SAN FRANCISCO – Real-time strategy videogames have long been confined almost exclusively to the PC, mostly because of the fact that they control best with a mouse and keyboard. Since the genre combines the micromanagement of a squad full of individual units with fast-paced gameplay, attempts at controlling games like Red Alert or Age of Empires with delicate precision usually fail with a console's game controller.
With Halo Wars, Microsoft makes a valiant attempt to bring the genre to Xbox 360, in a familiar wrapper. The end result, which Microsoft says will ship to stores in February, won't have real-time strategy fans ditching their preferred control implements. But playing the game at a recent event here, I came away pleasantly surprised.
Halo Wars isn't designed by Bungie. It's the product of Ensemble Studios, the creators of Microsoft's popular Age of Empires strategy games. But the battles still look quite a bit like the Halo world you know and love. Everything from the strafing fire of Covenant aircraft to the exact crunching sound of a Warthog plowing into a pack of Grunts has been replicated faithfully.
Fans of the first-person shooter games will appreciate these touches. But will they play a radically different kind of game, one that relies on strategy and unit management over fast trigger fingers? I don't know. But Halo Wars' great interface, intelligent troops and well-balanced gameplay seem to be coming together well – in spite of the fact that you have to use a control pad.
Halo Wars, set 20 years before the events in the original Halo, tells the story of the Spirit of Fire, a massive United Nations Space Command warship tasked with finding out what the dastardly Covenant aliens are up to. Turns out, those zealots are looking for something – giant space rings, maybe – and the marines of the Spirit of Fire must stop them at all costs.
The depth of Bungie's carefully created Halo universe means that Halo Wars will feel intimately familiar to fans, even though it's a real-time strategy game and not a shooter. While there are a few new units, most are recycled from the series and play the roles you'd expect: Warthogs are fast scouting units, with a knack for running over enemies. The massive Hunters are ideal for plowing through enemy vehicles, while diminutive Grunts are pretty handy with plasma grenades – and as an added bonus, their inane banter is absolutely hilarious as they march off to die.
The pace of combat is strikingly similar as well. Covenant forces crumple once their shields are vaporized, a well-placed grenade can turn the tide of a skirmish, and Spartans can even hijack enemy vehicles. This means that players who aren't fans of traditional RTS games can still hold their own, tactically, provided they were paying close attention when they were slaughtering things as Master Chief.
Halo Wars is going to float or sink based on its interface. Fortunately, Ensemble Studios has put a phenomenal amount of attention into a number of crucial elements.
Since the game was developed from the ground up with the Xbox 360 in mind, the controls are well-suited for the console. The directional pad cycles through your bases, groups of units and recent alerts (units being produced, recent attacks, etc), while the L and R buttons will automatically select all your forces, or just the ones on screen. Units are automatically grouped by type, and hitting the right trigger will select individual groups for a bit of micromanagement. Holding the left trigger increases the speed at which you scroll, handy for darting around a particular battle and ordering troops.
While still not up to par with a mouse and keyboard, the controls are perfectly suited for Halo Wars, thanks to the careful attention that has been paid to the size and pacing of combat.
Under the right conditions, your units will hold their own in battle even if you're not paying close attention to each one of them. No, a swarm of grunts won't last long versus a tank, but the game gives you ample time to move your cursor around and direct the action without worrying that your forces will crumple at the slightest opposition.
The drawback is that there aren't as many units on the field. While you can increase the number of units you can place on the map, I hit the limit at about 60. Every large vehicle, like a tank or a gunship, counts as three or four units. Since raising an insurmountable horde of troops is no longer an option, you'll instead need to find the right balance of different units for any situation.
Expansion and base construction is also different in Halo Wars. You can't just plop down armaments wherever you please. Instead, potential base locations are scattered about the map, and you must first capture them – sort of like the seminal Genesis strategy game Herzog Zwei. Once you've torn down enemy or neutral bases and built a command center, you're offered five pads to erect five buildings, and four spots for turrets. Upgrade your HQ, and you'll be granted a few more pads, which means that the bulk of base construction will involve properly managing which buildings you build, and upgrading quickly.
There also isn't much in the way of resource management. The UNSC build supply pads, and the Covenant build warehouses, but both serve the same function of providing you with a steady stream of supplies. You'll find the occasional revenue source hidden on a map, guarded by mysterious Rebels, but establishing an economy mostly boils down to managing how many supply pads you construct.
The system works great for the single-player campaign, and complements the console's control scheme, but many strategic elements are lost along the way, particularly with the game's multiplayer skirmish modes.
During my hands-on time, we only played on one multiplayer map. Once I learned where all the base locations were, there wasn't much opportunity to be surprised. Both the UNSC and Covenant races had a unit that mitigated this drawback, allowing you to deploy units anywhere on the map, but it still doesn't quite have the punch of constructing forward bases, or starving opponents by cutting them off from crucial resources.
Despite these issues, Halo Wars seems to be shaping up quite nicely. I still wish there were a PC version in the works, but the way things are looking, this may actually be one of the few console RTS games worth playing.
Images courtesy Microsoft
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