In a news post on their website, Bungie, the developers behind the Halo series have announced that both games are backwards compatible with the Xbox 360 but more than that, gamers will see an improvement in the graphics when runnig either game on the new console.
Here’s that post in full:
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.
They go on to show off some screens for comparison, which you can see here:
Near identical frame from a Halo 2 cutscene, one in 480p and the other in 720p(Click for a larger view)
Here’s the same frame at full view in standard 480p resolution(Click for a larger view)
And here’s the same frame again, this time in 720p with FSAA on(Click for a larger view)
And here’s how split-screen multiplayer looks(Click for a larger view)
So there you have it… ATI’s little graphical chip thingie (a highly technical term, I know) is doing the business and giving a bit of extra life to your Xbox back catalogue… Well, it’s doing it for Halo and Halo 2 at any rate…
For more in the Halo series of games, visit www.bungie.net
