classic gameplay feel, something I feel is essential and goes beyond just keeping the Pistol very powerful.

A few things I wasn't keen on from the trailer though:

- Master Chief's Mark V armour. This rendition of it looks ugly to me; the visor is too stretched from top to bottom.
- The Assault Rifle. They should be using the MA5B variant, not the MA37 that the UNSC Army used during the Fall of Reach.
- It looks like they're using Army Troopers instead of Marines, which also doesn't add up.
- Ultra Elites. They aren't supposed to be here.

Yes, I know, I'm a purist about these sorts of things.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

i think the Marines are still Marines, not soldiers/troopers, as long as the dialogue remains the same. I think they are just deciding that the armor is interchangable and essentially the Marines can wear similar armor, or perhaps these are just placeholder images until they redesign character models more completely? It is a little funky but in my opinion regardless of the armor, those are Marines as long as the dialogue remains the same...if anything it just means that some of the troopers we saw in Reach were in fact a combo of Marines and soldiers

Juxtapose said...

@Anonymous Well the trick with that is the Army Troopers all have older gear/hand-me-downs from the cutting edge Marines, so their stuff really shouldn't be mixed too much.

The Troopers are kind of like the Marine's poorer, younger cousins :p.

From what I've heard they're using the exact same sound scape as the original, so it'll be the same dialogue. They still don't look like Marines though!