For Halo fans who haven’t played many PC RTS games

by Markus Hirsilä

Fun factor: Fun

Worth to: Buy

It finally brings a real-time strategy game to consoles in a successful way, and though it simplifies and streamlines everything to get it done right, Halo Wars is a successful Halo universe Strategy game.

Halo Wars is a benchmark in gaming; it finally brings a real-time strategy game to consoles in a successful way. The trade-off is that everything is simplified and streamlined. But remember this: it’s Halo and it works just as good as other Halo games before it.

Story and setting

The story takes place 20 years prior to the first Halo game and 5 years after the human-covenant war began. In a distant colony planet, Harvest, the Covenant has found ancient Forerunner facility that may turn the tide of the war once and for all. The facility is actually a map that leads to “something”. This starts a race between humans and the Covenant as they wage war and search for the relic. Of course we already know they are searching for the first Halo.



The plot is told through some impressive looking cutscenes, great voice acting and while on a mission your commanders are giving insights about the broader picture. The story is not THAT engaging though, since we already know how it turns out in the end, but still it’s more than enough to bring Halo fans to the table.

Take control either alone or with a friend

Up to this point the biggest issue in bringing RTS games on consoles has undoubtedly been the controls. It indeed takes a while (maybe 2 to 3 hours) for you to really learn to use the controls effectively, but once you do it all comes together real nicely. You can select a unit with A button and then give an order by pressing X button. A special attack order is done with Y button. Selecting groups of units is done with either LB (whole army) or RB (local units) and if necessary using RT to select a specific group of units (for example Warthogs or Scorpion tanks). You have also leader units at your service, which are the most powerful units in the game. They also can’t die: they just go down and in order to revive them you simply need to move close to them and wait a while. Unfortunately you can’t set specific waypoints to your units, but this is something you’ll learn to live with. Camera is controlled with the right analog stick and from the options menu you can choose how far the default camera angle is from the units. I used almost the farthest option, because it allows me to see the widest view to the battlefield.

Obviously the controls are a trade-off between 1) quickly selecting and creating different strategies in multiple fronts and 2) making an RTS work at all on a console. It is here when the concept of co-op comes into play; in tough missions it’s very advisable to bring a friend along. This way you can either attack from different sides against a same target or let player 1 build and manage the base while player 2 concentrates on waging war with his or her own troops somewhere else. This type of gaming takes a lot of communication and may require some practice, but it’s really satisfying to see that “Mission Complete” when it all comes together. The whole campaign can be played with a friend through Xbox Live or System Link, but there’s no split-screen option.



Leading troops is one thing and the other is establishing a base, upgrading it and building defenses. You can’t build anywhere you wish, since there are specific places for you to do so. Your base has also strict limits on how much you can build to it. Luckily you can upgrade your whole base to make it bigger and also your individual buildings to make them more efficient. Money is collected by building one or more Supply Pads, which then produce money at a steady pace. This means no more collecting ore from around the map and micromanaging your units while they collect. As a whole, building is also trade-off, since your choices are very limited, but at the same time it all works and it’s easy to do it with the controller.

Presentation, structure and save system

Graphics are done well. Gameplay view lacks details, but at the same time animations are great and with the help of bright colors and familiar sound effects it’s easy to tell the difference between units. It looks and feels just like a Halo game should and the frame rate stays solid almost at all times. Music is powerful and orchestrated just like it was in previous Halo games. Sound effects bring the battlefield to your ears, since the air fills with blasts and explosions constantly. The audio visual department has done a great fan service, because everything looks and feels fresh and familiar at the same time. Cutscenes look a lot better than they did in Halo 3 and the voice acting is also done with professionalism. Only bad thing is that at times the lip sync can be off balance compared to what’s happening on screen.

Campaign consists of 15 missions and they are all played as humans -- no Covenant or Flood campaigns here. In this respect it feels like developers ran out of time. There is clearly room for a Covenant campaign and maybe even a Flood one as well. Regardless, your objectives in these missions are closely matched to what’s happening in the story. Luckily there are more things to do than just “build a base and destroy everything,” but in my opinion some missions, like Escort and Protect, don’t always pan out as desired, making them the hardest and most annoying. All of this makes Halo Wars a lot more story-driven than Command & Conquer 3, for example.



Depending on your chosen strategy most missions can be completed either in 15 minutes or 45 minutes. At times there are some weird balancing issues. One moment you feel like a master general moving swiftly from level to level no matter the strategy, but in the next mission you feel like noob, getting defeated no matter what you try. Luckily this doesn’t happen very often and if everything else fails you can always play in co-op or choose a lower difficulty level. The replay value of otherwise a short campaigns is raised by having lots of skulls and black boxes for you to find. Of course you’ll get extra achievement points for playing the game while specific skulls are switched on.

You can save a game anywhere, anytime, but if a “Mission Failed” text pops up you need to start that mission from the start. This means that you need to think a little further and foresee an oncoming defeat. After completing missions once you can play them in any order you wish, which is a great thing when hunting down those skulls and black boxes.

Multiplayer

As I already said the whole campaign can be played with a friend either on Xbox Live or System Link. Bringing a friend along makes the game more enjoyable and easy if you both know what you’re doing and have good communication skills. This means that in order to fully enjoy co-op it’s advisable to first play the game alone at least for a few hours and then invite a friend to join you.

The actual competitive multiplayer takes place in 14 different maps and up to 3 vs. 3. Skirmish puts you against an AI player and it’s a great way to familiarize yourself to a different faction (the Covenant) and the abilities of different leader units. Of course you can’t underestimate the knowledge you gain by learning the layout of these multiplayer maps. Xbox Live is the best place to play multiplayer matches and there’s a familiar matchmaking system to find games. Also, the skill and ranking system from Halo 3 makes a return in Halo Wars.



As a whole online play works just fine but multiplayer options are limited to say the least. There’s a Standard Mode, where both players start with nothing and build your own army from there. Deathmatch gives everybody lots of resources and this puts most of your efforts in just pure combat. And that’s it: only 2 multiplayer modes are available.

I’m certain that competitive multiplayer is not for everyone. I for one got really pissed off after building a base for 30 minutes and my opponent came with 2 giant Scarabs and blew it all to oblivion in just 30 seconds. Usually the best strategy is to upgrade your base until you can build a couple of very strong units (like Scarabs or Vultures) and then smash your opponent’s base. Maybe some will find this interesting and fun, but I personally didn’t like the competitive multiplayer aspect of Halo Wars.

Summary

Halo Wars as a whole offers a few trade-offs while bringing the RTS genre successfully to consoles. It’s streamlined and simplified, but it brings that in the right places and the end result is a great experience. It does feel like developers ran out of time and multiplayer options are very limited, but still, the 2 most important parts are done well: the prequel story to the first Halo game and the controls. We can only hope that some future downloadable content or a sequel will give us a truly full Halo RTS experience. Halo Wars is a perfect choice for Halo fans and people who have not played a ton of RTS games. Without a doubt it’s the best real time-strategy game on a console platform ever.