I have to say that Combat Evolved Anniversary met my expectations…but they were pretty low to begin with. Combat Evolved was a revolutionary title when it came out, but CEA just doesn’t hold up today.
The new graphics are cool and all, but the facial animations on the characters were just plain awful. Keyes himself had a constant “Who farted?” look on his face and it took me out of the immersion. Cortana’s appearance was pretty weak to, I get that is what she looked like in Halo 3, but couldn’t 343/Saber been more creative with her appearance? Reach’s Cortana model would’ve been perfect, she resembled her CE counterpart than Halo 3’s did. Interesting concept, but it could’ve been better.
In terms of Campaign content, the Library and it’s use with Kinect is cool and all, if unnecessary. Honestly, I own a Kinect, but still think the Analyze feature could’ve been mapped to the D-Pad. One, it’s not particular fair to deny those without a Kinect the ability to use this feature. Two, I’m not too keen at shouting “Anayzle!” at night when folks are trying to sleep. The skulls are okay and the Terminals are excellent, but that’s it really. Once that’s done, not much replayability. I suppose I just crave deeper experience like I found in Skyrim. Two different games, but it’s not hard to pick which one to play more, Skyrim.
Not much to say on the multiplayer front, the maps and playlist are fun, but I have more fun playing Portal 2 on co-op to be honest. Just my opinion.
I suppose I can appreciate 343 Industries gesture, but if this was supposed to get me excited about how they will handle Halo 4, it doesn’t. It’s just another mediocre game to me.
Not to mention the Online Co-op is Unplayable with the massive lag.
So many commands have to be verified by the host first it’s rediculous, nothing is simulated, everything has to be submitted to the host and the client has to await a response for Everything he does inclusing moving and turning.
rediculous, I’m suprised at the amount of junk that has been certified as “gold” by Microsofts totally awesome QA these past few months.
I’ll agree. It was fun, but it was pretty much just the same thing with shinier graphics. I liked the skulls designed for it, how some made the game more fun in general rather than difficulty modifiers all the time (for example, The Library is now more fun than stressful if you have the Bandana skull on). Terminals were interesting, would have liked to see more, maybe two per level instead of one. Library feature I haven’t used since I don’t have Kinect and I honestly cannot see why this could have been mapped to the D-pad like you said.
I’m not particularly fond of some of the designs. The marines just seem copied and pasted from Reach which I’m not cool with since they’re army soldiers, not marines - I can get VERY nitpicky with that sort of thing, believe me. I liked the Reach Banshee design but I don’t see why it had to replace the original. The new version also seems to have trouble when being flipped - I have to go into classic mode just to flip the damn thing properly.
Co-op mode is unbearable. The amount of lag someone gets when they’re not host is unbelievable. Split-screen is awful, I honestly cannot remember things being that bad when playing co-op with my friend on split-screen before. They’ve really let me down with this one because Halo CE was a game that I frequently played on with my friends in co-op, and this feature seems a bit rushed. Either that, or it just cannot work properly due to the limitations of a 10 year old engine.
What would have made this game stand out more is perhaps some features that you couldn’t do in the original game, for example pilot the Wraith. Perhaps they could have even added a couple of bonus levels, maybe some that were even cut from the original game. But I can see this game was made more for the newer Halo fans who might have skipped this game rather than old Halo veterans such as myself (even though I’m 19, but playing this remake makes me feel old for some reason).
> > I don’t have Kinect and I honestly cannot see why this could have been mapped to the D-pad like you said.
>
> That’s how greedy companies work.
343 was originally planning to do this, but the penny pinchers known as Microsoft wanted to boost sales for the Kinect. They need to learn that if a product isn’t selling then improve it or trash the idea, not limit the people that don’t have the product by not letting people use a cool feature that was originally included without the Kinect.
> > I don’t have Kinect and I honestly cannot see why this could have been mapped to the D-pad like you said.
>
> That’s how greedy companies work.
There’s an achievement in Forza Motorsport 4 that requires you to have a Kinect. It’s totally unfair. Companies will try to get their money in every way possible.
Gonna have to disagree. CEA turned out VERY well, considering how bad it could have been.
Honestly i was expecting a cash in, but in the end it exceeded my expectations. I still think the decision to go with the dual engines for an authentic feel was inspired.
Yeah there are some rough edges, but you can tell they went right down to the wire with the deadline so its not uprising. The launch day TU was a dead give-away.
> Gonna have to disagree. CEA turned out VERY well, considering how bad it could have been.
>
> Honestly i was expecting a cash in, but in the end it exceeded my expectations. I still think the decision to go with the dual engines for an authentic feel was inspired.
>
> Yeah there are some rough edges, but you can tell they went right down to the wire with the deadline so its not uprising. The launch day TU was a dead give-away.
I respectfully disagree. The graphics concept was interesting, but I felt the finally product wasn’t too good. The vistas and backgrounds were cool, but looking at the characters…ugh. The Kinect stuff was an extra kick in the balls, maybe not to me but to everyone else.
Honestly I do agree with you to some degree. I just wanted to use that video.
The graphics are great but sometimes to find my way around, I have to use Classic Mode. I know CE’s routes, paths, and shortcuts on sight. CEA makes it a little tougher.
The AI appearance. Keyes looks alright (but wearing his dress uniform during Jenkins’ recording made no sense), Johnson no longer looks like Johnson, Cortana’s mouth and facial emotions look awful, and really…why does Johnson now look like he could be Mario’s cousin?
The graphics are pretty but they do hide some large obstacles at times.
The running animation at all times. Yes, I understand you wanted to keep the game code the same but would it have been that badly criticized for you guys to fix Chief’s running animation?
The game is still great but seeing as I have been playing the game for 10 years, it really was just a 40 dollar HD upgrade with some new fiction and extra Reach maps. I still like it but replay value no longer really exists.
I disagree, I thought the game was amazing! In fact, It didn’t even need new graphics. The campaign itself could’ve entertained me, the new engine was just for delight, let alone the skulls of course.
> I disagree, I thought the game was amazing! In fact, It didn’t even need new graphics. The campaign itself could’ve entertained me, the new engine was just for delight, let alone the skulls of course.
The graphics was it’s selling point, otherwise it would just be a releasing the original CE again.
> I disagree, I thought the game was amazing! In fact, It didn’t even need new graphics. The campaign itself could’ve entertained me, the new engine was just for delight, let alone the skulls of course.
it was not a new engine… >.>
its the original CE engine. thats one of the selling points. its true to the original halo
> rediculous, I’m suprised at the amount of junk that has been certified as “gold” by Microsofts totally awesome QA these past few months.
The Reach Demo is the best example of corporate greed: no skulls, no fun (only online firefight), no customization (not even emblem, armor color), bad part of the mission (LNoS Mission Start), space battle is eye candy.
Not to mention that I read that the multiplayer is filled with noobs.
Who would want to buy Reach after playing such a -Yoink- demo?
If -Yoink!- releases a CEA demo, that’s fine by me. As long as it isn’t too limited, which will likely be the case.
To all: you guys are a bunch of idiots. First of all there was a new engine. It was used for the new graphics and compatibility with the 360. The rest is run of the old engine (so yeah dual engine). This allowed the game to play the same as the original. The only thing is is that the enemies used their dodge and attack moves more often and were more alert. Basically they used their scripted moves more often. Hence why the entire game was supposed to be a REMAKE. If you thought the original Halo was good and you wanted to play it updated to modern times on the 360 then you bought this game. Otherwise you could have stayed with the original game.
So don’t go out thinking they did a poor job or anything because besides the lag of the co-op it’s a decent halo REMAKE. Besides don’t you love the skulls and the terminals? I also like that you can play an old xbox game with new graphics just to finally get another 1000gs
