by Jared - February 24, 2009 - - Comment Now »
They can hear it here on Earth, though, and if you are a fan of RTS (Real Time Strategy) games or the Halo franchise then that is exactly what you’ll be doing after playing Halo Wars. After acquiring a review copy of the game, I played the whole way through its 15 campaign levels and played some multiplayer against the computer and can see already this game has everything you could want from it.
Many skeptics out there worried that if you combined the long history of RTS failures on consoles with a prequel to one of the most successful franchises in gaming history you were going to get burned for playing with fire. Then when they heard it would be an XBOX360 exclusive with no PC port, they almost wrote this gem off before a demo had even been released. However, the folks at Ensemble Studios knew exactly what they were doing. Hailed for RTS staples like the Age of Empires series, Ensemble Studios proved they were the right ones to make what I am declaring to be the first successful RTS game for a console.
As an RTS, Halo Wars plays as if you were using your computer. Using the paintbrush tools and hot buttons to select troops and move from base to base make basic commands a breeze to the point that you forget you’re using an XBOX360 controller and not a mouse and keyboard. Supplies gathering and building upgrades are simple and have been streamlined to fit the console’s RTS scheme and make it so that you can build your supply depot and forget about it and know your supplies will continue to stream in (as long as you keep the supply depot from getting razed by enemy fire that is). The gameplay is crisp and there isn’t an ounce of lag throughout the game.
The only problems were the usual ones you find in most RTS games, such as trying to send a group of three or four large units, like tanks, through a narrow opening in the land and instead of them naturally deciding to go one at a time, they keep running into each other as all four try to fit through at once. This pathfinding bugginess is forgivable since that has been a problem with RTS games for years, not just on consoles. The battle engagements are challenging and most missions require more thinking than “I’ll just build more units than the enemy and unleash my entire army in a barbaric charge when the time comes”. With four levels of difficulty to play through and an online co-op mode, the Halo Wars story mode will keep RTS fans happy for a long time.
In terms of the head-to-head multiplayer, I will admit I wasn’t able to get a true feel for it due to there being only so many early copies out there for us media outlets, but I did play a few Deathmatches against the computer and it had everything you would expect from an RTS Deathmatch. Standard rules: wipe your opponent off the map. It gives you a huge amount of starting supplies and it’s a race to see how fast you can build the largest army to try and eradicate your opponent. The maps are all based off planets and locales you come across in the main game, but on a smaller scale to encourage constant engagements. Everything taken into consideration, the Halo Wars head-to-head multiplayer has a strong foundation for some great XBOX Live battles ahead for itself.
If you’re a follower of the Halo canon you can rest easy. The story is not only compelling, but it does justice to the series and highlights some obscure key events in the Halo timeline that many might not be familiar with that lead up to Master Chief’s escapades. Troops, vehicles, and buildings are all as accurate as can be for both the Marines and the Covenant and follow in line with what you’ve learned from previous Halo games. For example, you can’t make an army of Spartan soldiers; if you’re lucky you’ll get a couple at the beginning of the level to help you out and that’s it. Add in collectibles that concur with the Halo universe like a skull on each level and black boxes to reveal more of the Halo timeline feature and you’ve got plenty to keep this game warm in your machine for a long time. The only real drawback I felt was that the story seemed a bit short. The plot developed too quickly for my tastes and to have as much action as it did spread across only 15 levels felt like you had unfinished business. Then again, it does take place 20 years before Master Chief so that might have been on purpose.
Ray Carsillo’s Geek Stuff is our source for all thing video game and comic book related. Ray is a geek.
Tags: halo, reviews, video games
