| OUR RATING:
8.7
GREAT
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TANGIBLES:
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Why you should buy it: Great blend of Halo and RTS in terms of concept and execution
Why you should rent it: You are a fan of Halo and sketchy about playing an RTS , or an RTS fan sketchy of playing a Halo game |
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UNIQUE RATING:
8.7
  SUGGESTION:
Buy It |
Written by: Alex Quevedo | Tags: Halo Wars, Xbox 360
With enough Halo cannon already out there, the game doesn’t spend too much time trying to familiarize you with the entire universe. Taking place 20 years before the “Halo event,” the game does a good enough job making its story standout just enough on its own. It doesn’t rely too much on the trilogy of games already available, yet it simultaneously doesn’t alienate what made the franchise popular in the first place. And with that, you are set down on the planet Harvest.
Made known the Halo books (more specifically, Contact Harvest), you are dumped into the tail end of a five year battle on Harvest. Throughout the war, the UNSC suffered continuous defeats after a promising start. They fought to regain Harvest, but the Covenant is still putting up a good resistance when you enter the picture with Sergeant Forge, Dr. Ellen Anders, Captain Cutter of the Spirit of Fire and the ship’s AI, Serina.
After your first mission, the Covenant drop back and head toward an unknown structure. This turns out to be a relic for their Great Journey. The Prophet of Regret, one of the game’s more familiar faces, orders the Arbiter to destroy the relic. Stopping the destruction, Anders activates the relic for a short while to get unknowingly get directions toward Arcadia. That sets you off on to stop the Covenant before they find what they are looking for.
One of the more apparent elements of the game is the lack of connection towards the game’s characters. Again, you are put around an AI with a sense of humor, but Serina’s sardonic humor and personality make her too dry to care for. Cutter is yet another captain and Anders doesn’t rise too far above being a major source of information. Even Forge, who’s personality may resonate decently well with characters, is just another bad-ass on the field.
Despite that, the game makes good on its delivery of a war. While isolated from the rest of the UNSC and kept to specifics on a map, Halo Wars does a solid job of putting things at stake and making you feel like you are fighting for something. Not to say that the Halo trilogy doesn’t provide anything like that, but the nature of the RTS makes this feel more like a war than an isolated battle.
And when it comes down to it, despite a few hiccups, the game handles great for an RTS on a console. You can sense that this game was built for a console rather than a PC, which is exactly what Ensemble did. The X and A buttons will be employed for a majority of the game. You choose your units with the A button (though Right Bumper chooses units on screen, Left Bumper chooses all units) and send them on their way with the X button. X also serves as your primary means of attack, but the Y button serves as a special attack of sorts. For example, Marine units will throw grenades, Warthogs will ram and Spartans can hijack Covenant vehicles. The same applies to Covenant units in multiplayer modes, though as you would expect, the attacks are different.
Those hiccups? They aren’t anything too glaring, but they are noticeable. And they lie in the control of your units. There were a few times where we would give the command to move out, be given a confirmation by the unit and… nothing. The unit would sit there. And continue to sit there the more you try to get it to move. To remedy this, we found, you have to back track the unit a bit, and then make it move where you want it to go. Does it make a lot of sense? No, but for some reason it must be done. Also, the units had a small tendency to get stuck if we tried to make it go too far of a distance with rocky terrain in the way. While only a minor inconvenience, it did hinder us a bit when trying to get a unit to a location quickly.
You will also be seeing a lot of circular menus pop up in the game. When dealing with your base(s), you will be given a variety of options. What works best, we found, is to build plenty of supply bases to give you a boost in supply amounts. There are some times when the supplies will come inherently slow and will affect how you must strategize your defenses/attacks, but for the most part the game treats you pretty fair.
Circle menus also pop up when dealing with leaders. Leaders supply you with a range of intense attacks. What attacks you have depends on what leaders you have. For instance, having Forge as a leader will give you access to carpet bomb attacks. Anders gives you cryo bombs, and Cutter gives you a MAC blast. Covenant units work the same way, though when using the Prophet of Regret, the attacks comes from him rather than a ship.
Speaking of differences, there are some key ones between the Covenant and the UNSC. That said, it will affect how you want to play the game when it comes to multiplayer. Being human, the UNSC is much more about building up supplies and becoming as armed as possible. Covenant units are more about rushing and overwhelming the enemy. What it will come down to, undoubtedly, is your personal style of play. If you like to be armed to the teeth, then UNSC will suit you. Obviously you can steel arm yourself well with the Covenant, but it just won’t be the same. That is seen in the fact that you can gain a higher tech rating with the UNSC.
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| Published by: | Microsoft Game Studios |
| Developed by: | Ensemble Studios |
| Genre: | Strategy |
| # of Players: | 1-4 |
| ESRB Rating: | Teen |
| Release Date: | US: March 3rd, 2009 |
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Gamer 2.0 Rating: 8.9 | User Rating: N/A
Gamer 2.0 Rating: N/A | User Rating: N/A
Gamer 2.0 Rating: N/A | User Rating: 7.5
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