Halo Wars Review

Written by: Darren Cartledge Posted: 31st March 2009

Share:

Digg It

We get strategic in the Halo universe.

Halo Wars Details:

	Strategy
	Xbox 360
	Ensemble Studios
	Microsoft

16+

Out Now

1-16

The Halo franchise has gathered a huge following of fans over the years, and it’s fair to say many fans would love a sequel to Halo 3. However, Microsoft has decided to bring us a prequel to the Master Chief’s exploits and in the form of a real-time strategy game.

Halo Wars is set twenty years before the original Halo game. Players assume the role of Sergeant John Forge and the crew of the USNC “Spirit of Fire” as they engage in some of the early battles of the Human-Covenant War. After the discovery of an ancient artefact on the planet Harvest, a chase across the galaxy ensues to discover what the Covenant is up to.

Halo Wars is very much a strategy game in the styling of the Command & Conquer series and Ensembles very own Age of Empire games. Base building is often a requirement for success in missions in Halo Wars. Although it has been kept very simple with areas where bases can be built highlighted on the game map and the various different parts of your base generating from one of several slots. Whilst this approach helps keep the gameplay streamlined! Allowing the player to focus on the battles, it is very restrictive.

Like similar strategy games, Halo Wars requires resources in order for you to reinforce your troops build new vehicles, building and research new upgrades and so on. This is handled automatically by the game, as resources are sent down from the Spirit of Fire once you have built a landing pad on your base. This again allows you to focus on completing the mission objectives and commanding your troops instead of worrying about whether or not you have enough resources to replenish your army after a battle.

Battles in the game are fairly intense, the Covenant will regularly reinforce their positions as well as make raids on your base. However, the AI can be a little hit and miss as enemies will often wonder in to heavily defended areas. The game AI also seems to be territorial, as enemies will simply let you retreat instead of finishing you off when they have the chance. This does detract from the games challenge as you can quickly retreat to a safe position to replenish your forces if things aren’t going your way.

The games interface is pretty simple and very easy to get to grips with. It features a series of pop-up menus that allow you to select to build the unit of your choice by pressing one of the directional buttons. Support items can also be called in, in the same way and these include the ability to heal all your units in a selected radius and so on. The game controls aren’t perfect however, as the pointer is rather large which makes unit selection something of a headache when other units are close by. But apart from this slight annoyance the game works well.

Halo Wars features a lot of back story on the Halo universe and many references and units that appear in Bungie’s first person shooter also make appearances in Halo Wars, including Warthogs, Spartans and Scorpions tanks. It’s not just UNSC forces that Halo fans will find familiar as Covenant forces are also all featured in the game. This approach will make the game highly appealing to Halo fans. However gamers looking for a compelling strategy game maybe left a little disappointed. Not because the game is bad! It’s simply too easy! As resources are sent down automatically you never run out and can soon acquire enough to allow you to build a massive army, research every upgrade and so on. This coupled with the fact that enemy AI is fairly easy going really makes the playing experience somewhat limited to strategy fans.

Visually the game looks great! Units featured in other Halo games are all instantly recognisable and feature a good level of details. The games maps are fairly varied and see you fighting in cities, snowy mountains and wastelands. The games camera is excellent and can be swivelled round, and zoomed in and out with ease. Cut-scenes in the game are absolutely brilliant! Animation and facial expressions are flawless whilst settings and character models are all highly detailed.

The games sound design is also pretty, voice acting in cut-scenes is performed admirably, which the games sound effects during play are all very fitting to the Halo universe. The games soundtrack is probably the strongest of the games sound design and this again, ties in with other music styling in the Halo series.

On the whole Halo Wars may not be the most solid real-time strategy game offering little challenge to strategy fans! However, fans of the Halo series will love the game purely because of the nostalgia and back story on offer!