|
In the big gaping void that is the end of the Halo trilogy, Microsoft has been hard at work on a few attempts to quickly fill out the franchise to strike while it's hot, if you will. One such attempt is Halo: Recon, now known as Halo 3: ODST, which is a typical expansion that will have you taking the role of someone who isn't Master Chief, which should be an interesting shift. The other attempt is Halo Wars, bringing RTS gameplay to the Halo 'verse.
Halo Wars takes place before the Halo event, when the Spartans are still around and kicking and the war is still a bit fair between the two sides. The humans have finally taken back Harvest, a major planet in the campaign, and soon battle erupts around a Forerunner artifact. The demo, which hits Thursday, offers a short tutorial two missions of the start of the human campaign, and a single map to play 1 vs 1 on.
Find out what I thought after the jump.
With the cinematics and general flavor, this is very much a Halo game. It’s got all the flare, the tone, the enemies that we’re all familiar with. It has that quirky subdued sense of humor, and the feeling that taking out an enemy stronghold really is a triumph. This thing will offer a lot of flavor for the Halo fan, which should smooth the transition in gameplay.
 The game plays exactly like any RTS; you move groups around to shoot at other groups, you have a base that you use to upgrade units and create more, there are leaders and objectives, etc. The game has more of an emphasis on combat rather than economy management, as every unit is meant to go toe-to-toe with your enemies, including your leaders. To assist this, they've narrowed your base of operation to a single building with a set number of spaces for add-ons. The add-ons determine the resources you get each second, what units you can bring along and your technology level, which forces you to choose wisely when you build to fill in those seven spaces. It’s a clever way to keep the player’s bases manageable on the console.
When you consider the itty-bitty building space combined with your relatively low unit cap, you can see this game as a faster and more actiony counterpart to the usual RTS, although it still feels pretty RTSy, without bringing anything special. The units are a lot less fidgety than in normal RTS's, most only having one special power that are difficult to trigger effectively. The game also suffers from the controls. The camera is obnoxiously rigid, preventing you from getting a good view of the action, and it’s difficult to micromanage your army with only a few buttons to work with and no GUI to speak of. Other RTS's have made the leap to console pretty successfully, making the game seem a bit weak in comparison.
It’s still worth a try though, because while it gives you a pretty narrow pool, the skirmish mode shows that it still runs pretty deep with a great number of strategies and methodology available. We just won’t be able to tell if the interface can handle them all. If you’re a Halo fan, check this out. If you’d like a lighter RTS, give this a try. But hardcore RTS fans may find this just a little lacking.
|
Subscribe to this comment's feed
