http://www.xboxic.com/news/4751

Its not specific about whether the co-op is online only or multiplayer, but either way its awesome.

Though its not written in the link, I can tell you that in Halo Wars you only have to collect 'supplies' rather than gold, wood, food in an effort to make the games less tedious to use with controllers.

Also, full-scale assaults can be organised in less than a minute.

Edit:  Also, BEFORE this game became Halo Wars, it was an RTS that ensemble was already making that had nothing to do with Halo.  In other words, Microsoft had so much confidence in the game Ensemble were making that they put the Halo name on it. 

Sounds pretty good, I was going to post this awesomeness but you beat me to it and posted some stuff I didn't have like the fact it was already in production.

I wonder if you can Coop + Go online at the same time, 3x teams of 2?

IF you can have local co-op with online 3x2 this will be the best multiplayer game of the generation so far, especially if they bundle it with the Xmote.

Something tells me the 360 couldn't handle local co-op though.

starcraft said: http://www.xboxic.com/news/4751 Its not specific about whether the co-op is online only or multiplayer, but either way its awesome. Though its not written in the link, I can tell you that in Halo Wars you only have to collect 'supplies' rather than gold, wood, food in an effort to make the games less tedious to use with controllers. Also, full-scale assaults can be organised in less than a minute. Edit:  Also, BEFORE this game became Halo Wars, it was an RTS that ensemble was already making that had nothing to do with Halo.  In other words, Microsoft had so much confidence in the game Ensemble were making that they put the Halo name on it.

Seriously? Someone is looking forward to this game? I have seen nothing of it that has made me think it is extraordinary in any way, or even better then Universe at War, which didnt do well on its own rights. And the fact that Microsoft put Halo on the game could also mean that they felt it wouldnt have sold well, and they knew Halo would make it sell well giving them a financial boost even IF the game sucked. They could have slapped Halo onto Turning Point and re-skinned it and it would have doubled its sales numbers. And still been a horrible game.

Microsoft valued the Halo franchise at over a billion dollars a year back. There isn't a chance in hell they are going to put the name on a bad game. Its like Final Fantasy. You might pimp it out a lot, but your not putting the name on a truly shit game.

starcraft said: IF you can have local co-op with online 3x2 this will be the best multiplayer game of the generation so far, especially if they bundle it with the Xmote. Something tells me the 360 couldn't handle local co-op though.

 

They could probably do Coop locally and multiplayer at the same time - two dudes controlling the same Civ would be fine. Ensemble had that feature in Age of Empires 2 and maybe the others but im not sure.

2v2 or 3v3 or 2v2v2 sounds pretty interesting. Especially since they're probably implementing 3 different races. Flood V Covenant V Humans. Sounds like Protoss, Zerg and Humans lol!

But I daresay, since they've been able to balance AOEIII with over 12 different civs each playing differently from each other, they should be able to do a good job with 3.

Man this is gonna be good. The AoE guys are doing it. And I loved me some AoE. I haven't played three though.

So Halo Wars is going to have an online that RTS have done for over 10 years already? Color me surprised....

"Though its not written in the link, I can tell you that in Halo Wars you only have to collect 'supplies' rather than gold, wood, food in an effort to make the games less tedious to use with controllers."

Less tedious? Resource handling is one of the fun things about Age of Empires and Rise of Nations. And why even compare Halo Wars to those types of games? It's clear they're trying a more C&C-esque, only with slowed dumbed-down gameplay.

This is great news. Looking forward to this RTS. Hell Yeah.

shio said: So Halo Wars is going to have an online that RTS have done for over 10 years already? Color me surprised.... "Though its not written in the link, I can tell you that in Halo Wars you only have to collect 'supplies' rather than gold, wood, food in an effort to make the games less tedious to use with controllers." Less tedious? Resource handling is one of the fun things about Age of Empires and Rise of Nations. And why even compare Halo Wars to those types of games? It's clear they're trying a more C&C-esque, only with slowed dumbed-down gameplay.

Think more streamlined.

If you want clues as to how its going to play, check out Age of Empires 3. They made it so that you didn't have to build lumber camps/mines etc, which makes sense really.

I think they're going to go for sped up type gameplay, sort of like Warcraft 3 with smaller battles and fast too. In age of Empires 2, you can wait 10-15mins typically in an expert match for the first battle to take place, depending on strategy. I think they will be going for something closer to <5 mins for the first battle to take place. It makes sense, console gamers as a whole probably don't have the patience or the attention span to wait more than that. There are exceptions but the general rule stands.

I think theres room in the market for simple RTS games, I think that a lot of them have gotten too complicated. It just hurts my head sometimes trying to manage it all and beat the opposition player at the same time.