MiniReview: Halo: Anniversary
Posted Tuesday, November 15, 2011 at 4:00 pm by Jason Cartwright
Halo: Anniversary starts the Halo universe all over again, but this time, using today’s graphics engine. While the Halo franchise became a massive success with 2nd and 3rd editions, only the most hardcore Halo fans were there from the beginning with the original Xbox.
Halo Anniversary is the Halo we all know and love, but delivered in high definition with a current generation lighting and graphics engine. What a massive difference 10 years makes in video games. One of the best things to enjoy in the game is to switch between the original and current game engines.
That’s right, Halo Anniversary includes both game engines, to switch between the two just take a press of the Back button and a second to refresh. The difference is dramatic. Textures quality, polygon count, lighting effects, shadows, reflections, animations – everything is dramatically better.
Of course jumping 10 years is a massive leap, but what about the difference between Halo Anniversary and Halo: Reach? The answer, not a lot. At least not visually.
Original engine.
New engine
Single Player Campaign
The story begins from the very beginning, the start of Halo, where you begin with a calibration of the Spartan suit. This also doubles as a ‘how to’ tutorial and configures settings like look inversion. No matter where your Halo experience began, Halo Anniversary allows you to see the story unfold from the beginning.
Multiplayer
The best of the best multiplayer levels have been included in this release, along with a few new ones just for Anniversary. All of your favourite maps from across the Halo series are on offer. While everyone has their favourites, there are maps that rise to the top, working better in multiplayer matches and naturally become hits amongst the Halo community.
Kinect Support
Voice commands for games seems like the new flavour of the day, so get used to it now. Halo Anniversary actually uses voice in a pretty compelling way. There’s a plethora of commands available, everything from “change weapon”, to “reload”. Good news for Aussie’s, there is Australian voice support to cater for our accent (no bogan slang).
Windows Phone 7.5 integration
Those WP7 owners running Mango will be able to get an updated Halo Waypoint app on their phone. This can be used to intergrate with the Halo Anniversary game, get to know map layouts, weapon locations and even watch your team locations live on the device.
Overall
If you’ve never played Halo before, then this is definitely the game for you. If you already own every copy of Halo, then it’s hard to say this is a must-have for you, other than to complete your collection. There’s always new achievements to go after, so if that stat demon inside of you just begs for more, then you should also get the game.
Availability and Price
Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary release date is November 15th, 2011 and will cost A$69.95 RRP.
Halo Reach now available, do you care ?
Posted Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 3:33 pm by Jason Cartwright
Halo is the franchise on Xbox 360 with Halo 3 still ranking very high in Xbox Live titles. Well today Halo fans got another instalment in the series, this time its Halo Reach. While previous iterations have sold millions of copies and attracted fans from the world over, I get the sense that people aren’t as invigorated by this release. Has the franchise run its course or will Halo continue to break records ?
So are people still interested in Halo. Of course there’s the fan boys and girls, but I’m talking about the broader mass populous of gamers, is Halo something they still desire ? This time round the Bungie developed Halo Reach is a prequel and focuses on how the Halo legend was forged. This time the battle between Spartan soldiers and the evil Covenant is enhanced with improved graphics, new levels, weapons and more. But in a game that’s so clearly multiplayer focused, how much is there for single players.
Kotaku is reporting the single player campaign is only 8 hours long. While the multiplayer aspect has certainly gained a lot of attention over the years, the single player experience has always been engaging, interesting and quite frankly a lot longer. This may be an aspect of Halo Reach that disappoints fans. While a lot of Xbox owners do play online, not all of them do, for those people this equates to around $100 for 8 hours of entertainment, good value ?
Image source: Brads blog
Personally spent countless hours engaged in Halo 2 multiplayer battles, I played through the single player of Halo3 in the first 2 days after launch. So yes admittedly I am a fan, but there’s something about Reach that just doesn’t have me rushing to the store. Whilst online marketing has certainly been around the net, in the traditional channel of television its essentially been non-existent.
The true gauge as to Halo Reach’s success will be sales figures, something we’ll have to wait a little while for. It may have launched at midnight in the cities and 9am to the rest of Australia, but due to the time zones it means the US are still a couple hours away from their launch.
More info @ Xbox.com
Next Halo Reaches stores worldwide September 14th
Posted Tuesday, May 25, 2010 at 11:35 am by Jason Cartwright
Halo fans rejoice, the next edition of the famous Halo franchise now has a release date – September 14th, 2010. Halo Reach will come in 3 flavours, basic, limited edition and legendary editions, details of what’s included is listed below. The Halo Reach beta seen more than 2.7 million players participate in the multiplayer mayhem, making 3 times larger than Halo 3’s beta and the largest video game beta test ever.
Fingers crossed all the data collected during the beta makes for a great experience in-game. With Halo fans being some of the most fanatical and franchise-loyal customers in the world, Halo Reach is basically assured of success.
Halo Reach is available for pre-order now.
Halo: Reach Limited Edition
In addition to the game disc and manual, the Limited edition includes:
- Game disc housed in recovered ONI ”black box”
- An exclusive Elite armor set for use in multiplayer modes
- Artifact bag containing Dr. Halsey’s personal journal and other classified documents and effects that unravel long held secrets from the “Halo” universe
Halo: Reach Legendary Edition
The complete “Halo: Reach” collection. In addition to the game disc, manual, and the complete contents of the Limited edition, the Legendary edition includes:
- Noble Team statue expertly crafted by the artisans at McFarlane Toys. Individually molded, hand-painted and individually numbered, this statue is a must-have for any serious “Halo” fan
- UNSC-themed custom packaging
More information @ MajorNelson
