Halo Wars isn't exactly the first RTS to creep on to consoles. But it is probably one of the first to be made SPECIFICALLY for consoles. This is also the last game that the wonderful studio Ensemble made before closing it's doors. Certainly Halo Wars has lots of innovation riding in the back seat of that warthog but it probably would take someone at least SOMEWHAT familiar with RTS games to notice it.
The story here takes place about 20 years before Halo Combat Evolved. The game details things like the first skirmishes with the Covenant and the first contacts with the Flood. The story isn't much to sink your teeth into, but the cutscenes are probably the best I've seen on ANY GAME, except maybe Resident Evil 5 but they are pretty close.
Showing is better than telling(ABOVE)
The graphics within the actual game are very good and shined to a polish that is rarely seen these days on console titles. No matter how far the player zooms in, the units keep looking better rather than worse. Certainly the game doesn't have the graphical chops that a game like Command and Conquer Red Alert 3 on the PC has, but it definitely is in the same ballpark.
The audio for this game is excellent; everything from music to voice acting was top drawer and certainly fits nicely into the other Halo games immense quality. That is definitely a theme that runs throughout the title. The HALO WARS IS a HALO GAME. Not some cheap knock off meant to financially fuel the next REAL Halo game. In this even the most avid hater of the game cannot deny. Now comes the really hard part, everything else...
The first and foremost thing that needs to be dealt with right from the start is that this game is MAINLY aimed at an audience that has either NEVER played a Real Time Strategy Game or has only played OTHER console RTS games. Also, it is aimed at the gamer who LOVES HALO. Which is probably the only category I fit into here.
Halo Wars Campaign mode puts you in the shoes of a Commander to find out what is going on with a Covenant group looking for some relic on an icy world. You also end up controlling the love interest in the game who is a snarky research scientist who helps said Commander and also gets captured at one point. With this setting you go about building some bases and making some units. Actually you build ALOT of units. The game has a pretty generous population cap; that you can raise a little through upgrades. But in some of the later missions I would have really liked to see a 200 or 300 unit cap considering the size of the maps and the fact that you were fighting quite a few enemy units in some cases. But in this, Halo Wars works pretty well. The game allows you to upgrade all most every unit in the game and it gives you the freedom to have fewer units but more powerful units. Which in SOME RTS games is the recipe for disaster; because some well placed counter units can destroy them easily. Not so in Halo Wars.
This is not to say the game isn't balanced. It's more to say that by the time the game gets at all challenging, it's usually because of some crazy condition. Like you only have five minutes to finish this mission. Or you don't have a base, so you better be careful how many unites you lose. This is the kind of thing I usually hate in RTS games. I just want to build my base, my units, and kill the other guy. But in Halo Wars it was a welcome change.
Why? Because the majority of the Campaign involves you making a base, making units, then going to your enemy's base and destroying it. Then you MUST make a base on the location that your enemy made his base on and defend it. This happens around 5-6 times in about three quarters of the missions. It happened SO OFTEN I was starting to doubt that I needed to do this AGAIN, because I had just done it.
This also plays into the fact that most of the secondary mission objectives in the game involve either killing a certain number of enemies, which is kind of lame; but not a big issue. Or exploring the WHOLE MAP and taking some little outposts. I have played 20 minute games of Command and Conquer and never seen the whole map, unless I needed to find a hiding enemy unit. Taking these outposts is relatively easy but it is usually finding them that is the pain. Also skulls drop when you complete these secondary objectives but then you have to FIND THEM! They are marked on the map, but they usually drop during a very busy period in the game and therefore can but easily forgotten. Instead of the game voice so ANNOYINGLY saying things like,
"Turret Complete..."
"Building Complete..."
"Select ALL UNITS.."
It should have said, "A skull has dropped."
That would have been helpful at least. I eventually turned off the in game audio and just had the sound on for the cutscenes. But this kind of thing is all right in a big RTS like Command and Conquer Red Alert 3 where you could have structures and units all over the map. But in Halo Wars you basically have everything centralized with one big army. If you don't you probably are doing something wrong.
The reason I say this is that, there were only 2 missions in the whole game that I felt it was worth while to split my army and one of those times it probably wasn't necessary. The game is built like Lord of the Rings Battle for Middle Earth. You build a HUGE ARMY and wander around the field with it micro-managing their very move. You usually have to, they have special powers to activate and sometimes you need to be the hand of god and heal them. Besides, what good are Spartans if you don't tell them to take over enemy vehicles?(that was rhetorical).
Finally, the big units have horrible path finding and usually need to be guided like the tanks they are through every little hiccup on the map, especially through all the canyons and such that are on the maps. For a game with SO MANY bridges and canyons this seems like something; someone would have noticed BEFORE the game shipped. Just saying...
There was a lack of endgame upgrades and units. The final tier of production in most RTS games are incredibly impressive and usually something worth the wait and the money. While this is certainly true with a couple of the units in the game, there was a noticeable lack of this considering a lot of the harder final missions ended with you having thousands of credits, a full population, and nothing to use the credits for except spamming god powers. Which are certainly cool, but if all I needed were a few units around an enemy base and just keep hitting the aerial blast command, what point was there in building all those bases in the first place. This also comes up more often in multiplayer where the skilled turtle player can run a game into more than a couple of hours.
The units in the game are fun to use and by the end of the upgrade process become a blast to use. Especially the Spartans and the ODST troops. My favorite unit in the game were the Vultures, a top tier Human unit that is a big ship. These can transport troops, fire missiles, and devastate with machine guns. They also have tons of armor and are basically the flying counterpart to the Elephant without the unit production ability. All units in the game were well made and certainly there were no throw away units in the game. If you haven't found a use for a unit, then you aren't looking hard enough. That said, there were lots of instances where there seemed to be a lack of unit selection when you have lots of credits, multiple bases, and you feel like you should be making something to decimate the competition. But there really isn't anything, except maybe one or two units to choose from. This seemed strange to me, because final tier units and even second to final tier units are usually the most fun to play and most for developers to make. Their omission was glaring.
This game was definitely made to be played and replayed. You get different medals depending on how well you did completely all the mission objectives and even how long it took you to complete the mission. In order to get the achievement for each mission you MUST score at least a gold medal. Which isn't usually hard, as long as you paid attention when the in game announcement decides to pop the secondary objectives. Which could also be easily over looked and probably should have just been laid out before the mission. Also, the skulls can be turned on to make the game harder or give you special effects. That is once you get the skull.
Every Commander in the game, there are 3 for each side have their own "God Powers." All of which are excellent and I loved using them. But it was probably one of the biggest things that pulled the game into too simplistic of a structure. Once the player starts using the powers it's easy to roll up to a base with a very light force and simple hit three god powers one after another and wipe out the base. This will cost you a lot of money but some upgraded supply pads take care of this pretty handily. Without ACTUAL resource gathering the constant flow of money in the game definitely puts the game in the RTS lite category.
The multiplayer in the game allows you to play either the Humans or the Covenant. Fortunately it doesn't allow you to play the Flood. I think that would have been a mess to balance and let's face it, the Flood is basically all cannon fodder. The Covenant while not playable during the Campaign are fun to play and with things like Shielding and on the field god powers they certainly play differently from the Human side of things. However, the basic idea is the same. Make a base, crank out units, make a teleporter, send your big army out to destroy your enemies. Repeat.
The rushing in multiplayer is easy to accomplish but also easy to counter. This shows that the developers had thought of this and maybe from viewed skirmish matches with friends and family realized it needed to be easily countered. The Brute units for the Covenant might seem overpowered until you crank out a fully upgraded ODST squad and watch them mow the apes down without any trouble. Or just have the Spartan hit them with a laser. That really hurts you know.
While I certainly would have LIKED to play a Covenant Campaign I don't think it was necessarily a deal breaker. What I did find a little odd however, was the total lack of different modes for Multiplayer. In single player you can play Co-Op online and this carries over to Multiplayer. Except that's it. You can play two team death, match, three team death match, or four team death match. You can also have the match begin with an all ready built up base with some units, but that's the extent of it. For a genre and Title that is SO tied to multiplayer it seems strange not to have more modes. Also, there are a VERY SMALL number of maps to play on, like 10. Which isn't good considering, while Ensemble has closed the only downloadable content is coming from their new outlet. That was barely on it's feet when the game shipped. How many maps do you think they have made all ready? Maybe one or two the most. There have been no announcements as to DLC and it doesn't seem like they are coming anytime soon.
Halo Wars as a game definitely has some problems. But it is probably the single best RTS on any console. Even the new Command and Conquer Red Alert 3 Ultimate Edition on the PS3 is aching for some mouse and keyboard control in comparison to this title. I would have to say that has a console RTS it gets high marks. As an RTS it's probably only meant for the first time RTS player or someone who REALLY loves Halo. Because the Halo will love playing with all the units and the newcomer to RTS games will find the game very educational in this like basic strategy and base management. Everyone else should probably just grab your mouse and keyboard and pick up Command and Conquer Red Alert 3 or one of the other FINE RTS GAMES on the PC. There are TOO MANY to name here.
(Again, no score, really, I'm not going to give you one, EVER. So stop waiting for it.)
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