[Editor's note: The original Halo Wars review was written before I had completed the campaign. This is common in our industry, where reviewers have to make a judgment call as to whether or not they have played enough for review. A number of our readers disagreed with the judgment call made, The Incredible Edible Egg in particular, and as the debate has continued, we have decided to address the issue with a very simple fix.
The campaign was completed, multiplayer was given a run, and now we're republishing the review. Very little has changed, because completion really didn't add anything to the opinion, but I elaborated on multiplayer so this is a more comprehensive article for you.
Going forward, we'll be aiming to bring a game to near-if-not-full completion, and will let you know if that is not the case. We've always preferred completed games, obviously, but sometimes it's not practical. Please don't expect us to play bad 70-hour RPGs :-)]
Real-time strategy is a genre underserved on consoles, and with good reason. The endless micromanagement and menus that come with RTS titles do not lend themselves well to limited console controls, but with Halo being the darling of the Xbox platform, there was no other place for Halo Wars to go.
Ensemble was charged with building Halo Wars for the Xbox 360 from the ground up, as well as creating an RTS title that believably sat within the Halo universe. Those are two pretty tight restrictions, not to mention the fact that your typical Halo fan is ... well ... a Halo fan -- at home with first-person shooters and action-packed violence. Not a strategy junkie.
It was surely a tricky balance to strike, a console RTS that appeals to Halo fans. Just how well has Ensemble managed to meet the requirements? Read on, and watch our video accompaniment, as we review Halo Wars.
Halo Wars (Xbox 360) Developer: Ensemble Publisher: Microsoft Released: March 3, 2009 MSRP: $59.99
As a prequel title, Halo Wars is set twenty years before the events of Halo: Combat Evolved. The UNSC forces are in the midst of their earlier conflicts with theocratic alien zealots The Covenant, as the two sides wage war over Harvest, a planet with which The Covenant wishes to do typically nasty stuff. Wars revolves predominantly around Sgt. Forge and Professor Ellen Anders, whose strained relationship is barely elaborated on, yet so typical you'll never need to ask for a pointer.
The story is rather basic but will likely be loved by those who have a thing for Halo's lore. Unfortunately, I am not one of those people and I must say that Halo Wars' plot did little to warm me to the game'suniverse. The characters are distinctly unlikable, which makes it difficult to care about the Campaign Mode. Perhaps if you could play a Covenant Campaign, it would be more enjoyable, but unfortunately you have to start with the UNSC and their band of wooden, uptight stereotypes.
The story is inoffensive, but bland. Not badly written, but hardly exciting. The gameplay is not much different.
Halo Warsis a good game, and that's really all that needs to be said about it. As far as console RTS games go, it's good, solid, dependable stuff. Like a well-behaved dog or a favorite meal. Safe and unadventurous. It's the kind of RTS game that anybody could instantly be familiar with, containing all the hallmarks you've come to expect from the genre since the early nineties.
Build a base, create a supply depot, form a barracks, research technology, train soldiers, make tanks, kill enemies, lather, rinse, repeat. If you've played Starcraft or Command & Conquer, you've played Halo Wars. Only this time instead of Zerg, you're killing Grunts. Instead of Tesla Tanks, you're building Cobras. It's an incredibly typical strategy game painted in the green and purple of Halo.
Unfortunately, the game is so standard that it will never threaten to achieve greatness. By walking the road of dependability, Ensemble certainly created a game that will disappoint very few people, but will impress barely anybody. While the game does only a few things wrong, the repetitive and often dated nature of the gameplay will see some players struggle to find the will to keep playing through the campaign, as the prospect of building yet another army from scratch looms over each battle.
To Ensemble's credit, a few interesting and tricky missions have been thrown in. Stages that feature the destruction of a giant, incomplete Scarab and a hasty evacuation from the grasp of a "mysterious" enemy help to break up the pace, and work so well that it's almost a shame the game is so traditional and didn't try to shake things up more.
Replaying missions has also been encouraged, thanks to obligatory optional objectives that you likely won't completely satisfy the first time around. The completion of optional missions yields Skulls, which can be collected around each map. In addition, skilled explorers will be able to uncover Black Boxes, which will reward players with extra storyline information.
For those who wish to tackle human opponents, Ensemble have naturally thrown in multiplayer options that work both over Xbox Live and via System Link. Multiplayer works how you'd expect it to. Matchmaking is fast and smooth, and RTS fans should be able to find plenty of opponents. Even though the game is only out in the PAL regions right now, it wasn't too difficult to find a game.
As far as the two races go, it has to be said that the UNSC has a clear advantage. The Covenant go for a "weak but many" tactic, but having a lot of units seems to just provide more targets for the gleaming UNSC machinery. The Covenant are definitely for more advanced players, and it's recommended that those less confident in their strategizing stick with the Spartans.
Co-op play is also included, but at the time of writing, it seems impossible to get one going. First of all, everybody is playing versus games, and secondly, trying to get a game set up with Dtoid reader Sup3rT3d led to nothing but "cannot connect" issues. Hopefully, other players won't have such problems.
As I said, there are a only a few faults with the game, but they are indeed there. First of all, the game feels rather limited, both by in-game restrictions and the obvious fact that everything is tied in with the established Halo fiction. The units on each side are not very varied, and while the extra customization options for each one are welcome, you never feel like you get much to play with. This is made even more apparent by the fact that army population sizes are quite small, even when you upgrade your forces to include more units. The game's omnipresent announcer will frequently have to inform you that you're at maximum capacity, so get used to it.
Halo Wars can also be pretty slow going as well. While RTS veterans will be used to the grinding accumulation of resources, the slow wait for supplies and power in order to build one's army doesn't really work with Halo Wars, which often impresses urgency upon the player. Many times you'll find yourself oppressed by enemy forces, but unable to fight back with glorious vengeance because your supply depots are slower than Lennie from Of Mice and Men. It can be quite frustrating, especially knowing how long it can take to replace your lost units.
One other major issue with the game is the horrible navigational map that just shows everything as a circle of cluttered brown mess. With so much going on during a standard mission, it's understandably difficult to create a map that reads clearly and informs the player of what's happening. However, this impossible creation doesn't even come close.
These issues aside, Halo Wars is a game that is sure to appeal to many. While individual unit selection is a bit tricky and the "Local Units" selection doesn't seem to want to limit itself to just on-screen allies, Ensemble did a decent job of making the title work with a restricted Xbox 360 controller. The simple, unambitious strategy gameplay should also succeed at warming hardcore Halo loyalists to a totally different genre, even if the game can get quite irritating on the higher difficulties.
It's aesthetically decent, the typically grand and pompous music is there, and the units, buildings and environments all look authentic. Fans will doubtless get a kick out of being able to organize a squad of Warthogs into running over defenseless Grunts. Visually and aurally, this is unmistakably a Halo game, one that follows the efforts of Bungie without ever betraying that it was born of another studio.
Whether or not you should buy this game really depends on how much you love Halo, something which I'm sure you could figure out for yourself. Hardline RTS players will not feel fulfilled by the streamlined gameplay, and those who never much cared for the exploits of Master Chief will not be dazzled by the fan service on offer. If you can't tell your Arbiter from your arsehole, then you probably won't want to spend the money. However, if you played the games, bought the novels and wore the T-shirts, you ought to be satisfied with money spent.
Halo Wars is good. I personally wouldn't pay sixty bucks for it, but I can't say it's bad.
Score: 7.0 -- Good(7s are solid games that definitely have an audience. Might lack replay value, could be too short or there are some hard-to-ignore faults, but the experience is fun.)
This is pretty much what I'd expected this game would become.
I'll stick with Civ Rev whenever I get the urge to play one of these games. I played halo because it was a fun shooter, not because the Halo universe was so appealing.
The video reviews are starting to get really impressive. Great job on those.
And as for the rest of the review, from what I played in the demo version I can't really disagree with the score or your final thoughts. It's an OK game, but I don't think I can spend a whole $60 on it even though I'm a die-hard Halo fan.
Title should read Jim Sterling Reviews: People Who Like Halo.
"You don't need to be a descendant of Sun Tzu to work this out."
Yes, because that is a relevant metric of whether I will enjoy the game. Is the multiplayer fun? How is the co-op? Are the races balanced and sufficiently distinct?
I guess I'll have to look for a review by someone who is trying to help gamers make informed purchases, rather than a douchebag grandstanding their dislike of Halo.
"I guess I'll have to look for a review by someone who is trying to help gamers make informed purchases, rather than a douchebag grandstanding their dislike of Halo."
If that means you're going to fuck off, then go for it, mate!
Good review... i've only played the demo...but it was a fun game. Not gonna lie, i'm not buying this though, i'll probably end up renting it down the road.
Like this is a great review for the campaign section of the game. I'm very interested in the multiplayer aspect. Will there be another review for that?
I think that's the only real way to have an RTS on console, and that interests a lot of people. A lot of the PC RTS games are far too intimidating for some, and they're just looking for an experience you can jump into.
I know we have a lot of Advanced War fans on this site. It isn't the deepest strategy game, but that's its appeal.
After spending the last few days with DoW 2 it makes me wonder if the Halo franchise would suit a more Tactical squad based approach. Take out base building and make it more about cover, flanking and general squad management and I think they could have a superb game.
I think it'd fit far better than a by the numbers RTS, but saying that I did enjoy the Halo wars Demo it got the basics right I suppose.
uhmmm quality is up but honestly Jim you should let someone else do the talking, I like brit accents but I dunno you have like zero emotion in when you talk and a bit too high pitch voice. There has to be someone in the staff that would be good for that, Dyson for example or Ash.
RTS have been shit ever since they moved to full 3D. Tell me what was wron with isometric. In every 3D RTS I always feel that I'm either to close or to far away from the battlefield and therefore can not control the game properly.
imo the best C&C was Red Alert 2, which coincidentally is the last one with isometric perspective. Oddly enough it also looks way better than Red Alert 3 does. a game that came out just last year. The only thing where RA3 does better is resolution.
So in short bring back the isometric perspective. That should also make the controls on a console much easier. And with all the 2D art one could pull off a graphical marvel instead of that blurry mess that we have now in RTS games.
Yet another attempt to move the RTS to the consoles fails to impress. Dawn of War II just came out, Empire: Total War just had a demo out, and the Starcraft 2 beta comes soon. I think we all know where to go to play strategy.
I love how all the people who bash Sterling are nobodies who are too lazy to even get avatars.
I kind of expected the game to be just a basic RTS game, actually, and I guess that's what it's going to be. I don't understand why a keyboard and mouse can't be used, seeing as how there are 2 lovely USB ports on the front of the system, but oh well.
Pedrovay, while I do think that yutt's comment was needlessly abrasive, he does make a good point about the MP aspects of this game not being addressed. To a hardcore RTS person, knowing if the races are balanced in MP is big determining factor in how good the game is. A little more discussion on the MP side of the game would always be great to have.
Also, when did a seven score warrant this kind of negative feedback. Some of the commenters here act as if the game is some sort of evil incarnate despite the fact that they have not touched the full game yet. Let's be honest here, is seven scoring game a true failure or do people here really have it out for the Halo franchise.
The Big J with another video review, I love it! It was funny, it was informative and it was fun. 'this is fun' lol. Ohhh poor Ensemble studios I wish they weren't being disbanded, I want another Age of Mythology!
@Power glove: it's an RTS-lite but it works well from the couch with a controller. The limitations are pretty easy to cope with if you are an RTS veteran. In fact they just require you to send out balanced screen-sized squads instead of building max units and then auto-attacking some map point :)
I dunno if I agree with the slow income being a factor for the gameplay though: you can easily just go for a strong economy while building a one-sided army. And after reaching around 20/30 unit cap, you can slow down the production to focus on upgrades. That would work very well in 3 vs. 3 games.
Sorry this game is crap take away the halo junk and this is just total war but with stupider graphics. I vomit at this garbage. Starcraft II FOR LIFEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
I enjoyed the game, 7 sounds about right Jim. The game suffers due to the 360 controller. It just isnt meant to play RTS games. They did an admirable job, but attempting unit special moves during large battles ends up being a huuuuge cluster fuck.
@sterling - This was a great video, it was funny and had your attitude all over it...nicely done my man and a much anticipated improvement. However, like some are saying, its more of an overview of the game rather than an actual review, its shorter than Yahtzee's 'zero punctuation', maybe you should come up with a different name for the segment. I would suggest something, but im pretty lame at this and i see you have a lot more skill at that.
Already paid off and reserved the limited edition with the new Halo 3 maps. A 7 is pretty much what I expected after playing the demo.
I'm pretty excited to play an RTS...I've only realy ever played a little Starcraft and a little C&C Red Alert. Since I suck at RTS games I welcome a shiney, dumbed down RTS with worthogs
Analitic: Glad you liked the new attitude. Actually, following your last comments, I rewrote and rerecorded the whole thing to give it more "character" so I'm pleased you noticed.
As far as the actual content, we're still striking the right balance. The trick is for the video and text to work together. I don't want one making the other redundant. We'll see how the next videos work, which should be a little longer and more in-depth.
OMFG. Jim, could you do a bigger ripoff of Ben 'Yahtzee' Crowshaws' video reviews if you tried? Pure Plaguerism, right down to the images and captions inserted throughout. Guys, if you havent already, check out the 'zero punctuation' section of the escapist http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation. Christ champ, dont copy the only well respected english video reviewer, do your own shit chump!Its undeniable. Or just tell me to 'fuck off' like you did to that other guy who just asked a few legitimate questions....and whats with the monacle??
Stewy: Yes, because I have an English accent I am totally plagiarizing Yahtzee. Are you kidding me? That's actually pretty offensive. If the person doing these videos was American I know you wouldn't say a damn thing.
I do not intend to be Yahtzee. These are meant to be proper review overviews, not comedy vids like ZP. I mean, I was expecting people to bring up the ZP card because I'm English, but it's still sad to see.
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