Halo Wars is an rts game set in the halo universe, developed by the now defunct Ensemble Studios. Its a prequel to Combat Evolved, set during the battle between humanity and the Covenant for control of the planet Harvest. There is a new cast of characters, but the set up of the story is similar to the previous Halo games.
The story centres on the crew of the ship Spirit of Fire, which is basically the same as the Pillar of Autumn. Captain Cutter is in command of the vessel, and Sgt. Forge takes the role of the main character during the game. The story revolves around the Covenant unearthing ancient Forerunner technology which could doom humanity, so the Spirit of Fire needs to prevent their success. The Flood make a completely unjustified appearance, and the entire plot of the Covenants intent to gain Forerunner weapons is extremely wearisome and derived from the other games. It might as well be another Halo ring, because it feels just as jaded. The cast of characters are generic, with Cutter being a mentor like figure, Forge being the action hero and Professor Anders being the love interest and damsel in distress. There is even an equivalent of Cortana in the game, named Serina, though she lacks all the charm of Cortana. The characters are one-dimensional, and their interactions don't make them nearly as likable as the banter you regularly got between Master Chief and Cortana in the previous Halo games.
The events of the story fall apart when scrutinised. The Spirit of Fire leaves its post in the middle of military operation to pursue a relatively small Covenant force because the Covenant have captured a single human scientist. Cutter does not inform his commanders, he just goes. The entry of the Flood doesn't make huge sense, and the Forerunner technology does not cause any of the human characters to be surprised or aghast. Its bizarre and disjointed, and is a really disappointing story. The ending in particular is atrocious, with a very basic structure that is a near identical replica of the other games.
The visuals of Halo Wars are ok, with the CG cutscenes being the highpoint of the game. There are some great moments done in these scenes, and Halo fans will get serviced by some of the fights. The in-game graphics lack some detail, but look serviceable. They are definately nothing special, and a lot of the maps seem a bit empty. Lighting is ok, but its a very forgettable game visually.
The music of Halo Wars is excellent. The typical style of tracks for Halo are back, and the new ones capture some of the moments in the game really well. The voice acting is another matter, with character interactions ranging from cheesy to out right annoying. The script is poor and fails to develop any of the characters, and the voice actors could clearly only work with what they were given.
The core game play is pure rts, giving players who are playing solely for the Halo branding a nasty shock. The major obstacle to console rts games has been the controls, and Halo Wars does a lot of stuff to surmount this problem. You generate resources transparently in dedicated supply buildings. There are no worker drones or static gold mines to hassle with. Buildings go into preset slots that spiral from your main base, so you don't have to fiddle with building placement. In terms of the basic rules, the game feels nicely streamlined. This makes it a more accessible game to the player and limits the amount of things you will have to do with the controller. Ensemble smartly decided to keep the game simple, with only rts basics.
Halo Wars' unit management gets by on a minimum of controller shortcuts, offering only basic methods of selecting, grouping, and controlling units. You are able to select all of your units on the map, or you can select only the ones currently onscreen, and when you've got a group selected you can go through them to find the individual unit you are looking for. Its a clunky system that lacks the speed and ease of use that an rts game should have, and can be slightly frustrating.
Once you group units together you cannot break them apart into smaller sub groups. This means that you may not want to move all eight of your Warthogs across the map at once, but tough cause you have to. You also can't set fixed control groups that you can toggle between, once you do get the right units selected. To be fair, once units are in different parts of the map, you can cycle between de facto groups based on location pretty quickly. But when you've got a big clump of units mashed together in one place, it's a clumsy and time-consuming process to split them up manually.
The game does not quite need the detailed controls of more advanced rts games, and its well suited for a controller, but it is frustrating for someone who plays a lot of PC rts games. The campaign has 15 missions, and has a good variety of mission objective types. It primarily serves as a tutorial for the multiplayer. You've got the Halo-style party system here to facilitate matches for up to six people on a healthy variety of maps, and you can mix and match AI players on either side at different difficulties to fill out slots if you want. There are two modes, starting with the regular skirmish that has you starting from scratch, building up a base and teching up and building your units. The other mode, called deathmatch, gives you all the tech and resources to begin with and allows a total war situation. Its a decent multiplayer variety and is good fun with friends.
Halo Wars is a decent console rts, but it is not a good rts game as a whole and is a poor Halo game. The story is easily the weakest in the franchise, and its contribution to the series is never mentioned again so that says all there is to say about its standing. I think that the game has a hard time targeting a specific audience to cater to, as it is not deep enough to satisfy rts fans and not action packed enough for Halo fans. Its a strange hybrid, but not as good as either. It has decent production values, but its a shallow experience with little replay value. Halo Wars is ok, but is the worst game in the Halo franchise, and with only 2 playable factions and limiting controls is not as fun as Dawn of War or Star Craft for an rts fan. I have to compare Halo Wars to its genre counterparts, and in this scale it just doesn't stand up.
Pros:
- Good music
- Controls are well adapted for consoles
- CG scenes are well done and show the action that is lacking in the game play
- Decent mission variety
Cons:
- Controls have some niggling limitations
- Story is flimsy and collapses when examined logically
- Ending is miserable
- Poor rts game and also poor Halo game
- Shallow single player with no great moments that stand out
- Really needs more action and special moments
Wtf:
- "Captain, wake up. Something has happened". Yes, you just got retconned.
Score:
- 4/10