Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary... DOA?

[xPixelatedx]

I couldn't help but notice in the flood of advertising/articles/trailers all over the net and TV, Halo is suspiciously absent. It comes out on Tuesday and if it wasn't for something I saw a few months ago, I wouldn't have even known this game existed. This combined with fact that when I preordered it along with Skyrim and Zelda, the person at Gamestop really tried to undersell it to me, like he thought I shouldn't get it. ...Am I missing something here? I am not the biggest halo fan, but most of my fondest times with the franchise were with the earlier games, so I am a lot more pumped to play this game then the last few iterations. I did some searching online and so far the only negative thing I can find is people are upset this isn't made by Bungie. Are people and Microsoft just wary about this title because this one wasn't made by Bungie? All this time, were people just fans of Bungie and not Halo?

I am not dissuaded from getting this game, but I have no allegiance to Bungie, so maybe that's why. I hate what they've slowly done to the series; the story/weapons/maps just seem to be getting worse and worse up to their last installment.

I am overjoyed someone else is in charge of Halo; is that strange?

 

[ZZoMBiE13]

This isn't really a new Halo. I'd imagine that most of the people who actually want Halo: Anniversary, already know about it or pre-ordered it. This is the first Halo release since the original that isn't even getting a special limited edition.

I'm sure it will still sell fine. I know I'll be picking it up with my copy of Saints Row on Tuesday.

 

[xPixelatedx]

This isn't really a new Halo.

The original Halo maps have never been available to play on XBL, neither has the HALO PC maps they added. That's pretty damn new.

 

[GiantRedButton]

This isn't really a new Halo.

The original Halo maps have never been available to play on XBL, neither has the HALO PC maps they added. That's pretty damn new.

The Pc version is 8 years old so not that new at all.
Sure its the first time on the 360 but thats true for every HD remake and doesnt make it any newer.
Not that this is a bad thing, the first halo was the best one for me.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

The Pc version is 8 years old so not that new at all.
Sure its the first time on the 360 but thats true for every HD remake and doesnt make it any newer.
Not that this is a bad thing, the first halo was the best one for me.

Well, it will also give, people that have played it before, challenges that they didn't have when the game first came out. There will be achievements, and they brought the skulls system into it as well as consoles to find like the "Marathon" in Halo 3.

I for one will like playing the game with a Halo 3/ODST/Reach control scheme. The reason I say this is that a year or so ago I bought the XBLA downloadable copy of Halo:CE, and I didn't get far in it because the controls were inverted from what I was use to, and even though it said I could do something to change the control scheme, it wouldn't work.

I wouldn't mind if they also made an Anniversary Edition for Halo 2 as well, just so that all the games get to have a graphics make up that is very similar, and that I get to have all the games, since I didn't have an original Xbox, I was still in my just Nintendo phase.

So, I did pre-order the Anniversary Edition from Amazon(because unlike all the other retailers, I got a ten dollar credit on top of what the other people get when pre-ordering from other places).

I also like that with it, I will also like getting the "new" maps to use with Reach, though I hate that I will lose my 100% Reach achievement completion when the new achievements come out for it with those maps. All the other achievements where pretty reasonable to get, but from what I heard, one of the new achievements is to get a Skullamanjaro in a Headhunter match. That will take forever, seeing as the highest amount of skulls that I have scored at once is seven, and I was really lucky to get that.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

I did some searching online and so far the only negative thing I can find is people are upset this isn't made by Bungie. Are people and Microsoft just wary about this title because this one wasn't made by Bungie? All this time, were people just fans of Bungie and not Halo?

People that are upset because of that are kind of stupid. A few days ago I watched a party/info preview of the thing on Xbox Live(one of those Major Nelson things) and it told all about what had been done with the game. Everything about the campaign is the same, it is just a graphical update with some things added like the skulls system and you will also have to hunt for the skulls like in Halo 3, and also there will be "Marathon" like consoles to find like in 3.

Game-play wise, other than Kinect support(Shouting "grenade" to throw a grenade or "reload" to reload"), there is nothing that has changed, except this time there will be achievements to strive for.

They explained that the people they had come in and help with the graphical update, actually used the graphical engine of H:CE, in that all the models are the same as the original. They will move the same and act the same, it will just be prettier. They can't possibly have changed it that much, because you can change the graphics on the fly, from remastered to original, with a button press.

I wouldn't be surprised if all the naysayers about the thing are people that just don't like Halo and don't want the series to get anymore attention. If not they are just way too pessimistic as well as uninformed.

 

[mjc0961]

I did some searching online and so far the only negative thing I can find is people are upset this isn't made by Bungie. Are people and Microsoft just wary about this title because this one wasn't made by Bungie? All this time, were people just fans of Bungie and not Halo?

That's a silly thing to be upset about, because this game was made by Bungie. It was made by Bungie 10 years ago, and 343 is simply adding a new graphic engine to it. Well, maybe they're doing a bit more than that, but all of the gameplay mechanics are still made by Bungie. You can even press a button to go back to the original Halo's graphics in the campaign at least, so then you will be playing something that is pretty much entirely Bungie's work.

People should save the "it's not bungie!" whining for Halo 4.

 

[Tupolev]

I did some searching online and so far the only negative thing I can find is people are upset this isn't made by Bungie.

Are you serious? In the Halo community itself, by FAR the largest complaint is that it doesn't have Halo 1 MP; some people have been demanding a version of the game with an engine modified with networking in mind for the entire last decade, and Anniversary's announcement doubled for those people as an announcement that that would never happen. The only reason the storm has died down at all is that it's been raging angrily for five months.

 

[Awexsome]

I heavily disagree that the Halo installments have gotten worse under Bungie. Multiplayer has only improved with every single game although my favorite story came with Halo 2. Ironic given how badly Bungie admitted they screwed up the development process on that one.

It does seem to be flying under the radar right now and really I think that it's targeted for the more dedicated Halo fans that already follow news about the game. I think it's coming out at a 40 dollar price tag so it's not meant to be the next big thing.

Quite honestly I still think there's a sizeable portion of the Halo fanbase that doesn't really know that Bungie's not on board anymore. Or probably even cares. They came for Halo, not for Bungie. As other people have said the real time to judge 343i will be for Halo 4.

 

[Smooth Operator]

What do you mean wasn't made by Bungie?
They are porting a Bungie game to an engine from a Bungie game...

If you expect something new then wait for Halo4.

 

[Thaius]

I certainly don't understand what made Reach so horrible, as I absolutely loved it, but I'll admit the first Halo is still my favorite campaign of the series, so I'm psyched for Anniversary.

No one has a reason to be upset that it's not Bungie; this is Bungie. It's just an HD skin put on Bungie's original masterpiece, that's all. So yeah, it's still pretty much made by Bungie.

And yeah, I wish it were more advertised as well. They've barely made any noise about it, which just seems strange. But most of my gaming friends know about it, so I guess they did a good enough job.

 

[Space Spoons]

I presume it's because Halo: Anniversary isn't really the big one that everyone's waiting for. It's kind of like ODST was; it was a pretty good game, lots of people bought it and it's remembered fondly, but ultimately it was just a way to kill time until Halo: Reach, and everyone kind of knew it.

 

[Leoofmoon]

Its a game being rereleased with HD grafics and is nothing really new

 

[saucecode]

I am overjoyed someone else is in charge of Halo; is that strange?

:O
I wouldn't say overjoyed, maybe just worried. Even though about 90% of the engine code from Halo 1 is just reinjected and optimised for the Anniversary.

Now I feel like making a thread.