Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary

Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary
Developers: 343 Industries, Saber Interactive, Certain Affinity, Bungie (Original) Publisher: Microsoft Studios Platforms: Xbox 360 Released in JP: November 17, 2011 Released in US: November 15, 2011 Released in EU: November 15, 2011 This game has debugging material. This game has a hidden level select.

Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary is a high-def re-release of the highly-acclaimed Xbox shooter, Halo.

To do: There was an early copy that was leaked; what differences are there?

Debug Mode

343 Industries left a fair bit of debugging code in, which can be enabled by setting 0x45797F in the XEX to 01, It is enabled by default on real dev hardware. It has a colorful debug menu, quite a few button combos that activate debug options, and a couple of cheats.

Title Screen

Press LB + RT on the title screen to show the build number and type of the game, This also enables debug commands.

Debug Menu

A debug menu can be brought up by pressing LB + RT to enable debug commands then pressing LB + RB to bring up the debug menu. Not all of the debugging options work, but a majority of them do.

Mission

A simple level select, which enables you to travel to the start of any of the missions.

• a10 - The Pillar of Autumn
• a30 - Halo
• a50 - The Truth and Reconciliation
• b30 - The Silent Cartographer
• b40 - Assault on the Control Room
• c10 - 343 Guilty Spark
• c20 - The Library
• c40 - Two Betrayals
• d20 - Keyes
• d40 - The Maw

Cheats

These cheats do not work a majority of the time, and you'll just have to play around with them to get them correctly working. Most of these were originally debug functions of Halo: Custom Edition.

• deathless player (dbgvar) - Enables invincibility (you may take damage, but not die). Alternatively can be toggled by enabling debug commands then pressing LB + X.
• infinite ammo (dbgvar) - Infinite reserve ammunition and grenades. Clips still need reloading. (Similar to the multiplayer option).
• bottomless clip (dbgvar) - Your gun never uses ammo in your clip. (Again, similar to the multiplayer option).
• drop weapons (dbgvar) - Drops all currently-equipped weapons.
• ai is active (dbgvar) - Toggle AI. If disabled, the AI does not do anything and just stands there.
• kill one shot (dbgvar) - Everything dies in one shot. (NOTE: Custom Edition's equivalent also rendered indestructible vehicles unusable after shooting them. Should look into whether that was kept).
• medusa (dbgvar) - Enemies die upon becoming aware of the player, but only if they become aware after the cheat's activation.
• bump possession (dbgvar) - Colliding with an enemy or NPC ally allows the player to take control of it.
• switch cam mode fly-3rd-fp (dbgvar) - Probably meant to switch the player's camera between first-person, third-person, and free-roaming, but it doesn't work. You can just switch cameras by holding RB when debug commands are enabled.
• no-clip - Can be toggled by pressing LB + A when debug commands are enabled.
• Screenshot - Pressing LB + B saves a screenshot in bmp format to a folder named "shots" in the root of the games directory. Unsure what would happen if game is in GoD or NXE format.

Debug

These options can be toggled without a problem. You can unlock most of the game's unlockables here, except for levels.

• Unlock skulls (cfgvar) - Unlocks all skulls.
• Unlock bonus skulls (cfgvar) - Unlocks only the bonus skulls.
• Unlock KINECT functionality (cfgvar) - Unlocks the Kinect support, although it only works in the Library.
• Unlock terminals (cfgvar) - Unlocks all terminals.
• Unlock library - Unlocks every character bio.
• Play starting video (cfgvar) - Toggle. Disables the long intros in the beginning of the game. Since debug options don't save, this one doesn't work.
• Respect user saves (lock levels) (cfgvar) - Toggle. Doesn't unlock levels you haven't unlocked normally, and picking missions from the MISSIONS menu doesn't save.
• Load Main Menu - Brings you back to the Main Menu.
• Show camera position - Shows your camera location in X, Y, and Z coordinates.
• Show sounds debug info - Shows the directory and sound file names of the sounds currently being played.

To do: Document the rest of the debug menu options.