After the not so epic conclusion of the biggest Sci-fi shooter known to man, Bungie decided to take a bit of a break. During this break several offers were sent to them for merchandising such as Tshirts, DVD's and even toy sets.
One offer they weren’t expecting was from developers Ensemble Studios (responsible for works such as Age of Empires and Age of Mythology) asking to create a Real Time Strategy set in the Halo universe. Bungie agreed and so Halo Wars was born!
Bungie gave them the time and place where to set it and what happened in that time period and Ensemble were left to their creative devices. This was a departure for them as it was the first console RTS they had ever done, it was also the first game that was not to be a shooter for the Halo franchise.
Halo Wars takes place right at the very beginning of the Halo "Timeline" on the planet Harvest. The UNSC Spirit of Fire is orbiting and investigating Covenant presence there. The covenant find something and the Humans want to know what, little knowing what the Covenant have found they unleash an ancient evil thus meaning that the Spirit of Fire must leave with its two vital crew members that are still on the ground, these are Sgt John Forge and Professor Ellen Anders. Forge being one of the most important UNSC soldiers of his time and Anders being one of the most important scientists of her time.
Gameplay is what you would expect from an RTS, birds eye view of the battlefield, command unit menu's and your HUD providing essential info like Map, resources, units on battlefield and current objective. The only major difference is that instead of being on a PC keyboard so you can use your hotkeys and macro's (Google it) its all placed on an Xbox controller. "How?" you may cry, well its a work of genius.
The thumbsticks control the camera, the D-pad is to issue movement commands (except for up), LB selects all units, RB selects local units (on screen units), back is the objective screen, RT cycles through types of unit, A is select unit, B is cancel command, X is attack and Y is special attack. UP on the D-pad is the Spirit of Fire menu where you can contact for assistance from the Spirit of Fire (orbital strike, cryo bomb, carpet bomb etc.)
This means that the game is very easy to pick up for beginners and difficult to master for veterans to the genre.
The graphics are of a high quality, like most RTS's the detail on units can sometimes be minimal but the environments and animations are clear, smooth and amazingly detailed. The cutscenes are reminiscent of a Final Fantasy quality, Characters look lifelike and environments are hyper detailed, looking like a big budget CGI movie. The sound quality is amazing and consistent, voices are clear and explosions are booming. If a comrade calls in on a radio the crackle from the radio is included adding to a more "realistic" approach to RTS's (and a Sci-fi one at that).
Halo Wars comes to a teeth shattering high octane finale between Sgt Forge and the original Arbiter making Halo Wars go out on a high (just like Halo 3 should have done). Sadly the same cannot be said about Ensemble, the game sold poorly and they did not cover the costs from the production of the game thus going into administration.
Halo Wars will live on with great praise from the few that bought it but will become one of times forgotten greats.
Halo Wars – 8/10
+Awesome Prequel
+A Truly Great Console RTS
+Easy To Pick Up, Hard To Master
-Little Replay Value
