Despite only visiting it once in my adolescent years, Iâve never forgotten the Cradle of Aviation Museum in the suburb of Garden City. Row after row of majestic aircraft stood next to each other, shiny but defunct evidence to the pivotal role that Long Island played to the science and practice of aeronautics in the 20th Century. Even throughout the guided tour, there was a stately kind of quiet, an air of reverence that hung throughout the space. Playing through Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary reminds me of walking through the Cradle of Aviation Museum. That place isnât a world-renown venue like the Museum of Natural History or the Guggenheim, but rather itâs one of those mid-tier shrines dedicated to a particular phenomenon. Itâs a physical space reserved for a special kind of contemplation and the 10th birthday re-master of the first Halo game strikes me as a virtual equivalent. Stretching out the metaphor a little more, itâs almost like looking at carefully restored masterpiece paintingâcraning your eyes upwards at the Sistine Chapel ceiling, perhapsâafter preservation workâs been done. Thereâs a new vividness to be found in something you mightâve known intimately before.
Make no mistake: Anniversary is an impressive achievement from 343 Industriesâthe Microsoft division that will steer the course of Halo in the post-Bungie eraâand dev studio Saber Interactive. With the Classic Mode option to go back to the gameâs original graphics with the press of a button, youâre essentially getting two flavors of the same experience running simultaneously, one on top of another. Otherwise, Anniversary doesnât make Combat Evolved feel different. Well, thatâs not entirely true. In terms of visuals, it brings Bungieâs mega-success in line with other AAA games of today. Half the fun of playing is going back and forth and comparing how things looked then and now. Neither of these were in the original Combat Evolved. Achievements are also threaded into the game, as are Terminals, video stations hidden throughout the world that expand the seriesâ mythosâand seed foreshadowing for Halo 4. None of the tantalizing narrative hints towards the seriesâ future actually make the experience of playing Halo all over that divergent than the original experience was. Yes, you get all kinds of teases and hints about what might be happening when you get to play as Master Chief again. But you already need to be super-invested in the lore to make sense of these snippets. Youâll also find Skulls, the power-ups that reward you with special abilities in both campaign and multiplayer, throughout the game.
Classic Mode essentially bakes in a nostalgia mechanic into a game thatâs already well-loved.
The Kinect features are mere novelty, letting you, among other things, switch to Classic Mode and back, throw grenades or enter an alternate viewing mode with spoken commands. Once in Analyze mode, the Scan function picks out and adds certain elements to a database for later perusal. Thereâs noticeable lag between certain voice commands and the execution, and for all the shouting youâll do at the screen, none of it adds terribly much.
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We still donât know what kind of Halo game 343 will make and no amount of replaying the first Halo is going to tell us.
CEA makes crystal-clear why people pledge loyalty Halo, and why others hate it as well. Itâs not going to change how you feel about the franchise. The achievement here is mostly technical. Classic Mode essentially bakes in a nostalgia mechanic into a game thatâs already well-loved. But, when I compare Anniversary to Reach, I come away with more admiration for Bungieâs last dance with Master Chief. Reach walked that tricky line of channel their fanbaseâs nostalgia while changing certain elements to add variety to the campaign. In the name of respecting their forerunners, 343 Industries plays it super-safe here.
This game isnât Skyward Sword, which re-imagines and re-tools the foundational elements of the Legend of Zelda games and adds in some customization for the first time. Nor is it Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, which adds under-the-hood improvements and more characters to brawl with.
All the things you love about the first Haloâthe scale of the world, the strategic cunning youâll need to wield in certain battles and the endearing quirks of certain weaponsâare still there. The most positive way I can look at Anniversary is as the summing up of an era. From the initial release of Combat Evolved to the powerful exit with Reach, the Halo games made by Bungie created and codified the expectations a whole generation of gamers have about what they get from first-person shooters and online multiplayer.
Getting Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary is like replacing a well-worn book thatâs frayed from being read too much. Thereâs a place for that. But, frustratingly, what you donât get is a real sense of where 343 might take Master Chief and Cortana in the future. We still donât know what kind of Halo game 343 will make and no amount of replaying the first Halo is going to tell us. Those planes in the Cradle of Aviation had their time in the sky and theyâre honored for that. But, every kid who ever wandered underneath those wings wanted to go faster and higher than what came before them. I imagine the same must be true of Halo players, who, it seems, need to wait a little longer
