Halo Wars: First Impressions

I've been looking forward to Halo Wars for a couple of years now and wasn't too happy as they consistently pushed it back further and further. But now the game is finally here and I have to say that this game is fun.

Campaign
For those of us who played the demo you really get a sense of how the campaign plays out. Right now I'm only on Mission 4 and it's starting to ramp up as far as difficulty (I'm playing Heroic difficulty). The first ACT was a breeze, but now I'm actually failing missions from the get go. The controls are simple enough, I do keep forgetting whether D-Pad Down takes me to my base of if it's D-Pad Left, I think it's D-Pad Left, but other than that it's been simplified for the console. I never played RTS games on the PC, unless you count Dune back in the mid-90's, so my ignorance is a blessing here. I think it plays fine, then again I think Command & Conquer plays fine on the 360 as well.

The scenarios that I have encountered so far have been pretty fun. There are small battles, large battles, and then scenes where I just destroy enemies with Scorpions.

The only really disappointing part is the graphics for the Elites. To me it looks like they are wearing a one piece swim suite and there is very little detail to some of the enemies and sometimes my allies. Also the cut scenes are really compressed poorly. I can see the compression artifacts big time.

I have yet to play Campaign in Co-op, but from what I hear from a friend, it is awesome. I really enjoy collecting the skulls, black boxes, and trying to meet the optional objectives, like kill 100 Grunts.

Multiplayer
I tried out 3v3 last night with some friends. We teamed up to go against strangers online and I have to say that it was tons of fun. We lost most of the matches before we finally figured out the strategy that everyone was using, so when we won it was great to know that it was through strategy and not luck.

I didn't think I would really enjoy the MP aspect of it, but I think I will be visiting this portion of the game more often than I thought. Teamwork is vital in surviving these game types and I hope to get better at it.

Everything about Halo Wars feels like Halo 3, from the look of the menus to the ranking system. HaloWars.com even has a stats section, though it's not as cool as Bungie.net's stats.

If you are a Halo fan, like myself, then you will definitely enjoy this, just for the fact that it is so familiar. I think that's what really draws me in. When I'm told to protect a Spartan, I know what that is immediately. Sure there are some new vehicles, but they are pretty easy to learn and I already know the other vehicles, so there is less to remember.

If you are a hardcore RTS fan, then this might be a little dumbed down from what I hear on the forums and podcast. So try the demo for sure to get a handle on how it plays.

Hopefully Microsoft will support this game for years to come because it has the potential to have long legs. I would like to see new maps and skins for vehicles as well as some new gametypes for MP.

Another cool feature the game has is a timeline for the Halo universe. Some of the dates are locked, which have to be unlocked through gameplay, but it really gives the players a nice sense of where this story starts and the other Halo stories begin.

Halo Wars Impressions

So, the Halo Wars demo came out on Xbox Live(at 1.4 GB) today. I've had some doubts about this game for a while now. One of my main problems is simply that RTS games don't hold my interest for long. But I booted up the Xbox and downloaded the demo anyway.

Halo Wars takes place 20 years before Halo. It's a time of great battles between the humans and the Covenant.

I played the Basic tutorial and the first two missions on campaign. I'm not sure how much more is included in the demo. That's just where I stopped.

It's not a bad game. It's fairly fun for an RTS, and the controls aren't bad. I did have a problem for a little while where I was selecting every unit on the map instead of just on my screen, but the game let me know what I was doing wrong with helpful little reminders in the left hand corner.

I beat the two missions without too much problem. My hero did go down during one fierce battle, but then he later got back up when I had another unit stand near him for a while. I earned Silver on the first mission and Bronze on the second.

Is it put together well? Seems to be. I don't have to worry about peons or workers or what have you to collect my resources. I simply build Supply Pads and supplies are shipped to me. There are also crates of supplies scattered around the map that my troops can pick up. They don't even have to bring the supplies back to my base. They just pick them up and they appear in my coffers. So that's nice(although die-hard RTS players may dislike this).

Apparently there are also skulls hidden on some of the levels, but I didn't find any.

I do, for the most part, like that when you group your troops together they all travel at the same speed(which would be the speed of your slowest unit). This, of course, is annoying since it slows down some of your troops, but it's good for combat because I don't have to worry that my Warthogs are way ahead of my Scorpion or Infantry. The only time I really don't like this is when I'm running away from enemies. (Although even when fleeing, the Warthog's gunner still shoots at the enemies.)

And pretty much every unit has a secondary attack. Warthogs can run over enemies. Infantry can throw grenades.

Will it do well? Hmmm.... I don't think it will. I know that some game executives think that simply putting the name Halo on anything will make it sell. But Halo 1-3 are first person shooter games. They may have helped revolutionize or revitalize the FPS, but they were still first person shooters.

Most FPS gamers aren't RTS gamers and vice versa. When I was playing the Halo Wars demo, it actually made me want to play Halo 3 so that I could get in there and shoot some Covenant instead of just clicking on units and letting my troops battle.

I also have problems really distinguishing what the various Covenant troops are. I know there were Grunts, Elites, Jackals, Hunters, Ghosts and ... those Covenant transport ships. But most of them look pretty much the same from way up high. There were a number of times when I'd have Hunters on me, but I'd be concentrating on the Grunts.

In the end, this game may sell because of the Halo name. But I don't think it will truly be popular.

Ensemble Studios to Close

Microsoft Studios has announced that they are closing Ensemble Studios after the release of Halo Wars. Some of the staff of Ensemble Studios have already announced that they will be forming their own game company. And Microsoft has promised to try to place many of the staff who do not move on to the new company.

The newly formed company will still be working with Microsoft and will be responsible for any Halo Wars updates or patches.

Ensemble Studios is the company that brought gamers other RTS games like the Age of Empires series and Age of Mythology. Microsoft purchased Ensemble Studios in 2001.