Halo Wars
Get your hands dirty in the early stages of the epic battle between UNSC and Covenant. Developed by Ensemble Studios, Halo Wars for Xbox 360 brings all the drama of a real-time strategy game to the popular Halo Universe. Set in the year 2531, before the initial Halo first-person shooter game, this game lets you control the human armies of UNSC in a whole new way.
Play as UNSC or Covenant and exploit your faction’s unique strengths. View larger. |
Invade enemy strongholds full of advanced technology. View larger. |
Find ways to make the detailed environments work for you. View larger. |
Bring in air support to turn the tide of battle. View larger. |
Experience the Epic Battle from a New Perspective
Defense, offense, and the ability to hold down a command center in the face of hostile attacks: there’s a lot to think about when laying out tactics for an all-out alien war. Featuring detailed environments and complicated new battle mechanisms, this game demands a different kind of perspective than the first-person shooters from the original Halo series. You’ll need to uncover the hidden strengths and weaknesses of each unit and play them to your tactical advantage, and that’s just the beginning.
UNSC: Be Part of a Legendary Conflict
The story opens with UNSC forces retaking the planet Harvest from the Covenant. At your disposal — should you choose to take command of UNSC forces — will be everything from a corps of highly-trained Marines to the Warthogs, Scorpions, and Hornets you’ll need for air and land attacks. You’ll take stock of the map and decide between holding your ground or advancing on enemy strongholds, all while trying to navigate the local terrain and outsmart Covenant forces. And when you need something extra to tip the tide in your favor, UNSC leaders can provide you with the ability to mobilize highly specialized units or call the Spirit of Fire vessel for support from above. Covenant: A Capable, Playable Enemy Faction
That’s right, Covenant is playable in this corner of the Halo universe. This alliance of alien species has manipulated advanced technology, firepower, and tactical prowess into a powerful force that is engaged in a Genocidal war against human race, having branded humans as heretics. With the ability to play as these tough, alien fighters, you’ll have advanced shield technology, the modular Citadel at the heart of Covenant’s colonizing power, and, of course, the iconic Scarab attack vehicle at your disposal, adding a whole new dimension to your strategic warfare. The Scarab is a terrifying military vehicle crafted from heavy mining equipment. And with a mining laser that delivers massive damage across battlefields large and small, turrets for taking on air attacks, and the ability to clamber over any terrain, what’s not to love about commanding Scarabs instead of fighting against them?
Developed Exclusively for Xbox 360
Most console RTS games are adapted from existing PC games, which can make their controls bulky or awkward, but Halo Wars has been developed for Xbox 360 from the ground up. This means the controls are sensitive, intuitive, and easy-to-operate in the midst of battle. And the UI is just as intuitive, so whether you’re managing a unit of marines or a deadly machine, you can focus on creating a battle strategy instead of worrying about how to overcome a clumsy controller.
No matter which faction you choose to play as, you can test your skills against those of other players in online skirmishes that allow up to six players with the New Xbox Experience through Xbox LIVE.
User Ratings and Reviews
3 Stars Average Game, Good Experience
First off, this game does not do the best job of bringing the RTS to consoles. The controls are kinda clunky, the interface is subpar, and it’s really not the developer’s fault – these games are just made with keyboard and mouse in mind. Hotkeys, jumping around on the minimap, groups of units, etc.
What this game DOES do is provide a fun, yet simple thrill ride through the Halo timeline prior to the events of Combat Evolved. RTS junkies will find it overly simple, with its reactor-based technology trees and fixed income resource pads, but they can’t deny the sheer joy you get from rampaging through a covenant base with grizzly tanks and vulture airships.
However, for an RTS, strategy is really lacking. The best tactic is to build lots and lots and lots of units, and move to the enemy. Flanking is too much work with the obnoxious unit selection interface (which is limited to single unit, units in a fixed radius, all units on screen, or all units on map), and “rushing” is all too popular.
The multiplayer experience can be frustrating due to this, and the campaign’s arbitrary timers and silly objectives get a bit stale (especially ESCORT missions).
Regardless, even though this sounds mostly negative, the game is very fun. It’s no top-of-the-line rollercoaster, but who doesn’t love a good log flume?
3 Stars A lot of hype and a lot of let down
Don’t get me wrong, I love the Halo series, beat all the FPS game and read all of the books. When I came to this game, I was expecting the same quality game that I had come to expect from Bungie (I know Bungie didn’t make it, but still they must have had people there to oversee it). But I guess my primary issue is that I was expecting a game that was touted to “Reinvent the genre”, to actually make good on those words.
I love strategy games. I’ve played them on the PC for a long time, which is the first issue with Halo Wars. A strategy game just cannot work on a console as well as it can on a PC. They tried that with Starcraft and a number of other strategy games, none ported well. Just as with FPS, the mouse and keyboard win.
Additionally, Halo Wars did try to reinvent the genre, but by reinventing the wheel. Tried and true methods of strategy games where left out; such as control groups, unit/faction balancing, and a general sense of strategy.
Control groups are instrumental for doing any kind of tactical assaults or at the very least making it worth while to build more than one unit. More often than not if I had a group of mixed units, some for AA and some for AG, I would find that there was no reasonable way to have them target their respective targets. I would have the human AA tank end up firing at the squad of grunts that the marines were engaging because who ever designed the game didn’t think to have the units prioritize targets, needless to say I got stomped by a horde of banshees.
This leads me to balancing, it is horrible. My first time online a horde of ODST (Super marines) bested not only my fleet of tanks but also my similarly sized horde of flamethrowers (Anti-infantry). To make things worse, when I engaged the Covenant the first time, the Arbiter was able to single handed demolish my entire army that I spent the better part of the game making. The clincher is the other player knew that the arbiter was all he needed and was the only unit he had while he fast teched to who-knows-what. The humans have a special item that disables hostile heroes abilities, but when he moved out of the range of the power and waited for it to expire, he assaulted again because the humans only bring one to battle and require new ones to be shipped in from Earth. Overall where other games have made advances and evolved beyond the unstoppable-steamrolling-horde approach to gameplay Halo Wars was more than happy to revert to C&C Red Alert 1.
There is no strategy in this game. I say this begrudged and probably exaggerating, but there really isn’t. The balancing of units is horrible, there are no “Rocks-Paper-Scissors” that modern warfare has devolved into. Other than AA, which actually kicks the crap out of flying units. There are great graphics and what not, but that aspect means nothing when your game is fundamentally flawed.
I am very disappointed in this game, I rented it to find out if the other reviews held any weight, and found that there was no way I would ever rent it again or even consider buying it. I decided to go back to playing Halo 3, because that is fun and I like playing games to have fun not have to practice to figure out how to have fun.
5 Stars Play God with Halo Wars
Play God in Halo Wars
Ensemble Studios accepted the challenge of transitioning the enormously successful Halo franchise from first person shooter (FPS) to real time strategy (RTS) game. In Halo Wars, players no longer assume the identity of Master Chief, Petty Officer of the United Nations Space Command (UNSC) Navy, John-117. Instead, players utilize an omniscient perspective in order to defend Arcadia by playing God.
Set twenty years prior to the original, Halo: Combat Evolved, war is already waging between humans and the Covenant in the year 2531. The Marine forces of the UNSC must engage and defeat the Covenant on the planets of Harvest and Arcadia in order to save the human race. “At this point in time, the Covenant is at its most evil. They are hell-bent on the destruction of humanity,” according to the lead writer, Graeme Devine. To stop the threat of extinction, players must evacuate and destroy the planet of Arcadia before the Covenant acquires an artifact of great interest that could spell death for humankind. The fate of the galaxy is in the player’s hands.
Reminiscent of StarCraft, players move squadrons of marines around each planet, building bases and killing Covenant ground forces in order to save the day. Unlike StarCraft, Halo Wars has not spent two years working on a game without announcing a release date. Game designers for Halo Wars found the solution for the multiple menus that bog down game play in most omniscient perspective, real time strategy games and presented it to players in record time.
Having units spread across multiple locations can be overwhelming at times, especially when you cannot see them all to defend them. For this, Ensemble created a control scheme that utilizes the multiple buttons on the Xbox 360 controller instead of a series of menus. Pressing the left bumper on the controller allows players to select all available marine units, while the right bumper only selects on-screen units. Units are arranged by category at the bottom of the screen so players can easily select Warthogs, Scorpions, Marines, Hornets or all to use in battle or while constructing a base. There is only one menu and it is for navigating between the different bases that the player builds. Since it is not a complex menu, simply select and click, it doesn’t interfere with the flow of the game. Who knew playing God could be so easy?
Of course, there is more to Halo Wars than just the campaign. After spending six to twelve hours playing through the fifteen level campaign, depending upon the level of difficulty and how thoroughly one seeks the skulls, black boxes, and other secondary objectives, there is still co-op campaign, skirmish, and multiplayer to keep one busy.
Playing the co-op campaign with a friend is a great opportunity to seek out additional secondary objectives. The color-coded blue and green elements allow players to discern easily whose bases and troops belong to whom. Communication between players can make the demolition of the Covenant even easier than going it alone. Besides, this game is more fun with a friend.
If one friend is not enough, there are also skirmishes and multiplayer modes to continue honing one’s skills building bases and destroying the Covenant. Multiplayer allows up to six players to compete against each other, even taking on the role of the Covenant, a much-awaited opportunity for Halo players. Fourteen different maps for the standard and “deathmatch” skirmish or multiplayer competitions provide exquisite backdrops for the advanced weaponry and mayhem of the galactic future. If your friends simply do not pose much of a challenge, game play can take place with over a million players worldwide. The best Halo Wars player may be almighty, but no one is omnipotent.
What sets Halo Wars apart from other real time strategy games? Ensemble’s commitment to incorporating an interesting and detailed narrative to accompany the straightforward game play of Halo Wars helps to set it apart from anything else on the Xbox 360. The graphics are an essential part of making cut scenes interesting for even the narrative-intolerant players. Unfortunately, the beautiful computer-generated imagery does not translate to actual game play because it would bog down the interaction too greatly. It does make the goals of Captain James Cutter and Professor Anders easier to relate to than a singular image and blurb of text that accompanies many games.
If you are tired of subjugating yourself to the whims of an artificial leader, you can take control of multiple forces with Halo Wars and find out what it feels like when power comes easily. Perhaps omniscience and omnipotence go hand in hand.
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3 Stars No Money – No Multiplayer
I am a huge fan of the Halo franchise, enjoying endless play with my family at home and online friends. I purchased this game for the multiplayer aspects, which are not clearly detailed in any writeup that I’ve found.
The game is fun, but not truly multiplayer, it falls into the online RTS category, meaning Xbox Live, or another Xbox 360 that you happen to have lying around, is required if you want to enjoy more than one player in the game. So… unlike the other Halo series games, this Halo does not support true multiplayer on the console.
Pros: Fun RTS game, but limited without the multiplayer on console aspect of the previous Halo games. Intuitive controls, the simple tutorial introduction to the game is well done, graphics are good (not great), video cuts are excellent, vocals are well done, and the game is very responsive.
Cons: No true multiplayer, meaning multiple players cannot play the game on a single console, but network play over the very expensive Xbox Live network is available, or you can link multiple xBox 360s. Halo fans will likely find themselves quickly tiring of the game after the campaign ends without multiplayer teaming on the console. Ensemble Studios has since closed, effectively making Halo Wars orphan-ware, so don’t set high hopes on multiple updates/upgrades.
Note: Microsoft is clearly against the original console license scheme they introduced with the xBox and Xbox Live, which only required one account for the console, vice making customers pay $75 for each player despite only using a single network connection and single server session. Requiring multiple online licenses for a single piece of software on a single console is clearly fleecing customers, but Microsoft is making huge profits with no additional investment or resource cost, so there is little incentive for them to stop the practice.
Summary: Overall, a fun game that misleadingly calls itself multiplayer and Co-Op campaign ready, however no multiplayer is available on a single console like the previous Halo games. Microsoft continually pushed their licensing scheme from the console to the individual players, handicapping groups with ‘visitors’, and Halo Wars continues that position by eliminating multiplayer on console all together in this last offering from Ensemble Studios (a Microsoft game development studio). If you are a lone player in search of a Halo variation on the RTS (like Command and Conquer) than Halo Wars is probably a good choice.
1 Star The game plays itself
The game playes itself all you do is tell it what to do and the rest is chance you do not get to battle like in the other halos
the game is just boring
Buy/More Info
