Sally blog

I'd Buy a Halo Combat Evolved Remake, Wouldn't You?

If they remadefor the Xbox 360, would you buy it?

Okay, it depends who 'they' are, right?

How about , the recently formed Microsoft studio behind Halo minis like , and the team carrying the torch for Halo 4 (or whatever the next original Halo game's called) now that Bungie's out of the picture?

If UK monthly GamesMaster , 343 may in fact be prepping a jazzed up remake of the Halo that launched a thousand ships (or a dozen clones) for the game's 10 year anniversary next November. And by 'jazzed up', I mean Halo: Combat Evolved meets theengine.

Why not? After all, it worked forand .

But then I'm less a fan of those games than the Xbox original. In fact I'd call Halo: Combat Evolved the pinnacle installment in Microsoft's "space marines versus shiny pink and blue aliens" series. Halo 2 was all multiplayer and no plot (I know, hail online multiplayer, but campaign mode was a letdown). Halo 3's story careened from curious to improbable to utterly preposterous (a potential disaster, in fact, mitigated by a strong online mode).

Halo 3: ODST played like the Halo 3 expansion it was meant to be, originally, and then Halo: Reach came along to...well...let me get back to you on that, because I'm still having trouble maintaining interest long enough to finish it.

But yes, I'd allow myself a few trifling seconds of fanboy excitement if a Halo: Combat Evolved remake's in the offing, and--I'm only saying possibly here--bound for a November 2011 release to celebrate the original's November 2001 Xbox debut. 10 years. Sure doesn't feel like it's been that long, does it.

Imagine all those console firsts brought forward a decade: Massive outdoor levels riddled with gleaming polyhedral architecture. Point-and-drive ATVs with easy-fire gatling guns. Brilliantly punitive enemies chattering nervously while coordinating sophisticated tactical assaults. A ribbon of land reaching ringlike from horizon to horizon against a cerulean sky streaked with alien clouds.

And best of all: Online multiplayer (remember the original only supported local split-screen play). You know that's a shoe-in, probably with scads of updates and supplementals, if this happens.

Poll time.