Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary Edition – Now on Kinect?

By now all Halo fans must of heard the news that Microsoft have decided to take Bungie's first Halo game and recreate it for the Xbox360 as some kind of celebration of its 10^th anniversary. That’s fair enough, right. But that’s not where Microsoft intends to stop. Their now saying that the new anniversary edition of Halo: Combat Evolved will have Xbox360 Kinect support, WTF. Yes I will agree that the Kinect is a fun little way of getting the player more immersed into the game, but with Halo, seriously. How the hell is that going to work?

While talking about Kinect, Microsoft Game Studios' Phil Spencer told GameSpot: "Even games like Halo Anniversary have Kinect integration." Admittedly that was all he said on the matter and he didn’t seem to keen on elaborating, so as it stands, there are a total of 0 details on how the new Halo anniversary will take advantage of the Kinect.
I would like to think that if their going to do it then their going to do it right and we’ll be able to fully control Master Chief using only our bodies and the Kinect sensor. But as most things in life go down the drain, that dream probably will too. Because I doubt Microsoft are going to put the funds into the redevelopment of Halo to make it that revolutionary. So if they are going to make Halo: Anniversary Edition Kinect compatible then I’m pretty sure (and I’ll chew off my own foot if I'm wrong) that all you’ll be able to do with the Kinect is throw grenades, melee and jump.

After this news was announced 343 posted on the Halo Waypoint forums, assuring players that Kinect support would be fully optional. "Just to let everybody know, the Kinect features we're exploring with Halo: Anniversary are optional and won't affect your core gameplay experience," which just acts to give substance to my argument that the Kinect support for Halo: Anniversary Edition will be nothing more than a poor attempt to integrate Microsoft latest toy into something that for all intensive purposes has no need for it.

But, despite my suspicions behind this slightly pointless piece of information, Halo anniversary is not being released until late 2011, which gives Microsoft a decent amount of time to work on the Kinect’s ability to deliver a hardcore experience like Halo. So well just have to wait and see what happens, because I may have to chew my own foot off.

Tags: gamespot, 1up, halo, anniversary edition, new halo, Microsoft, kinect, xbox360, xbox, halo waypoint, Microsoft games studio, phil spencer, combat evolved, 2011

Source: GameSpot, via 1up