The wait is over and it’s time to evaluate if Microsoft made the right decision to expand the Halo franchise into another genre with the development of Halo Wars, from Ensemble Studios. Having seen over 2 million downloads for the demo on Xbox Live, it’s going to be interesting to see how gamers receive the title when it finally releases in a few short weeks. So without further ado, let’s dig deep into what could be the most eye-opening game of early 2009 coming from Microsoft – which isn’t saying much due to their small gaming portfolio as of this moment. Beginning with a question, we pose a simple inquiry: If you’re a diehard Halo fan, how can you deny the ability to take control of a Spartan and lay waste to the Covenant scum that threaten humanity? Well the answer is that you can’t. Halo Wars is meant for the hard Halo fans and they alone are the driving reason for creation of this real-time strategy game (excluding profiteering).
The best fact about Halo Wars is that it looks and feels like a Halo game. From the music – which, at times, is more of an imitator than standing out on its own – to the animations, Halo Wars is the superior choice within the RTS genre for the Xbox 360. Starting with the controls, Halo Wars is basically the easiest RTS to pick up and play on the Xbox 360. Players have the ability to zip across the maps by holding down the left trigger and scrolling at a faster pace. If that doesn’t help out, the D-Pad is implemented well enough that gamers shouldn’t ever complain about the controls. Pressing left on the D-Pad allows players the chance to switch between their bases, while down on the D-Pad accesses armies spread across the map. There’s also the implementation of the two bumpers allowing quick access to all units and local (visible) units. Overall, the controls are superb for newcomers to the genre and a great selling point for the title.
Not every Halo fan plays the series for its storyline, but rather for its multiplayer. Well if you do happen to be a fan of the storyline, then you have nothing to fear as the storyline does it’s job on creating an interesting plot to follow and a few compelling characters to become attached to. Of the characters, the most confusing is The Arbiter. When you finish the 15 mission human campaign, there should be a few questions you have in the back of your mind about the conclusion of the story. But if you’ve played the original Halo, then you should already know the direction of the campaign – the Covenant are up to something fishy and it revolves around Forerunner technology, thus it’s up to the main character, Forge (your typical bald space marine), to put a stop to their plans as it threatens the existence of humanity. Also, you best expect the usual appearance of those pesky creatures called the Flood; yes, they show their ugly mugs, but aren’t as annoying to combat as they were in the Halo trilogy. Unfortunately, you won’t see Master Chief make a guest appearance.
The gameplay of Halo Wars isn’t as exotic or in-depth as countless real-time strategy titles on the market, but in comparison to what’s currently on the 360 market, it is leagues above the competition. There are Leader Powers to call upon such as Cryo Bomb to freeze enemies or ODSTs to drop in the thick of battle, upgrades for units such as adding grenadiers to warthogs or gauss cannons to the back of the warthogs, and if you don’t think that is enough, there are several different leaders to use that come with their own special units and abilities. Sure, Halo Wars won’t wow you over if you’re a long-time RTS player, but you have to at least respect what Ensemble Studios has done to make the genre interesting again to casual players who normally wouldn’t touch the genre on the consoles. The Covenant have their three leaders represented on the map and are handled much different with pressing Y rather than up on the D-Pad to activate their powers. While on a few multiplayer maps, you can also take control of Flood bases to send flood units towards an enemy’s home base to overwhelm them.
