Sunday 28 December 2014

Halo Wars review

Halo Wars is the first RTS game that works as a console exclusive, and as an entry point into the genre, it's unbeatable.


Developer: Ensemble Studios
Publisher: Microsoft
Format: Xbox 360
Release date: 27 February 2009
Score: 8/10

It's a testament to Halo's tremendous power as a brand that the Halo Wars demo was downloaded from Xbox Live by over two million users within a week of becoming available. After all, the first-person-shooter (FPS) and real-time-strategy (RTS) genres sit at opposite ends of the video game spectrum. Shooters are visceral and immediate with action flying fast and furious at the player, while RTS games are epic slow-burners which prize resource management and tactical vision. The two genres have very little in common and there's not much overlap in their fanbases. So the decision to base an RTS game on a FPS (or indeed, vice versa) seems, initially at least, to be a fool's errand.

Impressively enough, Halo Wars defies this expectation. In fact, the game is so good, it goes a long way towards silencing accusations that Microsoft is simply milking its most popular intellectual property for all that it's worth. While the success of Microsoft's attempt to expand its flagship franchise into another genre will be evaluated in the weeks to come, what is evident for the moment is that Halo Wars may very well be the first instalment in the RTS field that actually works as a console exclusive.

Ensemble Studio's main challenges in adapting Bungie's seminal shooter to the RTS format is to firstly make a streamlined strategic experience that will appeal to Halo's gargantuan army of FPS fans and secondly, to make the end result completely console friendly. To this end, they have stripped away a lot of the more complex elements of RTS play; units don't need to be micromanaged, buildings are constructed on a fixed floor plans and resources flow in a steady stream once the building required to generate them is constructed. The control system is incredibly simple; the 'a' button selects a unit and the left bumper selects all the units on the screen (or your entire army, depending on how many units you have). The 'x' button moves troops around the map, and all units only have two attacks. Buildings and units are constructed and upgraded with an easy-to-use wheel-shaped menu. The joysticks zoom in on the action and move the HUD around the map and the D-pad allows you to cycle through the units and buildings.

By cutting away the genre's usual clutter and simplifying the control system, Ensemble have succeeded in making an action-focused RTS that feels completely at home on a console. There's also a surprising amount of tactical depth for a game with such straightforward gameplay; the key to winning levels or online battles is to maintain a crucial balance between upgrading units (which eats through resources) while using them to hold territory on the map. Halo Wars also moves at a much quicker pace than a lot of other RTS games so console players with itchy trigger fingers won't get bored.

Ensemble have wisely kept everything from the original Halo games that worked in the first place. The musical score is beautiful, the sound effects and voice-acting are first class and the game's visuals – both the cut-scenes and the in-game graphics – are absolutely drop-dead gorgeous. In fact, Halo Wars is easily one of the best looking games (RTS or otherwise) to ever grace a console, and given the quality of next-gen visuals in general, that's saying something. Even more impressively, the game's frame-rate doesn't seem to slow in the slightest no matter how many buildings, units and explosions are cluttering the screen. In both look and feel, the game is classic Halo – right down to the menus.

Another obvious boon the original Halo trilogy grants Halo Wars is its universe. Halo's army of fans was won over as much by the game's story as they were by the run-and-gun action, and Halo Wars doesn't disappoint in this regard. The story which drives the single player campaign is one of the strongest aspects of the game. Set around two decades before the events of the original trilogy, the story kicks off on the planet of Harvest where the war between the human-led UNSC and the alien Covenant forces is currently raging. Without giving too much of the story away, the UNSC prevent the Covenant from blowing up a device which turns out to be a map revealing the location of technology the aliens believe will help them win the war. Led by Sergeant John Forge, the UNSC then pursue the Covenant across the universe.

While the story is sure to delight Halo fans, the single player campaign that frames it does have two major drawbacks. Firstly, it is very brief for a game of this type, numbering only 15 missions which have little replay value. Second, you can only play as the UNSC; the Covenant gameplay experience is reserved for the online multiplayer mode, in which up to six (three human and three Covenant) players can take part in massive, frenetic battles. The multiplayer can also feel a little thin in that there isn't much difference between playing the Covenant and the humans and The Flood, while making an appearance, isn't a playable race.

Overall, though, Halo Wars probably succeeds in every aspect that Ensemble and Microsoft wanted it to. Far from being a cynical cash grab, it delivers a simple and fluid RTS experience that's lots of fun to play while remaining true to the franchise's stylistic roots. Purists and veterans will probably dismiss Halo Wars due to its lack of depth, but Halo fans and the uninitiated should jump right in. It's probably the strongest RTS game that's ever been released for a console, and as an entry point into the genre, it's pretty much unbeatable.


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