This much is true: you’ll find many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.


One man’s mean slight is another man’s peaceful night

In a moment that seemed to be one of sheer reluctance, I started writing about my time with Halo: Campaign Evolved (H:CEv) yesterday. The reticence in discussing the game had more or less to do with the backdrop of politics surrounding the games parent company, and I already hashed out why in the article, so I feel not the need to revisit any of it again, as it was headache enough to take so much time to extrapolate upon such tragic matters even the first time, and the exhaustive reasoning as to why I felt the need all the same did cost me so, as I ran out of time as a result, just as I was ramping up to actually talk about the game I initially and only wanted to focus on. Having said all of that, let’s pick up where we left off yesterday, and that is moving backwards from my initial tl;dr of H:CEv in a nutshell, and that it is in reference to this being the first remake I’ve ever played that feels like it is *based on a true story, as opposed to servicing the original as a directly mirroring remake in a more deliberately authentic manner, as the game takes so many liberties with what happens in the original version of Halo and mixes in so many other elements of other Halo games to boot, the whole thing has almost an uncanny valley sense to it, as anyone who has spent any length of time with the original, when they finally try out H:CEv, will have an unsettling feeling that something is just…off.



What do I mean by all of this obtuse nonsense? Well, aside from delightfully describing H:CEv as being *based on a true story, a phrase that induces a guttural chortle from deep within me while tickling me pink all the same, there is a lot of truth in the matter of non-truth involved, as anyone who has played the original will likely be scratching their head, as a lot of what made the original tick is…absent from the clock of reason this time around. A robust number of tiny alterations end up becoming a whole lot when put together, and so much has changed when all is said and done, I feel as if Halo 1 fans, as in, the most died in the wool, unrelenting, pistol zooming loving super fans, will likely be unseated by the overwhelming lack of similarity between the original and H:CEv. There is a small part of me that has a stirring feeling from deep within that suggests a not too dissimilar parallel to how Star Wars fans reacted to the redone special editions of the original trilogy, and how when you’ve been locked into the same two hour properties and watched them a dozen times over a period of near decades, and then a new one comes out, and a bunch of shit has totally changed, the cadence of your enjoyment is all off kilter, and the whole rhythm and beat of your comfort food entertainment becomes immensely difficult to metabolize in the same way.



I think, in starting out with something more rudimentary, I’ll start with something that seems basic, but ends up representing kind of a scarecrow of ominous omen to players for the rest of the game, as if you’ve played the original an insane amount, you probably have the cutscenes memorized, which represents the start of the man changes in store. They have rerecorded the voice acting, so while Jen Taylor still plays Cortana, she brings more experience to the role, but it does end up changing her entire delivery structure, which ironically, ends up being more jarring than when she was younger and had less cultivating her performance. Captain Keyes has been recast entirely, so he sounds way more gruff, not quite as smarmy. Combine this with a character model change to match the new aesthetic, and Keyes is one of the biggest uncanny valley examples that help let you know this is not going to be the same experience. On top of all that, quite a bit of the dialogue has been rewritten, even if only in small ways. As I said, when you’ve been quoting something a thousand times for the past 25 years, and not only does it sound different, its totally changed, you feel as if you’ve walked into the wrong room *and* you don’t even remember what you wanted in there in the first place.

I don’t even think the writing or voice acting in the original was low quality or poorly done, I think it was just a little less self-serious and perhaps a bit more cheesy. I tend to have this problem with most remakes, though, so I’m not surprised H:CEv fell into the same trap, with details that could be considered so minute and dismissed as non-consequential end up equating to a spectacular shock with which to irk me so. I remember back to the Resident Evil 1 remake (which is brilliant, by the way), the tonal shift in upgrading both the writing and voice acting ended up being a huge let down for me, which was something Capcom would do again waaaaay down the road when they remade Resident Evil 4. Again, both great remakes, and the irony of my complaint ends up being about an increase in quality that upsets me, not an erosion of quality that was already present. I suppose one could look at it like some kind of metaphysical defilement of sorts, as the original acts as a holy ground in a way, so to tread so haphazardly and without quarter, the ground is subsequently sullied by the well intentioned “treasure hunters” of ill-repute.

I feel as if Resident Evil was so especially bad, it does represent a grave to mark a separate era, so changing it almost feels revisionist, very much in the same way Halo has been a bit mucked about with. A fantastically prime example of the folly of subverting perverted expectations with good intent was when Konami redid the opening of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, with one of the most iconic exchanges in gaming history, between Richter Belmont and Dracula, being totally undone by good voice acting and rewritten dialogue. It would be as if redoing Tommy Wiseau’s The Room, but with the intent of attempting to “improve its quality”, as if it wasn’t already a vessel of perfection upon itself…blinding in its majesty.



As you can see, some of the alterations in H:CEv have triggered me in oh so many ways, as I haven’t even got past the first five minutes of mission one in this article, and I’m already once again out of time.

This is going to take awhile…

~Pashford