Review: Halo Wars

[xXGeckoXx]

Hmmm, makes you wonder if the Wiimote is any better suited for the job. I've been amazed how much easier it is to aim with the thing in an FPS.

I know.....glitches and all the james bond game showed me how easy sniping can be.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Is it really that implausible to you that aiming with a TV remote isn't more efficient and easier than using a mouse? It's practically the same act.

The main difference is how you hold the device. Aiming at the TV with a wii remote generally precludes resting it on a surface, and a lot of the movement is wrist movement, rather than forearm/finger movement as with mouse controls. Depending on your muscle memory and general familiarity with the control scheme, you might well find one easier than the other.

That said, I didn't have significant trouble with aiming in Red Steel, but it was nowhere near as precise as when I used to regularly play PC FPS's and was the official headshot demon with Half-Life's crossbow on our LAN games.

 

[electric discordian]

I really enjoyed the demo of Halo wars and I am an RTS junkie too, I however have never played a single Halo game except this one and I cant aim for toffee with a 360 remote. However I did notice something with the AI skirmish game even at the highest difficulty you cannot loose if you take the right steps. The method is the same no matter how hard the AI setting an will always lead to a victory. So that isnt great but thats the only problem I have found.

 

[joystickjunki3]

Essentially how I felt while playing the tutorial, but I wasn't as harsh in my criticisms.

 

[SirSchmoopy]

RTS is about speed and micro managing. You simply cannot do it, or it has not been proven you can on any console RTS games. The demo is alright but I play RTS's for the players not the single player campaign.

Ehhh.. I'll wait on picking up this one. Too many other games to play and I would prefer a PC port.

 

[KamikazeSailor]

It's not a question of whether an RTS would be "better" on a PC - that's pretty much a given. First-person shooters are easier to control with a mouse and keyboard as well, but that fact hasn't stopped me from enjoying about a decade's worth of console FPSs. The question is whether a gamepad is "good enough" to feel like you have an adequate sense of control over the action in an RTS, and in my experience, it isn't.

I can understand that. I can even understand you focusing on that because for you that's the deal-breaker, but why didn't you cover the things the people playing it would want/need to know? I mean, you do understand a lot of people plan to play this game regardless of whether or not Halo Wars solves the "RTS On a Console" problem, right? So where's the information on in-depth strategy, what makes the leaders different or even how good the campaign is? Why not talk about the question of how well the game will be supported with the new Robot Entertainment over the old Ensemble Studios? These are basic questions that probably should've been answered in this review.

It just seems less like an actual review and more like the review supplement for Susan Arndt's video supplement. The video went into more detail on the actual game than you did.

 

[ParkourMcGhee]

Let me get this straight: an RTS made exclusively for a console? I am lost for words at the idiocy of Microsoft. Not only have they resurfaced all those ideas that were scratched from the original but they ALSO stick to the tradition of promoting their only console because enough stuff is on the PC already? I don't think this bastard-child of all bad ideas is getting anywhere to be honest.

It doesn't look great, has a bad control set, and xbox360 only. I give it the thumbs down.

 

[hamster mk 4]

I recall an interview with Bungie along time ago (pre Halo 1 release) where the developers were originally envisioning Halo as an RTS. Of course this was before the company was bought out by Microsoft and their product made the flagship of a whole console line. If this ever gets released on the PC I hope Bungie does an adequate port. The Halo 1 PC port was less than satisfying.

 

[SuperPartyRobot]

I'm actually surprised MS didn't release the collector's edition with a compatible MS keyboard and mouse and charge $200 for it. I'm sure tons of folks would have bought it.

A game, a mouse, a keyboard and some add on content for the price of the console. Sounds about rightfor MS.

Just like the USB wireless adapter that costs half the price of the console. AWESOME!

 

[Slycne]

I recall an interview with Bungie along time ago (pre Halo 1 release) where the developers were originally envisioning Halo as an RTS. Of course this was before the company was bought out by Microsoft and their product made the flagship of a whole console line. If this ever gets released on the PC I hope Bungie does an adequate port. The Halo 1 PC port was less than satisfying.

Bungie actually had very little to do with this title. The game was developed by Ensemble Studios, most known for the Age of Empires series.

 

[lizards]

God this game is a joke. You cant play rts on consoles. You need the precision of a mouse and the speed of a keyboard for the game to not insanely slow and boring. This game would fail hard if it didn't have halo plastered on the cover to lure all the fan boys into a crap ass game.

ok first of all i dont play halo secondly im guessing that you havent played halo wars

i like it but im taking an a guess here and saying people like the above quote havent played it and simply want to bash it cause its halo or bash it because its a console rts

 

[PauL o_O]

The video isn't playing for me...

 

[lizards]

RTS is about speed and micro managing. You simply cannot do it, or it has not been proven you can on any console RTS games. The demo is alright but I play RTS's for the players not the single player campaign.

Ehhh.. I'll wait on picking up this one. Too many other games to play and I would prefer a PC port.

no an rts is about tactics you dont need to tell your soldiers to throw a grenade because they should without you telling them to

 

[Link55557]

As someone born and raised on PC RTS games (Starcraft 2 BETTER NOT SUCK), I found this to be entirely playable. The controls worked well and I hardly noticed that the xbox controller was there. It felt natural, like a keyboard and mouse.

 

[Slycne]

The video isn't playing for me...

Video Help [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/help] if that doesn't help there is a contact link to get in touch with out Tech Dept.

 

[Evil Scotsman]

For a series that probably never had an RTS in mind, the standard roster of Covenant and UNSC units are well adapted to this style of gameplay.

Actually, Halo CE was originally an RTS for the Mac, then Microsoft got it and Bungie decided to change it to an FPS.

o0 can u prove this?

 

[ultimatechance]

It's not a question of whether an RTS would be "better" on a PC - that's pretty much a given.

true, but you also said "Halo Wars will probably make for a decent PC RTS someday if Microsoft decides to port it" as your bottom line, which not only disregards everything else in the game to sum it up, but ironically answers that very question.

 

[Anton P. Nym]

For a series that probably never had an RTS in mind, the standard roster of Covenant and UNSC units are well adapted to this style of gameplay.

Actually, Halo CE was originally an RTS for the Mac, then Microsoft got it and Bungie decided to change it to an FPS.

o0 can u prove this?

There's footage of early test of Halo in its very early RTS form in the documentary "The Evolution of Halo" [http://www.bungie.org/evolutionlargemirrors/], narrated by Bungie staff. (Link goes to a list of mirror sites for downloading. The video is rather large; sorry, I don't have a link to a streaming version.)

-- Steve

 

[Evil Scotsman]

For a series that probably never had an RTS in mind, the standard roster of Covenant and UNSC units are well adapted to this style of gameplay.

Actually, Halo CE was originally an RTS for the Mac, then Microsoft got it and Bungie decided to change it to an FPS.

o0 can u prove this?

There's footage of early test of Halo in its very early RTS form in the documentary "The Evolution of Halo" [http://www.bungie.org/evolutionlargemirrors/], narrated by Bungie staff. (Link goes to a list of mirror sites for downloading. The video is rather large; sorry, I don't have a link to a streaming version.)

-- Steve

thanks