Itâs the flavour of the show at this yearâs TGS. It seems everywhere you turn there are HD remakes of old games, just waiting for the chance to get you to pay for the same game twice.
As Iâve said with one such remake, MGS2, each is taking a slightly different approach to renovating an old game. Of all those approaches, though, I like Halo Anniversaryâs the best.
Itâs like Star Wars: people wouldnât care about meddling changes made to the movies if they were simply given the option of switching between the new version and the original.
Thatâs just what Halo Anniversary does, though, and after seeing it in action yesterday at the Tokyo Game Show, I came away very impressed.
I got to watch a playthrough of the gameâs very first level, Pillar of Autumn, in which Master Chief is awoken from a long sleep to try and save a ship thatâs being overrun by the alien Covenant. Itâs one of the more memorable stages from the ten-year-old game, and seeing it look almost brand new â with new characters, new lighting, new everything â was shocking.
I didnât really like it. I mean, it looked nice, but there were so many changes that it just didnât look the same any more. The best comparison I can think of is Gus Van Santâs Psycho remake: itâs the same movie, but because of that itâs only made clearer itâs not the same movie.
Luckily, then, the game includes the much-vaunted ability to switch, on the fly, between this ânewâ version and the actual original game, warts and all. Aside from a slight bump in clarity given the original models are now running in HD, it literally is the original code from Halo on the Xbox.
https://lastchance.cc/halo-anniversary-will-include-new-content-old-visuals-5823926%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
The transition is so seamless that when engaging it, after a short fade, because the game under the graphics is the same code the animation frames freeze perfectly, and everything â bullets, limbs, the works â resumes exactly where it was before you make the switch.
About the only area this freedom of choice doensât extend is the soundtrack, which has been remastered and, in terms of the haunting original score, completely re-recorded, with no option of hearing it as it was in 2001.
Halo Anniversary is due out in November on Xbox 360.
You can contact Luke Plunkett, the author of this post, at [email protected]. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.
