In 2001, there was a killer app whose beginnings were entirely different than what the final, successful product actually was. The small development studio known as Bungie had their intent to create a science-fiction real-time strategy game for play on Windows and Macintosh computer systems and unveiled this product, known as Halo, in 1999. As it turned out, Halo launched in 2001 on the new Microsoft Xbox console as a first-person shooter. Despite the development and release confusion, Halo invigorated the genre and has since been considered one of the best and most important games in the genre. It sequels generated some of the biggest launch events in gaming history, and to this day, Halo 3 is still one of the most popular video games to play online with other people. Its story was further developed by novels that explained events that happened before the Xbox's smash hit. What does all this mean? Well, quite simply, there was a legacy built. As always, gamers eventually felt the obligatory craving for “more”.
Enter Ensemble Studios. They took that rich back-story and decided to return to Halo's roots when they created the first Halo spin-off; Halo Wars. This real-time strategy game uses Halo's background history to tell the stories of the UNSC and the alien Covenant race as they were before the ring world of Halo was even discovered. Rather than playing from the perspective of a single super-soldier with the hefty task of saving humanity, Halo Wars focuses on a broader experience. The player is immersed into the world with the ability to create and command entire armies, waging large-scale wars against the Covenant using strategic tactics to do so. The ammo conservation and weapon selection of Halo is essentially replaced with population balancing, resource gathering, and unit structuring in Halo Wars.
While the hardcore Halo fan might be disappointed that their latest Halo fix isn't another campaign against the Covenant from the perspective of SPARTAN-117, Halo Wars does a great job of using the Halo source material to create an entirely different and effective gaming experience. Does that mean that every Halo fan can find enjoyment in the directing of multiple units, rescuing of other squads, and the utilization of creating and managing an effective base?
All units: hit the jump to find out.
Halo Wars takes place in 2531; twenty years before the Pillar of Autumn stumbled upon the ring world Halo and began the crusade against the Covenant on its surface. In Halo Wars, the Covenant discover something big on the human planet Harvest – and they attack the race in full force. The UNSC retaliates, sending the ship known as the “Spirit of Fire” on missions to eliminate the alien threat and figure out what their intentions are. You assume the role of Sergeant Forge, who commands the Spirit of Fire ground force. Your missions have you working alongside Captain Cutter, the commanding officer of the Spirit of Fire, Professor Anders, and the ship's “Smart A.I.”, Serina. The cast is interesting and the cinematic scenes that take place between missions map out the story very well. Not only are they beautiful in appearance (this is seriously some of the best CG work I've seen), they convey the emotion of the game brilliantly – whether it is an interaction between two of the UNSC characters or a battle scene on the ground. These are all very interesting characters to observe, and I will say that I think Serina is a great stand-in for Halo's other A.I. mistress, Cortana. While she doesn't have the personality that Cortana is famous for, she has a certain draw of her own and makes some very notable remarks when she doesn't agree with what Captain Cutter or Professor Anders are doing.
The CG scenes in Halo Wars are some of the best I've ever seen. Here we see Sgt. Forge scoping out the Covenant.
There are fifteen missions in Halo Wars, and many of them will put you into a heated situation with only a limited number of resources or troops to work with. Each mission has a main objective, and there are often secondary objectives to complete as well. Most of the time you will have to establish a base at a predetermined location and develop your combat force from scratch. You'll often start off with a Firebase, which has a handful of “slots” that you can use to create other helpful structures. You will usually need to use some of these slots to build supply stations that generate resources automatically. You can eventually upgrade these stations to increase your material output. You'll also have to create reactors, which increase your research level and allow you to create more sophisticated buildings and generate better troops. Of course, there are buildings that allow you to expand your army. Barracks allow you to deploy infantry units, vehicle stations construct Scorpion tanks and other armored vehicles, and air bases let you strengthen your air support with Hornets.
After increasing your “tech level” with reactors, you can upgrade your units to have other specialties. This is where the field armory is most useful; you can increase your army population or research better turrets that protect your base from hostiles while you are busy with your objectives. You can also upgrade specific units through their home structure; for example, you can pull up a menu while accessing the vehicle depot and select an option that upgrades the Scorpion's main gun with a powerful Canister Shell ability. Through the air base, you can upgrade Hornets so that they can carry additional Marines for added fire support. The main base is responsible for generating Warthog units, and these can be upgraded many times: initially you can add the machine gun turret, then a grenadier, and finally a gauss cannon for more attack and defense power. Upgrading your units is essential in some missions; even changing your base turrets from their standard form to a missile launcher can protect you from different kinds of threats.
Halo Wars' battle system has a rock-paper-scissors style: Infantry beats air, air beats vehicles, vehicles beat infantry.
While it isn't necessarily a problem, Halo Wars offers less freedom than the RTS games that are so popular on PCs. For example, the Firebase locations are mapped out and predetermined for each mission. You can't just establish a base wherever you want; therefore there is some linearity in the mission structure. The slots surrounding the Firebase are always attached to it, including the turret slots, so you can't set up the base and spread out the building placement like you can in other games. Turrets are always located around the corners of the base, and you can usually only support four – it isn't possible to plant a turret around the outside of the base, cutting off a pathway or entry point to the compound. This linear structure creates a situation where you don't necessarily have to do everything “right” to get through the mission, but doing things in the right order makes it much easier to achieve success and earn Silver or Gold medals.
Here we see the Elephant unit, which can spawn infantry forces and provide fire support with its equipped chaingun.
There are other objectives in each mission that are optional and require you to kill a certain number of enemies. These objectives, when completed, unlock a Skull that can be collected in typical Halo fashion. For example, in one mission you have to kill 20 Jackal snipers. In another, you have to take out 100 Sentinel units. There are also Black Boxes that can be found in each level, and finding these unlocks chapters of the Halo story in Halo War's “Halo Timeline” menu. Last of all, each mission has a special objective that unlocks an Achievement. In one mission you have to locate and escort a helpless young boy to an evacuation shuttle. In another, you have to shut off a Covenant energy bridge to kill enemy troops that are standing on it. These Achievements are unique to each level and aren't usually defined for you, so unlocking them requires you to think of every option in the level and test the waters with different things rather than doing the standard routine. These optional objectives extend the play time quite a bit and encourage that you revisit each level multiple times. Additionally, there are Achievements for playing through the campaign on Legendary difficulty or with a friend in co-op mode; so potentially you might end up playing through the game several times just to unlock these.
One of the best things about Halo Wars is that it isn't difficult for anyone to play. This is particularly important when considering that the biggest audience for the game comes directly from Halo, which is a completely different kind of game with a very different method of control. Moving around and viewing the battle area is easy thanks to simple camera control, whose sensitivity can easily be adjusted at any time in the game's options menu. Selecting units is also simple; if you want to select a single unit, an “area” of units, all “local” (on-screen) units, or all units, it is a matter of pressing or holding just a couple of buttons. Selecting a single unit or creating a “range” of selection is done with the A button, so that is easy enough. The left bumper selects all units, while the right bumper selects your local units. There is absolutely nothing difficult about that. Once you have units selected, you direct them with the X button. If you press the X button while the cursor is hovering over a patch of land, your units will travel there. Press X while highlighting an enemy, and your units will travel toward that opponent and attack. Easy as pie. If you want to utilize your special abilities, you simply press the Y button while highlighting an enemy. For example, if you want to quickly take out a group of Grunts and you have a Warthog selected, you can use its “Ram” ability with the Y button to run over them.
One of Halo Wars' strongest qualities is that it is easy to play, so this little army of Covenant isn't impossible to eliminate.
The only major problem that is presented with Halo Wars' control scheme is the difficulty in setting apart different task forces. The game operates in a very arcade-style way, so it is more difficult to separate and direct multiple groups than it would be on a PC where you can point and click with a mouse. I usually had more success directing my entire army toward the same place rather than trying to manage two or three different groups. Fortunately, this worked in my favor most of the time if I just don't try to break things up too much. There really isn't much of a need to separate different squads in most of the missions, although if it was easier to do so, beating some of them would have been much simpler.
Perhaps the best quality about Halo Wars, one that makes it so accessible to Halo fans, is its presentation. I mentioned the cinematic scenes earlier, but there is more to it than that: for a RTS-type game, this is really as “Halo” as it gets. The graphics are designed so that the environments and the architecture look like they were ripped straight out of the original trilogy. Even the game menus look like the ones from Halo 3. The units, up close, animate exactly like they should. The Covenant looks great in action, particularly the destructive Scarabs that lay waste to human forces like nobody's business. Sometimes the methane tanks on the backs of the Grunts explode when they go down. The waves of parasitic Flood enemies (yup, they're back) are enormous and appear as vile and disgusting as they should. Huge battles between the different units are chaotic and, for the most part, run very smoothly without hitches in the game's frame rate. There are just dozens of little touches that contribute to an overall appearance that is very satisfying to the Halo fan. Not only does everything look great, but even better, it sounds just like a Halo game should. The familiar sounds of shotgun blasts and plasma fire are only covered up by the familiar battle cries of the Covenant and the sounds of Warthogs driving or Scorpions firing their cannons. All of this is supported even more by great voice acting and dialog between the main characters, which is delivered very well and makes the story's presentation even smoother. Overall, this is an experience that the typical Halo fan can embrace and enjoy – at least from a presentable standpoint.
As you can see here, the architecture in Halo Wars is as "Halo" as it can possibly be.
Does all of this mean that Halo Wars is for everybody? Certainly not. While I think that any Halo fan owes it to himself or herself to see what Halo Wars is all about, I would be lying to you if I said it was a game that absolutely every Halo player will enjoy. Halo Wars demands a lot more of one's attention than the frantic shooting and throwing of grenades in Halo 3. I personally had a difficult time getting into the swing of the game at first, but once I did, I really enjoyed it. This might not be a universal quality about the game, however. Some Halo fans really won't be able to efficiently expand their realm of control to an entire army. Remember, this is a game about effective management and unit direction. I definitely feel like Halo fans should try the demo of Halo Wars before buying it; fortunately it is found easily on Xbox Live. Typical RTS fans should enjoy Halo Wars, although they might criticize it for not being quite as deep or well-managed as some of the genre's greatest titles found on PCs.
At the very least, Halo Wars takes the Halo world and makes it into a very effective console RTS. It nails the control mechanics very well for the most part, while delivering the sights and sounds of the Halo legacy perfectly. The story is as interesting as Halo has ever been, even without Cortana and the Master Chief. The missions are really enjoyable and the game's Achievements beg for them to be replayed. When all of that wears thin, there is a Skirmish mode for 1v1, 2v2, and 3v3 battles as well as online matchmaking through Xbox Live. Unlocking pieces of the Halo Timeline is interesting and gives you additional insight about the Halo universe. Overall, Halo Wars is a success. While it might not be what some Halo fans are looking for, it sets a standard for future console strategy games and does the best with its source matter that it can. For that, I commend Ensemble Studios. It isn't easy to take something so beloved as Halo and turn it into something completely different, but they did it very well.
Final Score: B+
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