Ok, first off, anyone who bought Halo Wars hoping for the Halo expirence will be sadly displeased. Halo Wars is an RTS game, and although you still get the feel of Halo lore while comanding marines and spartans to attack a Covenant army, it will not give the feel of the future-set FPS we all love.
Now then, I'm going to break this review down to 3 points: Campaign, Multiplayer,and Gameplay.
(Please don't hate me for misspelled words, I am very sleepy)
1. Campaign (Spoilers are contained below)
The Campaign takes the role of Sergent Forge, a lead Sergent in the UNSC and has a kick-ass guass warthog. You start by rescuing soldiers that belong to Alpha Base. However, this action quickly accelerates into sieging, skirmishing, defending, and resuce. It's a really great wide spread of different situations. However, the story seems a little jumpy, what with you saving stranded soldiers on a flood infested planet, to assulting a huge Covenant stronghold. The storyline can also be a little difficult to follow if you're not watching the cutscenes. (Which I didn't my first time through). Also, the part where the power core comes in is completely outlandish to most players unless you've been following the cutscenes with a pen and notebook. It's a fun campaign which you can probably beat within 10 hours on the easy and normal settings. I haven't beaten it on Herioc or Legendary yet, so no word on that timeline. The soldiers given to you in each mission will almost never be enough, so you have to build your own base and army, giving great chances for customazation, so if you approach each mission in a different way then the last time, there's alot of replay value.
Campaign Score 8/10
2. Multiplayer
Let me just start off by saying the Multiplayer in Halo Wars is like any other RTS games, with some twists and turns for advanced players. Most maps are the same, with 2 bases on each side, and with minor variations for each map. For example, there is one map that allows you to purchase sentenials to assist in the combat, and another map that houses reactors that people can come and claim. Onto leader powers. Leader powers and specific things that you didn't normally use in Campaign. For Captain Cutter it's the MAC Blast (which is better for taking down buildings and vehicals), for Forge it's the carpet bomb (which is better for taking down units), and for Anders, it's the Cryo Bomb (which is better for taking down aircraft). The Covenant down have leader powers, but leaders themselves, such as the Arbiter, and the Prophet of Regret. Each have their own special attack, which, if used the right way, can be utterly devestating. However, after playing about 5 games of Multiplayer it gets a little boring, so if you want to keep it fun, try out a new tactic (even though rushing has always been the most effective). It's fun for the first few times, but after playing around with the leaders and tactics (namely about 25 games) you'll lose interest in it. Unlike that of the FPS Halo, where every match is a new expirence.
Multiplayer Score 7/10
3. Gameplay
I'll be talking about 2 things in here. 1. how easy is it to control? 2. how well does this RTS play on the Xbox?
1. The game has pretty easy to use controls, even though the local-unit global-unit thing is a little hard to control and sometimes a pain if it's part of your tactic. If your army is too big for local selection, but you want to leave some units back at your base, your only option is the paint brush tool, which moves too fast to select units accurately. There's also the Covenant Hot-Drop matter. When I move unit to the pad, it should understand that I want them to go through, not to wait on the pad for the next order. So you have to re-order them to go on the pad. But I'm just cherry picking, in the grand sceme of things the controls do handle fairly well and it shouldn't take very long before you have them memorized.
2. People have been concerned that the move of putting an RTS on the Xbox, rather than the computer, would be a risky shift, and that it might not play well at all. Well, you can clear up those concerns, because I have to say, Halo Wars is one of the most intuitive with it's control design. True, it won't move as smoothly as if you were on a PC, but it's still a really easy to use and really well done controller. However, tactics for advanced players, such as flanking, gureilla warfare, and run and gun will be hard to manuver on the Xbox, but for basic accesiblity, it gets the thumbs up.
Gameplay: 9/10
TOTAL SCORE: 8/10
RECOMMENDED: YES
Review by Julian Lareau
Gamertag: Emendo5
If you want to play Halo Wars sometime, send me an inv!
Now then, I'm going to break this review down to 3 points: Campaign, Multiplayer,and Gameplay.
(Please don't hate me for misspelled words, I am very sleepy)
1. Campaign (Spoilers are contained below)
The Campaign takes the role of Sergent Forge, a lead Sergent in the UNSC and has a kick-ass guass warthog. You start by rescuing soldiers that belong to Alpha Base. However, this action quickly accelerates into sieging, skirmishing, defending, and resuce. It's a really great wide spread of different situations. However, the story seems a little jumpy, what with you saving stranded soldiers on a flood infested planet, to assulting a huge Covenant stronghold. The storyline can also be a little difficult to follow if you're not watching the cutscenes. (Which I didn't my first time through). Also, the part where the power core comes in is completely outlandish to most players unless you've been following the cutscenes with a pen and notebook. It's a fun campaign which you can probably beat within 10 hours on the easy and normal settings. I haven't beaten it on Herioc or Legendary yet, so no word on that timeline. The soldiers given to you in each mission will almost never be enough, so you have to build your own base and army, giving great chances for customazation, so if you approach each mission in a different way then the last time, there's alot of replay value.
Campaign Score 8/10
2. Multiplayer
Let me just start off by saying the Multiplayer in Halo Wars is like any other RTS games, with some twists and turns for advanced players. Most maps are the same, with 2 bases on each side, and with minor variations for each map. For example, there is one map that allows you to purchase sentenials to assist in the combat, and another map that houses reactors that people can come and claim. Onto leader powers. Leader powers and specific things that you didn't normally use in Campaign. For Captain Cutter it's the MAC Blast (which is better for taking down buildings and vehicals), for Forge it's the carpet bomb (which is better for taking down units), and for Anders, it's the Cryo Bomb (which is better for taking down aircraft). The Covenant down have leader powers, but leaders themselves, such as the Arbiter, and the Prophet of Regret. Each have their own special attack, which, if used the right way, can be utterly devestating. However, after playing about 5 games of Multiplayer it gets a little boring, so if you want to keep it fun, try out a new tactic (even though rushing has always been the most effective). It's fun for the first few times, but after playing around with the leaders and tactics (namely about 25 games) you'll lose interest in it. Unlike that of the FPS Halo, where every match is a new expirence.
Multiplayer Score 7/10
3. Gameplay
I'll be talking about 2 things in here. 1. how easy is it to control? 2. how well does this RTS play on the Xbox?
1. The game has pretty easy to use controls, even though the local-unit global-unit thing is a little hard to control and sometimes a pain if it's part of your tactic. If your army is too big for local selection, but you want to leave some units back at your base, your only option is the paint brush tool, which moves too fast to select units accurately. There's also the Covenant Hot-Drop matter. When I move unit to the pad, it should understand that I want them to go through, not to wait on the pad for the next order. So you have to re-order them to go on the pad. But I'm just cherry picking, in the grand sceme of things the controls do handle fairly well and it shouldn't take very long before you have them memorized.
2. People have been concerned that the move of putting an RTS on the Xbox, rather than the computer, would be a risky shift, and that it might not play well at all. Well, you can clear up those concerns, because I have to say, Halo Wars is one of the most intuitive with it's control design. True, it won't move as smoothly as if you were on a PC, but it's still a really easy to use and really well done controller. However, tactics for advanced players, such as flanking, gureilla warfare, and run and gun will be hard to manuver on the Xbox, but for basic accesiblity, it gets the thumbs up.
Gameplay: 9/10
TOTAL SCORE: 8/10
RECOMMENDED: YES
Review by Julian Lareau
Gamertag: Emendo5
If you want to play Halo Wars sometime, send me an inv!
