X360 & Halo 1+2

[Melbosa]

Time to dust of these old games for you soon-to-be X360 owners.  Seems there is a little bonus included in the new hardware to change a bit of these games, at least visually.



Source: http://www.bungie.net/News/TopStory.aspx?story=h2anniversary&p=5312619

Halo 2 Anniversary Special



First things first: Thank you for supporting Bungie, Halo and Halo 2. You guys rock, and we love you. It's the anniversary of Halo 2, the game that launched on November 9th, 2004 and forever changed the way we curse.



A year after Halo 2 arrived in stores, and almost four years since the original Halo, it seems only logical that we should make them prettier right? Although that prettiness has a relatively high entry point ? the arrival of a new generation of hardware in the shape of the Xbox 360.



A while back, Microsoft announced that the 360 would have some level of backward compatibility. A handy feature for folks with big Xbox collections moving into the future. We worked closely with that team to ensure that Halo and Halo 2 both performed according to plan. That meant a lot of work for our test team.



To clarify, the "new" version of Halo or Halo 2 is simply the disk you have already. Pop it into your 360 and it'll load up just like before. You will have to log into Xbox Live to enable Halo 2's online functions, but both games will work immediately.



But here's another bonus ? the hardware in the 360 can do a lot of nifty stuff, and specifically in the cases of Halo and Halo 2, it can display the graphics in wide screen, at 720p, with full scene anti-aliasing. And it doesn't look kludgy, artifacty or smeary like an upscanning DVD player. The best way to describe it is that both games look like they're running on a PC at those resolutions.



We'll have some more information about these resolutions on Friday.



Now, to reiterate, we didn't redo any of the old textures or geometry ? this is simply the game you already own, running at a higher resolution. The results are not miraculous, but for owners of HDTVs (or VGA monitors with the appropriate cable) they are sweet.



Do they work on Live? Like we already explained, they work exactly as they did before ? that means System Link and split-screen for Halo, but ? of course - no Live play (just like before!) ? and for Halo 2 ? System Link, Xbox Live and split screen as before. And yes, your existing Gamertag and Live Account will work just fine. I should note that split screen in 720p has obvious benefits.

[Shayne]

With the launch looking more and more pathetic as days click off (DoA4 delayed 1.5 weeks), having Halo 2 running in 720p is a good boost.  While not a new feature, im interested in running through the game again in hidef on the 46".  Perhaps even some CTF.