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 or 8245397F in memory 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.