Halo Wars Review

Yay! Finally, as I promised, the Halo Wars review.

The first thing that people might think when heard the word Halo (other than it being a extremely drawn out franchise) is the story, hence, the thing I'll start with. The story is amazing, you would never think that this story would be for an RTS, because usually with an RTS, the story is the last thing that the developers worry about, but nope not Ensemble.The thing is, there really isn't a twist that you won't expect other than (spoiler maybe?) the contact with the flood, because the first contact with flood was supposed to take place in Halo: CE. This game takes place before Halo: CE, I don't know the exact date, but you get the general time. Next is the Game play ie: controls, feel. The controls are extremely simple, as a hardcore RTS fan going into this game, it was a little bit tough and maybe a little bit too simple. There isn't an extremely strategic element to it, such as in Command an Conquer Red Alert 3, there were tactical things that you can do like move you troops to a spot while they face the enemy so they are going backwards and they have more defense and blah blah blah. No, none of that here. Just get a krapload of money, pump out as many troops as you can, and "Zerg Rush". You can be tactical, such as flanking enemies on each side, and pairing you aircraft with anti-aircraft, anti-vehicle, and anti-troop units to make an unstoppable force, but who does that. This game is all about who can rush who. The controls are, once again, simple (for the layout just look at the Halo Wars demo impressions). It is definitely the console RTS that Ensemble claimed it to be, and probably the best console RTS out there, as of right now. Now the Graphics in-game are not really that impressive, Command an Conquer 3 has better quality in-game graphics than Halo Wars. But, the thing that is un-matched by any game out on the market, in my opinion, is the cut-scene graphics. If you can make a movie jsut with cut scenes from Halo Wars, you just made the best CG Sci-Fi movie in the world. The cut scenes are very deep and detailed. Alot of the story depends on the cut scene quality, because if the cut scenes were just tacked on, the story would seem boring an incomprehesive (I admit I have no idea what that word means, but it sounds smart). The lighting is also something the developer did very well. If you would look closely the lighting effects are very detailed, even down to the shiny hood of a Warthog. One map (I'm not going to attempt to put a name on it) has, not exactly real time, but it does have a day and night cycle. The mutiplayer is also superb for an RTS game on the console. The Co-op campaign is where its at. They do alot of really cool stuff in the campaign for co-op and single player. In co-op you can give your buddy your troops, but you can't in single player. You can also collect skulls, which you can use in campaign and private multiplayer and single player matches. The mutiplayer is very fun. There is 1v1 2v2 3v3 and ditto with deatmatch game type (in which you already have a whole bunch of supplies and a limited amount of unit space, but as you build more bases, your unit limit expands). The objective for multiplayer is; coordinate with you team to , once again, rush you opponent before they rush you. In 1v1 your alone and, you guessed it, rush your enemy before he/she rushes you (remember; a good defense is a good offense (turrets ar'nt good defense though)). Overall this is a high quality game with alot to stand up for, which it has as a good console RTS. The good things are the controls, multi player, and cut scenes. The let downs is the somewhat confusing story, the in-game visuals, camera, and if you are a hardcore RTS player, don't expect to be very good at this game on you first try, it'll take a while. So Halo Wars for the Xbox 360 gets a 8.5 out of 10.