Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary

You know how awesome the last-gen of consoles were, when you see a spate of remakes hogging shelf space, time and most importantly reviews like this. The Halo series is legendary for reasons more than one. At the time, its debut effort, Halo: Combat Evolved propelled Microsoft's original Xbox from a non-starter to a must have console.

A lot has changed since then. We've seen five other games, a very awesome set of animated shorts that was Halo Legends and a spate of novels that have fleshed out the universe in ways that video games could not. Oh and there's a small detail of Halo creators Bungie no longer developing games for Microsoft exclusively. Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary is helmed by 343 Industries, a new studio created for the sole purpose of making more Halo games.

Driveby - Halo style

At the back of the box, Halo: CEA proclaims high-def graphics,3D support, Kinect functionality and new multiplayer maps. Enough new, shiny features to tick all the boxes of the modern day gamer. But as the old axiom goes, the more things change the more they stay the same. And this time, I mean it in a purely good way.

The AI is still best in class, the weapons give the same familiar kick and the lack of power-ups made popular from Halo 3 and Reach make this game more skill dependent than most others. There's something to be said about the controls that induce almost instant reactions, even if the last time you've played the game was in early 2000s. Everything is as you left the wide expanses of the Halo ringworld years ago. Ditto with the story, which has you don the cybernetically enhanced boots of super soldier Master Chief taking on the Covenant on a newly discovered planet. It's all untouched, pristine and near goddamned perfect.

Don't mind if I do

Throw in some recent additions to the franchise, such as skulls, which modify the game such as giving you infinite ammo or let enemies burst into confetti and of course, terminals, which fill in the game's backstory, and you have all you need for the old-timers to come racing back.

And if you haven't played any of the games in the franchise, CEA is an ideal starting point. The HD upgrade is substantial, giving the game a lot of colour, texture and dare I say life that the original was lacked. You can see how big a jump it is, by switching to classic mode, which lets you play the game as it was on the Xbox 1. Blocky graphics, low-res textures et al. A nice touch, if you're interested in a visual history lesson.