Shouting at your Kinect will allow you to switch Halo’s graphics modes on the fly.
Speaking with 1UP at Tokyo Game Show, Halo franchise development director Frank O’Connor revealed Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary will have Kinect support.
“We accidentally revealed some of it because someone kept saying one of the keywords during another demonstration,” O’Connor said. “So there will be some basic voice support — for example you can switch between the two graphics modes with voice commands by saying ‘Classic’ or ‘Remastered.'”
Classic mode makes the visuals look exactly as they did in Halo: Combat Evolved from 2001. Remastered, then, shows off all the bells and whistles the newer engine can provide.
I’m not sure I buy that “accidentally” line. If you didn’t want to show off Kinect support, why bring a Kinect, activate it, and demo your game with it nearby? Regardless, this is a pretty neat feature. Fans of the original Halo: Combat Evolved – myself included – will probably swap visual modes back and forth often to see all the beautiful changes in real time.
O’Conner teased additional features, though he didn’t divulge many details. I’m personally hoping for in-game developer commentary, similar to what we saw in Portal 2.
“There is some other functionality that we haven’t talked about that is not core to the gameplay per se, but it is germane to the story and fiction fans will probably really enjoy that feature — and it’s a little bit more advanced than just voice functionality,” O’Connor added.
“We’ll talk about it later, sometime in October probably, but we don’t want to oversell it,” he continued. “It’s not something that radically changes the gameplay; it’s just another additive bonus on top of the other stuff we’ve added. We think of it like the 3D: something that makes the experience better, but doesn’t change it.”
Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary hits store shelves November 15 for the Xbox 360.
Source: 1UP
