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February 20, 2009 | 6:00 AM PST
by: Ken Cauley
Kombo's Review Policy:
Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don't waste your time. This is why we've split our reviews into four sections: "What the Game is About," "What's Hot," "What's Not," and "Final Word," so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews.
What the Game is About:
Halo Wars is a real-time action strategy game for the Xbox 360 that allows the player to control large armies and to craftily direct them into warfare. In Halo Wars, you will be able to control armies of units that are familiar from the FPS games, such as UNSC Marines, Scorpion Tanks, and the iconic Warthog. The game's story takes place before the first Halo FPS game, during the UNSC's initial encounters with the Covenant. Without dishing out any spoilers, the story places you aboard the UNSC's warship, the Spirit of Fire, to deploy your troops across the galaxy in an always intensifying war against the Covenant.
Beyond the solo campaign, you can test your skills against other opponents –- human or A.I. –- on various maps, modes, and a variety of conditions. There are three main forms of combat for you to engage in: against A.I. in Skirmish, co-op campaign, or Skirmish against another player via Xbox Live or LAN.
What's Hot:
Developed by Ensemble Studios —- creators of the Age of Empires franchise —- and designed exclusively for the Xbox 360 controller, Halo Wars allows you to take charge of the human UNSC armies and see the Halo universe from a totally new perspective.
What better way to refresh the franchise than to mix it up a little bit? One of the best things about Halo Wars is that it's not some quick cash-in on the Halo name. Regardless of whether you enjoy RTS games, Halo Wars was built from the ground up with great attention to detail. Much like how Mario can appear in ten different types of games and still act and feel like Mario, Halo Wars wonderfully captures the look, feel, heart, and soul of the Halo universe. If you're worried about Halo Wars playing like Age of Empires or Command and Conquer with Halo skin, fear not. I've played all of the above and from the perspective of an RTS and Halo enthusiast, my concerns have been put to rest. Attention to detail was a very obvious priority during the development of the game. It's unlikely you'll find yourself complaining about the little things or nitpicking the game at all.
The voice acting is superb and the audio elements -— from the vehicles, beeps, whistles, grunts, gunfire, explosions, and death -— are all top notch. Believe it or not, even the once annoying "all units" command isn't a bother when you're actually playing the game.
The game seamlessly progresses through gorgeously cut-scenes that really act as the pace-setter and glue that holds the storyline and individual missions together. The first several missions are mini-skirmishes against the Covenant to get your feet wet; their purpose is familiarizing you with the pace of the game and required multitasking, as well as rationing and strategizing the proper use of your resources.
It is also extremely cool that you're diving right into the Halo universe before the era of Master Chief. A huge plus is that the game does not revolve around the development and actions of a single character; rather, you get a much broader sense of involvement with the UNSC and the overall war against the Covenant.
When choosing your team and playing competitively, it is of the greatest importance to not only understand the strengths and weaknesses of the UNSC and Covenant, but individual team leaders as well. This is vital to your strategy and ultimate success. Each possess hidden talents and skills that the others do not. For a winning strategy, you also need to acknowledge and plan around unit strengths and weaknesses.
What's Not:
Halo Wars boasts a visual performance well above par. As you've experienced through the demo, the graphics are nothing to gaze and amaze over, but get the job done well enough. Due to the presentation and visual style of an RTS, at times there are literally hundreds of moving elements on screen and several hundred more outside your line of sight. If you're lacking a HDTV, reading the on-screen prompts and text commands can quickly become a chore. More so than other games, if you're lacking an HDTV, you lose a lot of important graphical detail and as a result, those hundreds of on-screen moving elements make the game look that much less impressive.
Despite being built from the ground up for the Xbox 360 controller, Halo Wars still would control better if you were using a traditional mouse and keyboard. Regardless, Halo Wars still boasts the best controls for an RTS console game to date. The advantage of a mouse and keyboard over the 360 controller, for the average RTS gamer, is miniscule. Only the most die-hard competitive RTS gamers will have the potential grounds to complain about the 360 controller. But chances are, if they're that extreme, they're not going to play a console RTS anyways. All in all, the controller concerns can be put to rest. The Xbox 360 controller delivers a near flawless user experience when playing Halo Wars.
My only other complaint when playing Halo Wars is one that is shared with virtually every RTS game of the same nature. After a while, the missions start to get a little repetitive. And to make matters worse, because some missions take quite a while to complete; if you fail the mission your only option is to start over. Fail several times and you may find yourself annoyed, having just spent three hours on the same mission. Of course, this is the nature of an RTS game and one could argue that this comes with the territory. Some of you may expect nothing less. Regardless, it would be nice, or at least convenient, if there were checkpoints available in some of the longer and more difficult missions.
Overall:
Like many of you, I wasn't quite sure what to expect from Halo Wars. The concerns, doubts, and questions circled my gamer brain as it did yours. And while it's not the first-person shooter experience that Bungie has delivered all these years, it is a damn good RTS game. And who better to deliver the new experience than Ensemble Studios. Nearly everything about Halo Wars is well polished: campaign, co-op and multiplayer modes, hidden skulls, solid controls, refined matchmaking, superb voice talent, engaging cut-scenes and story, and everything else that you expect from the Halo brand. Halo Wars isn't perfect, but it's certainly great enough to ignore the minor flaws and enjoy an amazing experience from beginning to end and well beyond with online multiplayer.
If you're a die-hard Halo or RTS fan, Halo Wars is a must own. For everybody else, I highly recommend, at the very least, a rental.
Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don't waste your time. This is why we've split our reviews into four sections: "What the Game is About," "What's Hot," "What's Not," and "Final Word," so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews.
What the Game is About:
Halo Wars is a real-time action strategy game for the Xbox 360 that allows the player to control large armies and to craftily direct them into warfare. In Halo Wars, you will be able to control armies of units that are familiar from the FPS games, such as UNSC Marines, Scorpion Tanks, and the iconic Warthog. The game's story takes place before the first Halo FPS game, during the UNSC's initial encounters with the Covenant. Without dishing out any spoilers, the story places you aboard the UNSC's warship, the Spirit of Fire, to deploy your troops across the galaxy in an always intensifying war against the Covenant.
Beyond the solo campaign, you can test your skills against other opponents –- human or A.I. –- on various maps, modes, and a variety of conditions. There are three main forms of combat for you to engage in: against A.I. in Skirmish, co-op campaign, or Skirmish against another player via Xbox Live or LAN.
What's Hot:
Developed by Ensemble Studios —- creators of the Age of Empires franchise —- and designed exclusively for the Xbox 360 controller, Halo Wars allows you to take charge of the human UNSC armies and see the Halo universe from a totally new perspective.
What better way to refresh the franchise than to mix it up a little bit? One of the best things about Halo Wars is that it's not some quick cash-in on the Halo name. Regardless of whether you enjoy RTS games, Halo Wars was built from the ground up with great attention to detail. Much like how Mario can appear in ten different types of games and still act and feel like Mario, Halo Wars wonderfully captures the look, feel, heart, and soul of the Halo universe. If you're worried about Halo Wars playing like Age of Empires or Command and Conquer with Halo skin, fear not. I've played all of the above and from the perspective of an RTS and Halo enthusiast, my concerns have been put to rest. Attention to detail was a very obvious priority during the development of the game. It's unlikely you'll find yourself complaining about the little things or nitpicking the game at all.
The voice acting is superb and the audio elements -— from the vehicles, beeps, whistles, grunts, gunfire, explosions, and death -— are all top notch. Believe it or not, even the once annoying "all units" command isn't a bother when you're actually playing the game.
The game seamlessly progresses through gorgeously cut-scenes that really act as the pace-setter and glue that holds the storyline and individual missions together. The first several missions are mini-skirmishes against the Covenant to get your feet wet; their purpose is familiarizing you with the pace of the game and required multitasking, as well as rationing and strategizing the proper use of your resources.
It is also extremely cool that you're diving right into the Halo universe before the era of Master Chief. A huge plus is that the game does not revolve around the development and actions of a single character; rather, you get a much broader sense of involvement with the UNSC and the overall war against the Covenant.
When choosing your team and playing competitively, it is of the greatest importance to not only understand the strengths and weaknesses of the UNSC and Covenant, but individual team leaders as well. This is vital to your strategy and ultimate success. Each possess hidden talents and skills that the others do not. For a winning strategy, you also need to acknowledge and plan around unit strengths and weaknesses.
What's Not:
Halo Wars boasts a visual performance well above par. As you've experienced through the demo, the graphics are nothing to gaze and amaze over, but get the job done well enough. Due to the presentation and visual style of an RTS, at times there are literally hundreds of moving elements on screen and several hundred more outside your line of sight. If you're lacking a HDTV, reading the on-screen prompts and text commands can quickly become a chore. More so than other games, if you're lacking an HDTV, you lose a lot of important graphical detail and as a result, those hundreds of on-screen moving elements make the game look that much less impressive.
Despite being built from the ground up for the Xbox 360 controller, Halo Wars still would control better if you were using a traditional mouse and keyboard. Regardless, Halo Wars still boasts the best controls for an RTS console game to date. The advantage of a mouse and keyboard over the 360 controller, for the average RTS gamer, is miniscule. Only the most die-hard competitive RTS gamers will have the potential grounds to complain about the 360 controller. But chances are, if they're that extreme, they're not going to play a console RTS anyways. All in all, the controller concerns can be put to rest. The Xbox 360 controller delivers a near flawless user experience when playing Halo Wars.
My only other complaint when playing Halo Wars is one that is shared with virtually every RTS game of the same nature. After a while, the missions start to get a little repetitive. And to make matters worse, because some missions take quite a while to complete; if you fail the mission your only option is to start over. Fail several times and you may find yourself annoyed, having just spent three hours on the same mission. Of course, this is the nature of an RTS game and one could argue that this comes with the territory. Some of you may expect nothing less. Regardless, it would be nice, or at least convenient, if there were checkpoints available in some of the longer and more difficult missions.
Overall:
Like many of you, I wasn't quite sure what to expect from Halo Wars. The concerns, doubts, and questions circled my gamer brain as it did yours. And while it's not the first-person shooter experience that Bungie has delivered all these years, it is a damn good RTS game. And who better to deliver the new experience than Ensemble Studios. Nearly everything about Halo Wars is well polished: campaign, co-op and multiplayer modes, hidden skulls, solid controls, refined matchmaking, superb voice talent, engaging cut-scenes and story, and everything else that you expect from the Halo brand. Halo Wars isn't perfect, but it's certainly great enough to ignore the minor flaws and enjoy an amazing experience from beginning to end and well beyond with online multiplayer.
If you're a die-hard Halo or RTS fan, Halo Wars is a must own. For everybody else, I highly recommend, at the very least, a rental.
November 20, 2009
