Last week, Dan gave us a first hand look at the Halo Wars demo a few days before it hit Live. Now that the rest of us have had a chance to get our hands on it, just like all of you, what did we think? Read on to find out!

Mark says: I am practically incapable of appreciating RTS games. I love the concept - on paper and in motion RTS games tap into that intellectual part of my psyche which concludes RTS games should be a good deal of fun. But the part of my mind that handles strategic reasoning must be fundamentally underdeveloped, shrivelled up like a raisin, because in practice I find typical RTS games overwhelming and, worse yet, tedious.

Oh how I’ve tried to give them a chance. But, to quote myself, the typical RTS session usually devolves into “harvest resources, harvest resources some more, build a base, build some troops, harvest more resources, get attacked, build your base again, build your troops and this time around some assault vehicles, go attack, get wiped out, harvest some more resources, repeat. Boring.” Clearly I am not of a mind that handles these games well, and, I must admit, this leaves me feeling somewhat inadequate.

Still, the battle between my intellect and my actual hands-on experiences continues to rage-on. Surely there must be an RTS game that can appeal to me without dumbing itself down to the lowest common denominator. Is Halo Wars it? From the time spent playing its impressive demo, I am cautiously optimistic.

For starters, I do enjoy the Halo mythology and universe - it’s a rather mature and sophisticated setting that hardly shares an equal amongst videogames. As a matter of fact, I thought Halo 2 featured one of the richest stories I’d ever experienced in a videogame. There really is a treasure trove of material to draw from here, and Halo Wars, set 20 years before the events of the first Halo, is clearly trying to capitalize on this.

As the game opens up, you’re treated to some very impressive pre-rendered cinematics. At the very least, I thought, I could treat myself to these pretty story elements should the game go the way of every other RTS I’ve ever played. In this respect the Halo fanboy in all of us has an immediate touchstone to ground us and perhaps even compel us forward.

Regardless of the cinematics, what is immediately apparent from the very moment you begin actually playing is how well the recently disbanded Ensemble Studios managed to capture the Halo aesthetic, another touchstone grounding me in what would otherwise be an intimidating experience, and comparing favorably well to the already well-established look and feel of the Halo universe.

So far, so good.

The meat of the gameplay is introduced in a brief yet satisfyingly informative tutorial. Not surprisingly, you’re treated to the basics of control and base building in a very straight-foward and succinct manner, a calming effect for a newb like me. I must say that some innovations regarding the control scheme here are quite well implemented, and perhaps the most fluid and intuitive I’ve experienced yet for a console RTS.

It was also in the tutorial that you’re given the ability to play around with some higher level features not included in the following two stage demo, such as the ability to call down MAC gun strikes from your orbiting UNSC star ship. In a nod to Halo’s first-person shooter roots, the camera pans out just slightly and a targeting reticule fills the screen. For the purposes of the tutorial you’re given unlimited ammunition with which you can relentlessly pummel the Covenant forces. It was very satisfying to say the least.

As you enter the demo’s first stage, you’re given control over your lead character in a Warthog, scooting around the map in an effort to regroup with UNSC forces and take back a base that’s been overrun by the Covenant. This very simple combat run serves as a perfect first step into Halo Wars, as you’re tasked merely with combat. This too is streamlined with one button setting destinations, another commanding the primary attack and just one other commanding a secondary attack. The primary Warthog attack engages the turret in the back, while the secondary attack commands the Warthog to ram the selected target. Again, these are things entirely fitting within the context of Halo, and I was reminded of how Ensemble was at pains to get all of the little details just right.

The second stage featured base building and a somewhat more complex scenario, but what’s clear is that there really has been a concerted effort to streamline even the more tedious staples of RTS games. For example, your base consists of one central structure with six predetermined hubs directly adjacent, and you simply choose which structures to build. Moreover, you can build resource generating structures so that you’ll never have to plod about a level constantly having to scout resources and manage the resource vehicles necessary to harvest the resource. Instead, you’ll be more focused on choosing which units to build and commanding them in battle.

And commanding large groups appears to be just as simplified. Rather than having to worry about group designations and cycling between different sets of them, the demo featured the ability to either command all your troops with just one click of a button, or the more intuitive feature of dragging the reticule to ‘paint’ and highlight the units you’d like to control. This particular aspect was very easily executed and very welcome.

Taken together, it was a very simple matter to set up a base, start building up resources, train units, upgrade them, and send them into battle. I’m a real idiot when it comes to RTS games, and I’d have to say this was perhaps the first time I felt as though everything was very manageable.

To top it all off, at the end of every mission you’re given a score, the metagame, based on multipliers such as speed of victory, efficiency, and so on. There are even skulls to be found which can be activated for different effects and score multipliers. Sound familiar? It should, because this was a very prominent feature of Halo 3. Ensemble really took their task to heart, of that there can be no doubt. I don’t believe there’s any word yet on a replay feature in Halo Wars similar to Halo 3, but that would really be the cat’s ass.

The only question that remains is whether I had any fun. The answer is not emphatic, but it isa “yes” nevertheless. Much of this, I’m sure, can be credited to equal parts setting and streamlined RTS gameplay. It also provides a kinetic punch that I’ve never quite appreciated in an RTS game before, which perhaps comes full circle back to the fact that I wasn’t pre-occupied in a constant struggle with resource management and just trying to adequately control it all. That said, I’ve been in this position before and had the demo lasted any longer, the wheels may come completely off once things ramped up in complexity and intensity - a charge that can only be proven with hands-on time on the full retail game.

I’m glad that the Halo universe is branching out outside of it’s comfort zone. Ironically, Halo was first envisioned by Bungie as an RTS game before making the move to the first-person perspective. With this in mind it only seems natural that Halo Wars would be the first divergent genre Microsoft would tap into in expanding its marquee franchise. The demo was a perfect slice of the action for its intended console audience, and speaks positively of its incoming reception when it lands in March.

Adam says:

If you didn't know already, the demo for Halo Wars is available on the XBox Live marketplace. I am anything but a Halo fanboy, I played the third and enjoyed it but I don't think it deserves the hype (just my personal opinion). I am however, a Starcraft fanboy, which means because Starcraft has raised the bar so high, it takes a lot for a Real Time Strategy (RTS) game to impress me. So below are my first impressions of the Halo Wars demo... with a little Starcraft talk thrown in.

I had my doubts about whether Halo Wars would be a good addition to the FPS juggernaut that is the Halo series. To be honest, I think RTS games work great on the PC, but not so great on consoles. I think the controls are usually the element that makes or breaks a console RTS game, the keyboard/mouse combo seem to be the best way to play a RTS game, but maybe Ensemble has found the perfect formula.

So let's start with that, the controls. Ensemble Studios did a good job of making the controls simple and fairly easy to remember. Select units by pressing the A button and move/attack with them by using X. Y is used for special attacks (the Marines' special weapons it throwing grenades for example), and B deselects a unit. I could go on with the controller layout, but you get the idea. Nothing complex. The button layout is simple and intuitive, and if I don't play Halo Wars for a few months I don't think I'd forget how to play the game.

The gameplay in Halo Wars is satisfying, I enjoy the secondary attacks the units have (especially the Warthog's ability to ram enemies). The Leader abilites are extremely fun, allowign you to rain death upon your unsuspecting enemies with a MAC Blast (one of several Leader abilities available in the game). You can gather crates to increase your supplies, which allows you to build and upgrade your units. The other way to gather supplies is by creating Supply Pads that constantly give you supplies. I'm an old fogey who's used to the constant resource gathering in Starcraft, but this works to.

Since not much of the story is shown in the demo, I'm guessing it's more of the Covenant versus Humans conflict but with a RTS twist, the next thing I'll go into are the visuals. The graphics, while polished, definitely failed to 'wow' me. I'm not saying the game looks bad, I just didn't find the landscapes breathtaking. Snowy landscapes seem to be prevalent in the game, or at least the demo, and they do look pretty... cold. If you ever find yourself having trouble distinguishing your army from the snowy landscapes (or from the other army), the Covenant are bright purple, and the UNSC are a brilliant shade of green. I don't remember everything being so brightly colored in the other Halo games, but I could be wrong.

The base building is very different from most RTS games (that I have played). You basically have one central structure that gathers minerals, err, I mean supplies, builds armies, etc. This seems strange to me because one of my favorite parts of RTS games is expanding my base, taking over the world, and crushing all who oppose me (I'm hardcore like that). So the idea of having one big structure doesn't really appeal to me. One thing that bothered me was the voice of the guy that talked whenever I built a new structure I hear this guy say something like, "Factory Complete." in a really monotone voice. A little annoyance, but an annoyance nonetheless.

When I first played Halo I immediately noticed several similarities between it and Starcraft: Religious Covenant with plasma energy and shield technology = Religious Protoss with plasma energy and shield technology, UNSC's manly marines = Terran's manly marines, Flood infestation trying to take over the universe by consuming everything while collectively controlled by the Gravemind = Zerg trying to do the same while being controlled by the Overmind (and later Kerrigan, but that's not the point).

I think that making a Halo RTS game might make those similarities even more obvious (the Covenant structures warp in just like the Protoss' for example), and I could go even deeper in my Halo vs. Starcraft analysis, but I think you get the idea. I promise that's the last time I'll mention Starcraft in this article, and I can keep that promise since I'm almost done.

In conclusion, I think Halo Wars will be a good game. Will it revolutionize the genre? I think not. But I don't think that's what Ensemble intended to do either. (Let's leave that to Starcraft II. Oops, I broke my promise.) The Halo series is one of the few that I think will work well as a RTS game (Gears of War would not since the best part of the game to me are the Lancer chainsaws and an RTS game would remove that feature). The visuals are good, the units are familiar, the gameplay is solid, and the controls are intuitive. I'll definitely be checking this game out when it releases in March.

Jim says: After playing the Halo Wars demo, there's one game that comes to mind: Warcraft III. It's a comparison that many of you might not be on board with, but here me out. Both games are RTS's with a heavy, involving, solid story. That's not something you find very often. Rise of Nations is great, but there's no plot to keep you involved. Red Alert 3 may have a story, but C&C is always EPIC cheese. It's a rare breed that nails both solid story and RTS gameplay, but WarCraft III, and now it looks like Halo Wars is set to join it's exclusive club.

Gameplay-wise there are comparisons to be made as well. While Warcraft III may have been a fairly traditional PC RTS when compared to what Halo Wars has to offer, both were built on the concept of accessibility. Fun and involving tutorials get you up to speed in both, and once you're in the game there are no concepts that are too difficult to master for even the newest of RTS players.

Since it's announcement at X06, Microsoft has been bragging that Halo Wars was built from the ground up for the home console experience. Nobody really knew what that was going to mean in the end, and whether or not it was going to work. Certainly claims have been made before about ports of other series being reworked with the home console experience in mind (C&C 3, LOTR: Battle for Middle Earth) with little to no success in the transition. So what would make Halo Wars any different?

As it turns out, a lot. The developers at Ensemble seemed to ask themselves three questions; What is the bare minimum required for an RTS game? How can we minimize tasking to let gamers focus on the action? How can we streamline everything to appeal to the fast-paced console gamer? They found their answers.

Resource-gathering, a time-tested and time-consuming staple of the real-time genre, is a thing of the past. Sure you'll still need resources, but now they'll be air-dropped in at a rate determined by how many supply buildings you have. You won't be having your marines out chopping wood and mining stone -- this is not your father's RTS.

Base construction has been made simpler as well. There are pre-determined locations set up around your main base where new buildings can be constructed. Just click on one and tell it what to build. Unit construction is just as easy. Just click on the appropriate building, queue up as many units as you want, and voila! They'll start filtering out of your base lickety split.

Here's the key thing -- there's no micromanagement. Sure you're still able to handle individual units and construct things how you want, but much of what we're used to wasting our time with in an RTS has been automated. Once you get your army built, you can ship them out and command them in the field with little to no concern for what is happening elsewhere on the map, and with the easy controls that cover everything you'll need it battle, it couldn't be more fun. One button will select all units, one will cycle through unit types, one will use a unit's secondary attack... and that's pretty much all you need to know, soldier!

I like RTS's. I really do. And having one to compare to Warcraft III on any level is no small feat. Here's to hoping the final product is just as impressive as the demo!

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