Review by Stuart Barr
PEGI certification 16 | UK RRP £39.99 | Region PAL | Developer 343 Industries | Publisher Microsoft
Halo was probably the first game that convinced me to give up on PC gaming once and for all. Here was a game that took what was regarded as the province of the PC, the first person shooter, and translated it to a console. Halo offered a compelling gaming experience on hardware that cost a fraction of an up to date PC rig (an fact state of the art PC graphics cards were more expensive than the console). After years of trying to deal with dodgy installations, graphics drivers and the relentless, never ending and financially ruinous climb up the upgrade tree I was free at last.
On release Halo was a stunning game, the metallic sheen of the indoor environments and the feel of participating in large scale battles in expansive outdoor environments sold more of Microsoft’s ugly black box than any other game. Of course Halo was not the first console FPS, it was not even the first console FPS to best PC equivalents. That honour must go to Rare’s Goldeneye on the N64, but Nintendo’s console had limited market penetration. Halo did not reinvent the wheel, it refined it, adapted it to the limitations of its hardware platform, and concentrated on being the best game it could be.
Ten years after release, several generations of gamers have come of age and may not have experienced the original game that spawned a franchise. Original creators Bungie have left the franchise behind with last year’s Halo Reach being their last Halo game. So this anniversary edition of Halo is a stopgap release until a new Halo game inevitably appears from a fresh developer. It is also a chance to encourage younger fans who demand state of the art graphics to give the original game a go.
Cutscenes have been retconned to fit Halo into the franchise continuity that now has Halo Reach as a direct prequel to the original game, but the gameplay sections are unchanged (and yes that does mean the Flood are as annoying as ever). The player is Master Chief, a genetically engineered super-soldier. Thrown into the midst of an interstellar war between humanity and an alien race known as The Covenant, Master Chief must search the mysterious alien ringworld of Halo for a mysterious doohickey that will turn the tide of the war.
In truth, the anniversary edition does not quite have the looks of a current triple A release. The opening section of the game on the space cruiser The Pillar of Autumn looks several generations old. Character models move stiffly, facial animations are crude, and the gaming environment is mainly corridors. On release this section had the function of easing console fans into the FPS genre, but now that it is established after a decade of increasingly sophisticated games it feels a little flat. Things improve greatly after Master Chief escapes the ship and crash lands on Halo. Open environments benefit most from the graphical upgrade (there is an option to turn of the HD textures and see the original graphics).
Halo is still a great game, Warthogs are as exciting to drive as ever, and the enemy AI has rarely been bettered in the 10 years since release. However the graphical upgrade does not take the game up to the level of Halo 3, ODST or Reach, and charging top dollar seems a bit of a stretch when the original game is also available on XBox market place (in the original low res version) for considerably cheaper. Sure the game also comes with original Halo multiplayer maps running on the Reach engine, but if you aren’t already playing Reach prepare to get your ass handed to you.
This is a reminder of how great the original Halo was and still is, but in a crowded pre-Christmas marketplace, it is hardly an essential purchase.