Hot on the heels of the recent announcement of Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary edition, the remake of the game that kicked off the Halo phenomenon, Microsoft have been letting information slowly drip out.
When the original Halo launched, it changed the way people thought about first person shooters. With a gripping sci-fi storyline about a mysterious ring that hides more secrets than a Government minister, Halo: Combat Evolved bought with it co-operative play, letting two people play through the entire storyline together, and effectively turning a traditionally single player genre on its head. In fact, it's arguable that if it wasn't for Halo, there wouldn't be anywhere near as many co-op games to enjoy now - and that includes the LEGO games.
Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary is the spruced up version of the original game - although it's not just the graphics that have been changed. Introduced for Halo 3, but now retro-fitted to Halo Anniversary are Terminals - small computers that have been hidden in each of the expansive levels. When accessed, these terminals filled your screen with text, and revealed coded messages that attempted to fill in the game's back story. But not any more. For Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, these terminals are evolving themselves, and will instead offer brief, video diary-esque snippets of a character within the game's universe, which in turn will offer a teaser as to the story of Halo 4.
So proud are Microsoft of the improved graphics, too, that according to the game's producer, Dan Ayoub (via IndustryGamers), that at the touch of a button, you'll be able to switch between the game's original graphics, and its new ones, showing you just how far technology's come in ten years. Like this:
Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary launches this November, on the 15th November, which, incidentally, is a day before my birthday. It'd certainly make a nice present for anyone looking to celebrate the birth of a gaming phenomenon.
