Halo Wars

Review from Starks - Wednesday, 08 April 2009 @ 7:04pm

“They’re everywhere!”

“Little people first!!”

“You want some of this?!”

“Here, I found it!! I need help, I need help!”

The Grunts of Halo were some of the funniest little dudes you’d ever come across. Pathetically ill equipped in combat, low morale and more interested in small chat, it often made me wonder exactly how the Covenant actually managed to take over half the universe with such a shocking regular troop.

Still, I guess it’s hard to also understand how the Prophets managed to lead the army too, given they’re about the equivalent of a paraplegic in a wheelchair.

In any case, the greater armies of the Covenant are characterful, and the real nuts and bolts of their fighting force are the Elites, which have entertained the minds and imaginations of gamers since the first Halo hit shelves in 2002. Add to this the sneaky Jackals and the hefty Hunters and I suppose the whole strategy the Prophets were using isn’t unlike operation ‘Human Shield’ that was exposed in South Park.

In any case, the flavour of the Covenants is supplemented by having thousands of ODST’s, regular UNSC marines and the Spartans all fighting side by side, with Warthogs flying around, Pelicans dropping off troops and Scorpions blowing the shit out of everything in sight.

Suffice to say, the oft comic nature of the Covenant is quietly concealed, and in Halo Wars all that is presented to the player is a long, sombre war, where the emphasis is on the clinical Elites and evil masterminds the Prophets. Juxtaposed to this are the shining light of humanity, the UNSC. Honour, camaraderie and self sacrifice are all elements presented to the player as attributes of the UNSC and their soldiers. Frankly, I think they’ve borrowed a lot of elements from the ANZAC Diggers and melded it with American nationalism, but that’s my own cynical opinion.

I'm telling you dawg, we're gonna pick up chicks in this thing!

Given this as a contextual backing, the actual game itself smacks of two things; a polished, completed game that plays well and contributes to the RTS genre greatly, and a title that could have offered oh so much more. I’ll explain both these elements.

Firstly, my initial reaction to the game was one of awe. Ensemble Studio’s are truly the masters of the RTS genre. If ever there was a game that was going to climb the mountain of being a successful, playable RTS on a console, Ensemble were the men and women to climb it. With Halo Wars, they climbed the mountain and flew a flag in a proud proclamation that they have achieved this task.

The actual game starts off the platform the three Halos’ have laid; Strong graphical and story driven cut scene, setting the mood and establishing what is going on. Given the pages of Halo lore available to them, Ensemble have managed to very successfully integrate a strong story line that plays very well into the Halo verse that Bungie have built.

The training tutorials and introductions are rudimentary, and that’s being kind. However they achieve the purpose that Microsoft and Ensemble no doubt set out to achieve; Introduce to casual gamers who like Halo what an RTS is, and how to play it. I would suggest that this was a consideration at the forefront of their mind, and with the angle that the Halo brand takes – which is grab everyone, not just the hardcore gamers – this is a necessary step.

From there, the game very smoothly integrates the plot into the game play, focussing on making the player as involved in the storyline as possible. From the various comments of Sergeant Forge to updates on your objectives, the progression and achievement of the goals develops the storyline and drags you further in. From that perspective, the immersion I felt when playing the game was not unlike that of my first experience with Halo: Combat Evolved.

They're everywhere!

The mechanics of the game play is very similar to Age of Empires crossed with Age of Mythology thrown in to boot. Essentially, it’s a case of ‘build a base, build your units, achieve your objectives’. Secondary objectives dot the various scenarios, and they usually amount to things like ‘Save these guys’ or ‘Kill a whole lot of Jackals’. Fairly basic stuff.

What works, however, are the scale and the controls. The scale of the actual maps and the conflicts themselves is quite large. Lots of units, lots of gunfire, and lots of explosions – Big conflicts are a hoot to watch and be a part of. Add to this the fact that you can call in support fire, send in aerial units and use Scorpions as back up and the game definitely gives you a feel of ‘big’.

The controls themselves are fantastic. Like Bungie did with the FPS on console, so too did Ensemble do for the RTS. Intuitive, all functions accessible and ease of use are all things that spring to mind. Whilst the game moves at a fast pace, the controls themselves give the player the ability to quickly and deftly respond to the scenario’s, and the options themselves allow helpful customisation in order to better maximise your control over the game.

Given small little things such as the cover system, the ‘special attack’ function and the fact that the Spartans are just brilliant means the game has a glean about it that really draws in the player.

Did you leave the back door open Frank?

It was at this point that I started to notice a few things Ensemble missed out. Now, before I highlight the bad, I would like to keep this in perspective. Given Ensemble were trying to make the RTS to break the console market. Whilst the 360 has had other titles in the RTS genre, I’m fairly sure none of them have had the allure of Halo or such a well produced title. Given Ensemble were also shut down midway through production and resources pulled, it’s a credit to the studio that they were actually able to produce such a game given the circumstance.

Never the less, certain things found in RTS’s on PC, yet not found in Halo Wars, means that those familiar with the genre will be scratching their head.

Firstly, there’s simply no Covenant campaign. Given Bungie have worked so hard to show the Covenant side of the story during the second and third Halo instalments, it would have been great to have fought from the perspective of the ‘aliens’. Add to this the simple variety of being able to play a different side of the Halo verse; I thought this was an aspect Ensemble could have built on. From my understanding, their closure hindered their opportunity to fill out the game satisfactorily, so this was one aspect that was potentially canned. So that explains that, I suppose, but it’s still an area the game could have been improved on.

Secondly, something simple that bugged me as time went on was that you couldn’t group specific units. The ‘local’ and ‘universal’ select got clunky, and since certain units were more suited to specific roles, it was very difficult to successfully command the army in the most efficient manner. It began to turn more into a ‘bum rush’ than anything significant.

Finally, the formula itself isn’t... perfect. The whole AoE ‘harvest, build, destroy’ is a tad dated. I honestly think that it isn’t the perfect method of conducting an RTS on console. Does it work for Halo Wars? It definitely does. Could Ensemble have found a better method? This is the question I think needs to be explored.

Green vs Purple?

This is potentially something that I brought up in my preview. What is Halo Wars contributing to the genre? Yes, it is contributing a new medium for RTS’ to be developed for. But shouldn’t it try to add something a little different, a little new? I guess this is the difference between a fantastic game and a Game of the Year.

This aside, I highly recommend Halo Wars. It’s enjoyable; a cinematic story told with solid, quite playable strategy integrated successfully for a console. Probably a little more than successfully; more like exceptionally well for a medium that is traditionally a no go zone for RTS. About the only thing that this game will suffer from is hardcore RTS fans opposed to the idea of an RTS without keyboard and mouse. However, if you were to pick a title to change this opinion, Halo Wars is it.

Pros

Awesome control scheme that works really well with on the 360
One of the best storylines I've seen in a long time; Fantastic, cinematic stuff
High Definition graphics make the game look stunning on a good TV

Cons

No Covenant Campaign
No group bindings
Not enough humour