Halo Wars

_Halo Wars_ is an RTS set 20 years before the events of the first _Hal_o game and although humanity’s in a better position than that seen in _Combat Evolved_, it’s still screwed. The human race has been at war with The Covenant, an evil band of aliens on a holy crusade which, for some reason, demands the total destruction of humanity, and it hasn’t been going very well. The story begins with the reclamation of Harvest, a colony planet that had been under Covenant control; what was meant to be a quick operation turned out to take 5 entire years with heavy losses on both sides. _Halo Wars_ begins above Harvest with the player tasked with clean up operations of the planet, The Covenant forces don’t seem to realise that the UNSC are now in control of Harvest and are continuing to fight. After the first few missions however it’s discovered that the Covenant have found a “holy relic”, if you’ve played the _Halo_ franchise before you know this can only lead to trouble. From there the story moves around from planet to planet following the Covenant forces on their holy quest. The story fits well with the _Halo_ canon and is told rather well through CG cut-scenes; although it would have been more immersive to keep these cut-scenes in the game engine, since this is a RTS and not a shooter, going with CG was the right choice. If you’re a _Halo_ fan you’ll like all the little story arcs that relate to what you’ve seen before in the franchise but don’t think it’ll be anywhere near as entertaining as the main _Halo_ games; the ending is extremely short and rather disappointing and the story in general doesn’t have any consequence or overall relation to the original _Halo_.

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Up until a few years ago, console Real Time Strategy games have always been seen as a pretty bad idea. The complexity and depth usually associated with this genre is normally way to much for the gamepad interface to handle. Previously, developers have tried to get around this problem by releasing other methods of control; I remember playing the original _Command and Conquer_ game on the Playstation One with the official mouse peripheral. Now when I look back, I think why the hell didn’t I just buy the PC version, which would probably run much better and control far superior? The problem is, PC gaming in general isn’t in great shape and if RTS games only really work using a mouse and keyboard, the genre could be on its way out. Developing for the PC in the current climate is almost non-profitable for publishers due to privacy and a move away from old school game types; casual gaming, such as that found on the Wii, is the new cool. This means that if we still want to be playing RTS games in the next few years, someone needs to figure out how to play them using solely a gamepad. The first attempt at this was EA with the release of C_ommand and Conquer 3: Tiberum Wars_ which was available for both the PC and the Xbox 360. The 360 version implemented a completely different control system that actually sort of worked; I bought the, more expensive, 360 version over the PC version (mainly as a few of my mates also got it) and played it for months! I really got into that game and, although critics said the controls still didn’t match that of the PC, the game was in no way limited; it may not have had the same speed as a mouse but I could still kick my mate’s arses. So when _Halo Wars_ was announced a lot of people were worried, “a 360 only RTS? It will be crap”. Not me. After enjoying _C&C3_ so much I was actually looking forward to the first side-track for the shooter franchise.

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I was worried about _Halo Wars_ not being developed by Bungie, the creators of the franchise and every game so far in the series. Thankfully my fears were unfounded; from first starting the game you know that this is definitely _Halo_. From the music to the menus by way of all the units you can control, graphical presentation, art style and animations, _Halo Wars_ is exactly what a _Halo_ RTS should be. And when you consider who it was made by, Ensemble Studios, creators of the _Age of Empires_ series (who, regrettably, have now been closed), there is some chance that it’ll actually be a good game and not just a Microsoft cash-in.

In terms of gameplay, Ensemble Studios have done a good job; _Halo Wars_ doesn’t have the depth usually found in an RTS but it is enjoyable and has some great parts for the die-hard _Halo_ fan. Controlling units is rather easy, with some clever methods of unit selection; holding down A brings up a circle which selects all units within it while clicking the Right Bumper selects all the units on the screen. Although it’s quick to select your entire army it’s pretty hard to micromanage your units; you won’t be planning any advanced strategies in _Halo Wars_, most of the time you’ll simply select everything and tell the entire lot to attack each poor enemy unit individually. Most units have a special ability that is more powerful than their standard attack but does have a recharge time. This adds something to think about, rather than just clicking the same normal attack button on everything you want to destroy. There is an issue with this; the Warthog special attack is to ram the enemy, in turn damaging the Warthog in question. If you’ve got a lot of units selected, including Warthogs, they’ll effectively start killing themselves when you tell your army to use the special attack. This is rather annoying.

_Halo Wars_ is a fast paced game where your main objective is to build up an army as fast as possible rather than fortifying your base, and this reflects greatly in the design choices made. Rather than positioning each building, as seen in most RTS games, you can only construct bases at certain positions on each map. Each base has a maximum of 7 building pads around it onto which you can construct reactors, supply pads, vehicle depots and a few other types of buildings. At first it feels rather constricting not being able to set up base defences or reposition anything at all, but once you get use to it you can get a base up and running extremely quickly. It’s also very easy to maintain multiple bases without getting completely confused; in the last mission you have the option to control about 5 at a time and it’s actually do-able.

The units in _Halo Wars_ are the real reason a **Halo** fan will buy this game. Everything from the first person shooter games makes an appearance; Warthogs, Scorpion tanks, Pelican dropships, ODSTs, Wraith tanks, Banshees and the list goes on. What makes this awesome is how similar all the animations and sound effects are to those found in the previous games. The Warthog sounds and moves across the battlefield just as it does in _Halo 3_. It is truly awesome to watch a battalion of Scorpion tanks laying waste to enemy forces when you’ve only ever seen one of them at a time before. Considering the game is set 20 years before the events of the original _Halo_ there are still squads of Spartans instead of only the lonely Master Chief. And, although they’re pretty small in an RTS game, they are just as bad ass; a group of 2 or 3 Spartans can easily wipe-out an entire squad of Covenant forces. Also notable is the Spartan special attack which effectively hijacks an enemy unit, Master Chief style. What’s particularly awesome is that all the animations used for these sequences are taken straight from the other games; although completely geeky, this did make me think “wow” after which I realised I probably like _Halo_ a bit too much… Although the story itself doesn’t fill in any relevant back-story, some of the units do, indirectly. The Elephant, which appeared in _Halo 3’s_ multiplayer, didn’t seem to have a purpose at all; it just seemed to be there to mix things up a bit. _Halo Wars_ explains what it was used for, a sort of small mobile base. To be honest I was hoping it was used as some sort of siege vehicle with thousands of machine guns on it, but you can’t win them all. You really have to live and breathe _Halo_ to notice a lot of this stuff, but it’s still worth mentioning for those die-hard fans.

Graphically, _Halo Wars_ isn’t fantastic, it doesn’t live up to the other games in the franchise, which raised the bar in terms of visual fidelity, but it isn’t bad either. There’s good weapon effects, solid texture work throughout and the models have considerable amounts of detail, especially the Spartans who look just like the Master Chief, even though they’re so tiny! What is rather impressive is how well the art style fits with the _Halo_ universe; everything looks just like it should, Covenant units are all blue and purple while the UNSC have their signature bland combat green and grey throughout. The scenery also fits in well, there’s a lot of green (think the original _Halo_) and Forerunner locations, found a bit later on in the game, are also styled just right; lots of pointy grey objects about. It feels like Microsoft told the developer, “Make sure the ultra hardcore fans are happy” and to that extent they’ve succeeded, but it won’t blow you away. What this does mean is that _Halo Wars_ runs very well; not once, even when massive battles are taking place, does the frame-rate drop. I never felt that my poor, 3 year old 360 was struggling to keep up, which is good because it sounds like it’s going to explode already.

Sound-wise, it looks like the developers were told the same thing; make it sound just like _Halo_. And, as with the graphics, the sound effects are almost identical, so much so that it wouldn’t surprise me if they re-used all the sound assets from _Halo 3_. What does seem a bit different is the orchestral music used; there are no epic pieces and it feels more contemporary in general. The soundtrack is still very good but you can’t have a _Halo_ game without some over-the-top tribal chanting and that’s what _Halo Wars_ lacks.

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_Halo 3_ is the most accomplished online console game to date, the array of features and game-types available is simply mind blowing; most of the time I have no idea what I’m playing. So it’s not surprising that _Halo Wars_ comes with a suite of multiplayer options. Although locally only one player can play, up to six can fight it out against each other online and there’s also the addition of 2 player co-op, which is always a bonus. Alas I am a poor student and couldn’t afford to renew my Xbox Live membership for this review (when’s it going to be free Microsoft?!), so I can’t really comment on this in depth. What I do know is that the party system found in _Halo 3_ returns, making it extremely easy to jump between maps with the same group of friends, and that there are two main game types. There’s your usual RTS mode of building up your bases from scratch, followed shortly by blowing the crap out of your opponent (hopefully) while the second type, deathmatch, gives you the highest tech level and a huge amount of cash from the get go, which quickly leads to you blowing the crap out of your opponent. You can also take control of the Covenant in the multiplayer which, together with all the other features, gives you a pretty good amount of content to keep you busy with.

So in short _Halo Wars_ isn’t _Supreme Commander_; there really isn’t too much depth and it does feel like a dummies guide to real time strategy games. But considering it’s on a console and the limitations that that entails, _Halo Wars_ is a pretty solid accomplishment. It doesn’t get everything right but it does have that _Halo_ feel and that’s probably the most important thing it needed. If you’re a fan of the franchise it’s definitely worth a look; _Halo War_ is fun and fast paced if a little short on scope.