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Halo Wars Hands-on Preview
Dear Casual Halo Fan Who’s Never Touched an RTS, but has Pre-Ordered Halo Wars,
Halo Wars is to the Real Time Strategy genre what Honey Nut is to the original Cheerios cereal; dust off that sugary, accessible coating from the game’s exterior and you will no doubt find a bunch of scenarios focusing on resource management and troop deployment. Yes, underneath all the hype and fancy features, this is an RTS, a very competent RTS, but an RTS. It sounds obvious (and is obvious to many of you), but for those folks hoping Ensemble Studios might bring game-changing innovation and renewed lifeblood to a genre that just can’t seem to stick on consoles, allow me to subvert your expectations.
To be frank, any fantasies that Halo Wars would inject the particular action, excitement and fan base associated with the blockbuster-churning FPS genre to the slower, often more thoughtful and generally niche RTS genre, were tainted from the get go. Developers choose a genre to help them deliver a certain experience. In Halo Wars’ case, the RTS genre, with its massive scale, allows players to experience the Halo universe in a way that was impossible for previous first-person iterations.
You finally get the real scope of the franchise, not just of the soldiers and the machinery, but also of the landscape. The destruction, and crags and extravagant (and mostly devastated) architecture that cover the battlefields are striking and more spectacular than the corridors, fortresses and even the sprawling terrains we’ve explored with Master Chief.
Whew, so, now that I’ve cleared the air, let’s break things down, because Halo Wars does a lot right, and deserves a lot of attention for it.
In typical RTS fashion, you collect and manage resources, build and upgrade cantonments, create and dispatch vehicles and soldiers and navigate a map to complete various scenarios while battling enemy battalions. This format’s generally a bit difficult with consoles, as it was originally designed for a PC workspace.
See, certain games perform certain services beyond the obvious one of entertainment. RTS games subconsciously teach you, the player, how to manage numbers and virtual space on your computer’s desktop. You learn how to efficiently use your mouse to manage both what is on the screen and off it, all the while problem solving.
That’s right, you have the perfect excuse next time you get caught fiddling with Command and Conquer: you’re practicing your management skills.
Console games, on the other hand, serve a different purpose. They’re built with a different control and play style in mind. I know it’s become a swear word, but they’re more “causal.” To work around this, Ensemble sacrifices some of the RTS genre’s complexity, replacing it with fun and intuitive controls. You navigate the screen with your cursor, controlled with the left analog stick, but you have the option to rotate between your bases with a tap of the D-Pad. This will help you travel quickly between the map’s different sectors, mandatory during the heat of battle.
To control your vehicles, you have the A-button. 1-click selects that vehicle; 2-clicks selects all of those particular vehicles on the map. Holding down the button creates a blue circle, which you can use to select all the vehicles inside of its perimeter. You also can use the left shoulder button to select all of your vehicles on the map, the right shoulder button for those local to what you currently see on screen.
But best of all, the Y-button gives you the equivalent of an alt-fire to the X-button’s attack. With foot soldiers selected, this means you can toss grenades with “Y”. I know, it sounds so simple and so silly, but this little touch feels so rewarding, and hits that same note that rang in your head when you pegged an enemy with a sticky grenade in the original Halo games.
While the controls are not as ideal as a mouse and keyboard, they work well for Halo Wars’ particular design. The real test will come in multiplayer, where precision counts. In the campaign, I haven’t struggled with the controller, and often find the AI knows how and when to help you do what you want when you’re in a pinch.
As for Halo, the reason many folks have already made the reservations, the Halo universe’s timeline, like taffy, has delightfully stretched far beyond expectations. Halo Wars predates the original Halo, following the UNSC warship “Spirit of Fire,” and its efforts to prevent the Covenant, those dastardly aliens, from annihilating mankind. As a prequel, we know the Covenant fails, so this story’s about the journey, not the resolution.
And what a journey. This may be a traditional RTS, but fortunately Ensemble Studios has a solid history with the genre — Age of Empires and Age of Mythology, to name two of their titles — apparent in their storytelling skills. With Bungie’s already rich source material, the studio’s crafted a sprawling epic.
Interestingly, the Halo games often used cut scenes to show the scope of the war, and the gameplay to show one man’s role. Halo Wars flips this. With control of entire battalions, cut scenes microscope certain characters, adding a human flare. With thoughtful writing and striking animation, it actually outdoes prior Halo title cut-scenes, connects the player with individuals like your commanders, your troops, and, especially, Serina, a sassy AI that makes for an edgy Cortana replacement.
We’ll have our hands on the title leading up to the review. Naturally, we’re curious if a few minor issues, like the ability to turtle up your forces in these early stages, will alienate hardcore RTS fans. But right now, we’re very hopeful.
Ensemble Studios latest is a little bit sweeter and plenty kid-friendlier (violence excluded) than most Real Time Strategies. And, yeah, it’s not the FPS sequel or prequel a handful of fans secretly wants. That said, I recommend all RTS fans, former or past, and even those off put by the genre give this title some time. The Halo franchise might just make the jump from shooter to RTS with no kart game in-between.
Will write you again soon, perhaps a review near release.
Yours,
Chris
