22-Mar-2008 As development progresses, Ensemble reveal the true history of Halo Wars - and we examine why Microsoft have made it their big hope for 2008...
Seeing Halo Wars in action, you can't help but think that it's the perfect counterpart to the other new Halo title preparing to leap off the game store shelves and into your hearts this winter - Peter Jackson's Halo Chronicles.
Because where Jackson's project is said to focus on the intimate, personal aspect of war, Halo Wars instead presents the run-up to the events as documented in the main Halo trilogy from the perspective of the battleground. There's nothing glamourous about war, but you'd be hard pressed to see that if you were watching a Halo Wars scrap in full flight. This is the Theatre of War in all its glory, with the goalposts continuously shifting as the two sides attempt to out-manoeuvre each other. It is, in fact, a Halo real-time strategy game in more than just branding.
Unlike many of its kin, which get bogged down with the extraction of random minerals and the building of Lemonade stands for your troops, Halo Wars, while still retaining some of these aspects, is all about reappropriating resource management into time management. As Graeme Devine, lead developer on the project says, it's about managing a battle rather than watching it. Need more troops? You have to keep yourself in the game long enough for the supply run to arrive, rather than watching as new Warthogs pop out of your base as though coming from some kind of honeymoon hotel rabbit den.
You have to actively manage the combat yourself, rather than just pointing troops in the right direction and hoping the numbers game will turn in your favour. It's the same principle that Halo - the shooter - employs. Instead of stashing health packs in your tin-knickers, you have to decide when to fire and when to hide under cover. Nope, Halo Wars definitely has more in common with Halo than its spot on HMV's 'H' rack. In fact, it's hard to believe it was anything other than a Halo game.
Halo-down And this, to go back to the top of the page, is What Everybody's Talking About. Recently, Devine has gone on record as stating that in actual fact, their latest RTS didn't start life as a Halo game at all. Rather, they approached Microsoft themselves with the idea of licensing out their RTS technology. Does this mean that we should be less excited about Halo Wars, knowing that it wasn't conceived as part of Bungie's Master Plan?
Absolutely not. Indeed, for our money, the fact that on this occasion, the egg laid the chicken is cause to whip yourself up into even more of a feverish frenzy. We now know that Halo Wars' birth wasn't just a case of Microsoft fancying a quick cash injection and freelancing the project out. Instead, we know that Ensemble's vision for the game was promising enough - and similar enough to the source material, as we've discussed - not only for Microsoft to agree to publish it, but also to emblazon it with their most cherished (and most profitable) intellectual property of all.
License to thrive And that the skeleton of Halo Wars is good enough to stand up to scrutiny without being fleshed-out with the Halo licence should come as welcome news to those hankering for more Halo action but unwilling to subject themselves to another clunky Xbox 360 RTS. And the proof of this is in the playing. The fluid unit selection method (where you double tap a to select all units on-screen, or simply 'paint' over the units you wish to move) is a million miles away from the nightmareish controls seen on ports of excellent PC titles such as Command & Conquer 3 and Lord of the Rings. RTS games which seem to think that just because the Xbox 360 controller's buttons are coloured like a Rubik's Cube, it should be equally as accessible.
And that can only be a good thing. In other news, Ensemble are still refusing to confirm the Covenant as Halo Wars' second playable faction, despite it being gaming's worst-kept secret. Not much to report on this front, other than we've had a peek at some concept art for a scene which didn't make the final cut for Halo Wars - that of a Covenant mining asteroid dominated by imposing Forerunner machinery. It's a dramatic scene, and if that's the calibre of the work lying in Ensemble's bin, we can only imagine what delights await in the final game.
As with the Jackson project, Bungie are involved in the project in a storyline advisory role (and Devine promises us that, as with the main Halo games, the storyline will be a 'rollercoaster ride'), freeing Ensemble up to concentrate on the matter at hand... making what looks to be, from our vantage point, the best RTS Xbox has ever seen.More on this as we get it.
yes obveously RTS is better on PC but i dont mind console RTS, CC3 was fine and by the sounds of it these controls are even better, as for Halo, at first i laughed but actually looks better and better every time i see it, soo i'll keep to optimism...
Don't turn this into a Halo 3 bashing session. This is a completely different game. You'd have to be very ignorant to base your judgement of a game that hasn't even come out yet on a completely different game made by a completely different developer and even a completely different genre simply because they are set in the same universe. Chances are if Halo 3 wasn't to your taste then you will probably really enjoy Halo Wars so please think before you start flaming Bungie about Halo Wars. They don't even own the bloody Halo license.
RTS does not stand for 'PC GENRE, PERIOD'. Real Time Strategy does not need a mouse. Get that into your thick skulls.
There is such a thing as evolution - and if anybody is going to evolve RTS into a game that can be played well on a console, it's Ensemble. This isn't some quick PC port - if you'd read any of the reviews you'd understand that instead of just seeing the word 'Halo' and going on a rant.
This game has great graphics, a great developer, and from the looks of it - great gameplay (watch the original 10 minute gameplay video) so quit the hating.
RTS does not stand for 'PC GENRE, PERIOD'. Real Time Strategy does not need a mouse. Get that into your thick skulls.
There is such a thing as evolution - and if anybody is going to evolve RTS into a game that can be played well on a console, it's Ensemble. This isn't some quick PC port - if you'd read any of the reviews you'd understand that instead of just seeing the word 'Halo' and going on a rant.
This game has great graphics, a great developer, and from the looks of it - great gameplay (watch the original 10 minute gameplay video) so quit the hating.
Right.
But, I own C&C3 on the PC and Xbox, and it's much better on the PC. I would prefer Halo Wars to be on the PC.
I love that this started production straight after they banned a mod being made (in the source engine i think) for a halo RTS. Lets be honest here, its not going to compare to the likes of supreme commander, and pad control is doomed to fail.
Maybe a little pessimistic, but I think its a fair judgement.
cvg all went home early this week or forgot to publish the news.
tbh after the huuuge letdown of halo3 i am no longer interested in this game. sorry bungie but im sticking with cod4 and vegas2...on the xbox that is.
you read the article, and had the stupidity to come in here to type a comment and let everyone know that this game is not interesting and how halo 3 disappointed you?
bravo! you just made my s**tlist. not many people can do that.
and by the way, you just dropped a good 30 places on the food chain because of that little whine of yours. say hello to your mother for me. have a nice day.
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