JaggedSac on 21 December 2008
http://www.craveonline.com/articles/gaming/04652517/1/halo_wars_hands_on_preview.html
Halo Wars isn't out until March 3 but Crave Online got an early Christmas present. We got to play the first two levels of the new RTS version of Halo, building bases on planet Harvest and running over grunts in our Warthog. Graeme Devine, lead writer on Halo Wars, was there to answer our questions along the way.
Crave Online: What was the decision to do an RTS version of Halo?
Graeme Devine: We started about four years ago. We were working on Ages of Empires III and a group of us peeled off because we felt that real time strategy would be very possible on console and that no one had really done that well, especially the controls. So we spent about 18 months just coming up with versions of the controls on consoles and we actually used Age Of Mythology as the engine and as the game. We played around a lot with the circle menu that we have. A lot of those elements that came into play back then we still use today. Then we presented that to Microsoft and they were the ones that said, "Well, how about Halo in this?"
Crave Online: Why has RTS struggled on consoles? Even Command and Conquer didn't quite work.
Graeme Devine: I think a lot of people have just ported the experience rather than try and get a new ground up experience. I think a lot of people look at the PC RTS genre, try and bring those controls across, sometimes pointer and all, onto the console. That's just, I don't think, the way to get the controls working on Xbox itself. I think by starting from the ground up and thinking about the action instead of how to do the action and redoing how you do the action has made a difference.
Crave Online: Graphically, how did you adapt the 1st person POV of Halo to the overhead view?
Graeme Devine: That was actually kind of interesting because things like the Warthog and the marines, people are very used to how those things move. So the Warthog's got a unique physics to it. In order to get the same look from above, we had to actually exaggerate up the way it acts.
Crave Online: Will we see any new creatures or structures?
Graeme Devine: Things like the Wolverine with is the UNSC anti-air vehicle, or the Cobra, their artillery based units. Then the marines and flame throwers and so forth, so we added quite a little bit there.
Crave Online: Is it familiar enough for console players to get into?
Graeme Devine: I think so. I think actually, that's the challenge is getting past people's preconception that you need that mouse and keyboard. So that was actually the impetus with Halo. I mean, first person shooters, adding them to the consoles too and not looking at the ground or the sky. They actually did a pretty good job at getting those controls over so in many ways, it's Halo doing that again, this time with real time strategy. I'm a big believer in getting RTS onto the console. There's nothing like that living room experience. One of the things that we did that was different than the typical RTS game is that the base, you can't decide where your buildings are going to go. Those slots around the base are the only places that you can build buildings and that seems like a big simplification and it is. It makes things a lot easier for going around, but if you're an expert RTS player, you'll notice that there's only so many slots around the base so the order in which you build and what you build is very important. If you add a reactor there, that then lets you make more things. You can upgrade to the fortress which will give you two more slots on your base. You can upgrade your reactor to a dual reactor which'll give you a second reactor base. Then if you go to your supply pad here, you can upgrade your supply pad so that it's known as a heavy supply pad which gives you twice as many supplies coming in. There's one landing pad right now. You can make it into two landing pads.
Crave Online: Where does this story fall in the Halo timeline?
Graeme Devine: 20 years before the events of Halo 1, so it's at the very beginning of the war between the Covenant and UNSC. We follow a ship called Spirit of Fire as it comes into orbit at a planet called Harvest.
Crave Online: Are there any halos involved?
Graeme Devine: Staying in canon has actually been interesting. We start off at Harvest and there is a forerunner relic at Harvest so you get that feeling kind of straightaway.
Crave Online: These opening missions are in a wintery mountain terrain. How many different environments are there?
Graeme Devine: This is planet Harvest and on Harvest we'll get to see some of the forerunner actual architecture on the inside of the actual big relic site they have. Then from here we'll move to a planet called Arcadia which is a UNSC colony that's much warmer. I think that's as much as we've talked about so far in terms of the environments but it's important that you move on and feel that you're getting cool sci-fi places. We have got a spaceship after all.
Crave Online: Does weather play a part in the combat?
Graeme Devine: Purely for visual and audio. The marines will actually talk about how cold it is and they'll talk about how the snow's hampering their vision. Really it's not but it's still talked about.
Crave Online: I'm really enjoying driving over the grunts.
Graeme Devine: That never gets old. Even four years in, running over grunts, fun. You can make a whole game about that.
Crave Online: Can friendly fire occur?
Graeme Devine: There are lots of ways to kill friendlies. If you accidentally carpet bomb yourself, it does bad things.
Crave Online: What are the key differences between Halo Wars and other RTS games?
Graeme Devine: I think streamlining the experience and having you manage more of the combat is something we wanted to look at. We want you watching all the special effects so the secondary abilities and keeping your units alive, definitely streamlining the experience. Still when you play the game and there's an actual economy in the game, but there's only one economy. There's only supplies, whereas a lot of RTS games have gold, bullion, something else. Our just has one.
Crave Online: Is it unlimited ammo?
Graeme Devine: It's unlimited ammo but you see the little timer box above the head there? That is the recharge on your secondary ability.
Crave Online: Can you select multiple enemies to spread out?
Graeme Devine: They will but they will do as they're told. That's something that you always want in an RTS game. I am pressing X here. You will do as you're told. If I said to overkill that thing by 4X, I meant overkill that thing by 4X.
Crave Online: Is there only a human campaign?
Graeme Devine: There's only a human campaign but you can play from the Covenant point of view when you play skirmish. You can play skirmish against other players or against the AI.
Crave Online: In that case, are there corresponding values of troops and vehicles?
Graeme Devine: We try to make it so there's balance but we wanted the covenant to feel different than the UNSC. We wanted them to feel alien. They play a little bit differently and their base buildup's a little bit different too.
Crave Online: What are we seeing in the post mission rankings?
Graeme Devine: If you go through and get all the goals, there could possibly be an achievement associated with things like that. People like to go through and tick everything off. People like to get judged at the end of levels like this.
Crave Online: Will achievements unlock additional troops and things?
Graeme Devine: Well, achievements are always just going to give you points which you can get playing the game. It's a good old game score. They don't actually unlock anything in the game. On maps too, there are black boxes and there are skulls much like Halo 3 and black boxes and skulls will unlock different ways of playing the game. Also there's a Halo timeline which will unlock events on the Halo timeline which is the events of the actual planet you're on or the environment you're in. So this time here, there were bits of a spaceship on the ground all over the place. That spaceship's called The Prophecy. It will unlock the story of how the Prophecy fell down to the ground there so it adds to the detail of the environments.
Crave Online: Are there any star voices or carryovers from other Halos?
Graeme Devine: The arbiter character there plays the arbiter of armor from Halo 2 and 3 but he's a different arbiter. He's about to talk to the Prophet of Regret who is in Halo 2 and 3. He's the same voice actor there. Captain Cutter is Gregg Berger who does an awful lot of panels. He did a panel at Comic Con on voice acting and so forth. He's been around a long time.
Crave Online: How many hours should each mission take?
Graeme Devine: It varies. When you play a skirmish game, we definitely have a shorter experience than a normal RTS. We want you playing for 20-25 minutes. There isn't going to be as many 45 minute epic games as you've seen in like an online PC RTS. The campaign we'd like to last between 10 and 12 hours so some levels will take you 10 minutes, some will take you ¾ of an hour. They can all be completed, you can play it a second time and go through it much faster or decide to go find all the secrets and spend two hours on it.
Crave Online: Would you ever have to restart from the very beginning?
Graeme Devine: Oh yeah. I would hope that most people find a level where they play through most of them and find them challenging and just one or two times they fail. Advancement through death is a favorite game design thing to do. We'll teach you how to do this. We'll just kill you if you do it wrong. It's not much fun for the game player.
Crave Online: But you'll learn, it's not just frustration.
Graeme Devine: I hope so. It should always be directing and pointing you as to what you have to do. That's very important that your objective is always very clear in front of you. We're trying to make that extremely obvious in this game as to text all over the place as to what to do, what to build, big icons and big things. I really hope we've done a good job of that. Game play from others will tell. It's always fascinating watching other people play. I always find that extremely
Crave Online: What did having a 16 x 9 frame add?
Graeme Devine: Well, I wish everyone had it. Not everyone does. There's still a lot of 4x3s. The graphics are all 720p. Mostly it means showing more of the environment at a time, but if you play someone who is on a 4:3 TV set and you have a 16:9 TV set, you'll have a very, very, very slight advantage over him because you can see more terrain. That's a decision we made because we didn't want to letterbox a 4:3 experience because that would close down even more of the experience and we didn't want to squash it.
Crave Online: What is the appeal of RTS games?
Graeme Devine: I think people like God games. That point of view of being in charge, it's not a game that you go home and work out. Quite a few games, you'll go home and it's like a second job. "I'm going to go grind today." A God game is I'm telling someone else what to do.
Crave Online: What takes the rating down to a T?
Graeme Devine: No blood. We actually aimed for a team all the way through so we were very careful on the cinematics as to what we did, no language.
Crave Online: Was that intentional to expand the audience?
Graeme Devine: It may be on Microsoft's behalf. I just wanted to make a game which was more appealing so we just tried and watched as we went at the game to try and get that teen rating so it's a wider audience.
Crave Online: Can you put characters in any random vehicle?
Graeme Devine: They have preassigned vehicles so once Forge has lost his Warthog there, he's not going to get into another vehicle. Spartans can ride in any vehicle, so if you build Spartans, they can ride in the Scorpions and they're going to actually improve the Scorpion a great deal as well. We tried for a little while, we had the secondary ability of the Scorpion tank used to be something we called popcorn. We would have thought of a better word but it would call in infantry groups and have them sit on the Scorpion tank and then fire like Halo 2. But we didn't quite get that balance. That became a very overpowering unit very quickly.
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Looks like they simplified a lot of things. This could make or break the game. Hopefully it will make for some quick and dirty online matches. I, for one, am looking forward to the game.
