Halo Wars Xbox 360

Released on 27/02/2009

• Halo Wars Preview

  It's Halo, Chief, but not as we know it...

  The Real-Time Strategy genre was once a principle province of the PC, but recently a few of its big hitters have tried their luck on current consoles – with limited success. Hardcore RTS fave Command & Conquer couldn't quite make the controls work on a pad, and the voice-controlled Tom Clancy's EndWar focused more on tactical troop deployment than building a base and amassing an army. As such, there remains a definite gap in the market for a truly great console RTS.

  Straccessible!

  Step in Ensemble Studios to fill it. With Halo Wars on Xbox 360, they've created probably the best-ever console RTS control scheme, and a game which, on playing the Xbox Live demo, promises to be both accessible and strategic in equal measure.

  Probably the best-ever console RTS control scheme promises to make Halo Wars both accessible and strategic in equal measure.

  Halo Wars kicks off with a tutorial that gets you used to guiding your units. The left stick handles the camera's movement, while the right stick both rotates the cam and dictates your viewing angle, which you can have top-down and far away (so your soldiers look like ants), or zoomed in for a more up-close-and-personal experience.

  Whichever you choose, at the centre of the screen you'll find a cursor used to interact with your armies. Doing so is simple; press A to select single units, RB for all on the screen, LB to select all units, or you can hold A and manually drag the cursor over the ones you wish to control. When you've chosen your troops, X makes them move, or if pressed when hovering over an enemy unit, the cursor turns red and X becomes attack. Y is secondary attack, which depends on the unit – soldiers for instance have grenades, while the Warthog can ram into enemies.

  No Prophet in peace

  Halo Wars also has a handy set of shortcuts which replace the super-fast mouse scrolling that PCs do so well. L trigger speeds up Halo Wars' camera, R trigger lets you cycle through unit types, plus you can jump straight to them with down on the d-pad, and switch the view straight to your base(s) with left on the d-pad. Up on the d-pad, meanwhile, accesses Leader Powers, which for human UNSC forces means an airstrike, and for the Covenant you get the similarly powerful psychic powers of the Prophet of Regret – both of which you aim with the left stick.

  Because Halo Wars' basic controls are so intuitive, so it's not long before you're well into the advanced tutorial and learning how to build a base. Only certain places on the map are suitable for this, but once you've found one it's a simple case of selecting the option from a pop-up menu to erect the main structure, then clicking one of the eleven empty building sites which form around it and populating them with an assortment of structures.

  A streamlined pick-up-and-play experience with all of Real-Time Strategy genre's key conventions.

  Your first task will be to get the resources needed to purchase them. Pleasingly, Halo Wars' take on resource management isn't as drawn-out as other RTS titles. Sending your starting Warthog off to forage for initial supplies, you can soon build a Supply Pad, which keeps a steady stream of supplies coming in. Next, you'll need a Reactor to gather power, and with those both up, you can populate the other empty spaces in your grid with Turrets, Barracks, Vehicle Depots and the like, which provide the defences and units needed to wage war upon the enemy – albeit with an initial 30-troop limit, to stop things descending into chaos.

  Like the controls, Halo Wars' base building is all easily memorised, and while the grid system is a little simplified from some PC RTS titles, it strikes a good balance, offering a streamlined pick-up-and-play experience with all of genre's key conventions.

  Perfect fit

  Most importantly though, it oozes that familiar Halo feel. The menus, art style, cutscenes and characters could all have been cut from Halo 3, and from the opening skirmishes you really do feel like you're in the middle of the UNSC's five year-long struggle for the planet Harvest. There's even a story which revolves around the Covenant finding an ancient relic on the surface, and on top of all that, Halo Wars' Skirmish mode will let multiple players battle it out as both Earth and alien forces.

  Streamlined but still supremely playable, and feeling like a perfect fit for the series despite trying an entirely new gamestyle, Halo Wars on Xbox 360 should satisfy both strategy gamers and Halo fans alike when it arrives in just two short weeks.

  Preview by: Mark 'Spartan' Scott
  Preview Published: 11.02.09

  Published: 11/02/2009

• Halo Wars Review

  "All units..."

  If you're a console gamer, the chances are you're not a hardcore Real-time Strategy fan. The genre has never been that popular with joypad jockeys, because all that multi-unit multitasking was considered much better suited to a PC keyboard and mouse setup. Until now.

  Halo Wars is an important title in many respects. It's the first new Halo IP we've seen since 2007's Halo 3; it's the franchise's first steps outside of first-person shooter genre; and it's the first fully-fledged RTS to really work on console.

  Stars in their eyes

  As a Halo game, Halo Wars is an astounding success. It just feels like it belongs in the franchise – the intro resonates with that familiar choral chanting, the menus are presented with the same blue hue and futuristic artwork, and the cutscenes are positively dripping in Bungie's much-loved interstellar melodrama.

  Spartans can wield powerful weapons like the Spartan Laser and commandeer Covenant vehicles. Used wisely, they beat everything.

  The story too expands the series. Set 20 years before the first Halo game, it's a time when humans are battling alien Covenant forces across the known universe. Halo Wars sees you commanding the forces of the Spirit of Fire as they bound about the stars taking the fight to the enemy.

  Which brings us to the new genre. How has the Haloverse translated to tactical gameplay? Pretty well, actually. Halo Wars gives you a single grid-like base to populate with structures, from which you can amass an army. Combat works on a paper-scissors-stone system – ground vehicles typically beat infantry; infantry typically beat aerial threats; flying units beat ground-based vehicles. Special Units meanwhile include Spartans, who can wield powerful weapons like the Spartan Laser and commandeer Covenant vehicles. Used wisely, they beat everything.

  It's just annoying that the 'fog of war' effect is so prevalent. In most RTS titles, it masks an area until your troops have explored it. In Halo Wars, you won't be able to see enemies even in the areas you have explored, unless you place troops there. It might annoy PC players, but console gamers new to the genre are unlikely to care.

  A new standard

  And that's because of Halo Wars' handy control shortcuts. Scrolling with the analogue stick can take its time, but you can speed this up with LT, jump to your base or units with the D-Pad, and sift through unit types with RT. A more detailed control breakdown can be found in our Preview, but sufficed to say, it's easily the new standard for RTS games on consoles.

  Halo Wars' online Skirmish mode may prove a huge hit on Xbox Live.

  When you're not delegating tactics in Halo Wars, you'll be researching to improve your units. You do this by clicking on the relevant building, which brings up a radial menu. Here, the options to create new units are on the right, and upgrades are on the left. In the barracks, for instance, you can upgrade your basic soldiers to have an extra man in the squad. Click a turret and you can give it an improved rail gun. It's all hassle free, with the cost being the resources constantly flowing in from your supply pad.

  A second player could complicate matters, but Halo Wars' online co-op option actually makes it all the more fun. The two players can independently create and direct their own units, and even give units to each other. Having twice as many players doubles efficiency as well, so Halo Wars' higher difficulty settings are best played via this method – especially some of the more frustrating missions involving everyone's [least] favourite parasite, the Flood.

  Huge hit

  Once Halo Wars' campaign is complete, you can turn to multiplayer. Here you get to pick from UNSC or Covenant forces, each with a choice of different Leaders who bring special abilities into battle (more on that in the Preview). Importantly, the Covenant look and feel suitably different – and markedly more powerful in some areas – and yet the base building and upgrading is handled just the same way, with each race's weaknesses and strengths being countered by the other's. It would have benefited from a further third playable race, but Halo Wars' online Skirmish mode may nonetheless prove a huge hit on Xbox Live.

  Surprisingly easy to pick up, deftly balanced and boasting both co-op and competitive multiplayer modes, Halo Wars is a rare success for the console RTS and a brave but brilliant way for Halo to branch out into new genres. It's a little simplistic compared to the Red Alerts of the world, and it may not help the Xbox 360 usurp PC as the home of strategy gaming, but for console gamers Halo Wars offers the best of both worlds.

  GAME's Verdict

  

  • A brilliant RTS control scheme on a console controller.
  • The story, look, sound and feel are all unmistakably Halo.
  • Co-op and multiplayer skirmish will add lots of longevity.

  

  • May feel a bit simplistic to hardcore PC RTS players.
  • Fog of war obscuring even the areas you've already explored unless you've got units there.
  • Could have done with an extra playable race.

  Review by: Mark 'Scarab' Scott
  Review Published: 26.02.09

  Published: 26/02/2009

• Halo History

  Halo: The Complete Saga

  Halo: Reach may not be the final Halo title, but it's the last game from Bungie Studios, the visionary developers who created the series. And what better way to celebrate Bungie's big goodbye than by playing the entire saga in story order?

  We've searched our stock high and low to ensure you can do just that - starting with Reach, and continuing in every other Halo game ever made.

  Suit up, soldier, it's gonna be one hell of a ride...
  

   

   

   

   

   

  Halo Reach

  Format: Xbox 360 (2010)
  Genre: First-Person Shooter

  August 2552: Deep into a third decade of brutal interplanetary war against an unrelenting alien collective known as the Covenant. After decades of genocide, they have found humanity's military capital; the planet Reach - Earth's last defence against an all-out assault.

  But Reach is the home of the Spartans - Mjolnir-armoured super soldiers who will do everything in their power to beat back the invading hordes and protect the secrets of the United Nations Space Command.

  You are the sixth and newest member of Reach's finest Spartan unit; classified as 'Hyper Lethal' and armed with cutting edge equipment, the fall of Reach will be your final mission - and the very foundation of our greatest victory.

  Welcome to Noble Team, Spartan. Give 'em hell.
  

  Halo: Combat Evolved

  Format: Xbox (2001) (Playable on Xbox 360), PC (2003)
  Genre: First-Person Shooter

  September 2552: Escaping Reach before the planet's obliteration, UNSC cruiser The Pillar of Autumn FTL jumps into the unknown, and emerges at a ring-shaped planet built by a long-dead race called the Forerunners: Halo.

  Aboard the Autumn is Spartan 117 - codenamed Master Chief - and humanity's most advanced Artificial Intelligence, designated Cortana. Together, the pair will infiltrate Halo, wage a guerrilla war against the Covenant across its surface, and uncover a secret which could turn the tide of war in our favour - or wipe the galaxy of all sentient life.

  Get ready to experience combat: evolved.
  

  Halo 2

  Format: Xbox (2004) (Playable on Xbox 360), PC
  Genre: First-Person Shooter

  October 2552: Reeling from the destruction of Halo, one of the Covenant's three leaders takes a small force and, pursuing intelligence that will lead him to a new Halo ring, unwittingly stumbles upon Earth itself.

  Fresh from his last-gasp victory on Halo, It falls to the Master Chief to lead the defence of humanity's homeworld, before following the Prophet of Regret's cruiser through a slipspace portal opened in-atmosphere over New Mombasa.

  Backed by Cortana and a small UNSC fleet, the Chief will pursue Regret across the new ring world, battle another equally perilous threat and, aided by an unlikely ally, will discover the endgame behind the Covenant's genocidal crusade...
  

  Halo 3: ODST

  Format: Xbox 360 (2009)
  Genre: First-Person Shooter

  October 2552: Regret's unexpected incursions into New Mombasa left not only untold devastation across the African mega-city, but also a small army of Covenant troops behind on its surface, frantically searching for clues to another, greater forerunner artefact.

  Dropped deep into Covenant-occupied territory, a group of the UNSC's second most elite fighting unit, the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, will undertake a mission of the utmost importance.

  Separated from his squad, the Helljumper's newest recruit will dart between alien patrols under cover of darkness to locate his compatriots and safeguard a piece of intelligence which will prove vital to the war effort.

  Prepare to drop, Rookie...
  

  Halo 3

  Format: Xbox 360 (2007)
  Genre: First-Person Shooter

  November 2552: The Forerunner's Halo network is primed for firing; the Covenant have redeployed to Earth in search of Halo's control centre; and alien parasite The Flood has imprisoned Cortana, commandeered the Covenant's floating holy city, and found its way to Earth. This will be the final battle - and for the faltering USNC, things have never looked bleaker.

  But where the Master Chief lives, hope remains. Joined by the former vanguard of the Covenant forces, the Elites, Spartan 117 will carry the hope of humanity into battle in New Mombasa and, subsequently, across the galaxy to the very source of the Halo Rings - where a fateful climax will ensure the sacrifices made by Noble Team were not in vain.

  It's time to finish the fight.
  

  AND DON'T FORGET...

  Halo Wars

  Format: Xbox 360 (2009)
  Genre: Real-Time Strategy

  2531: Decades before the fall of Reach and just six years into the Human-Covenant War, UNSC warship The Spirit of Fire engages alien forces above the surface of planet Harvest.

  Lead by Vice Admiral Preston Cole, the Spirit's marine forces will make a shocking discovery: Harvest conceals a significant Forerunner artefact which had gone undetected during humanity's colonisation of the previously peaceful planet.

  Finding that this relic points the way towards a galactic location of potentially war-ending significance, the Spirit of Fire mobilises its forces in the hope that it isn't already too late...
  
  

• History of Halo

  
  
  
  
  

  What is HALO?

  You're kidding, right? Halo is the brainchild of Bungie Studios. It's one of the biggest videogame series in the world, and arguably the best exclusive on the Xbox. That means you won't find a Halo game on any other home console - it's basically a reason to buy a 360. On top of that, Halo is also a huge multimedia phenomenon that's grown to include comics, figurines and novels - and maybe even a movie in the not-so-far-future.

  The games themselves mostly take the form of First-Person shooters, pitting you as a rock-hard armoured space marine fighting against a fanatical alien race called The Covenant. We say mostly, because occasionally you get to play as a Covenant soldier, instead - while one of the Halo games, Halo Wars, isn't actually a shooter at all; it's a Real-Time Strategy game based on the back-story of Bungie's acclaimed sci-fi universe.

  Before there was HALO...

  
  

  ...There was Marathon. No, not the old name for Snickers, but actually the series that Bungie made for the Macintosh prior to Halo.

  Marathon was a critically-acclaimed first-person shooter which the Halo games openly reference with injokes, iconography and sci-fi subject matter - although Bungie insist that the two game universes are separate. First released in 1994, with sequels Marathon 2: Durandal and Marathon Infinity arriving in '95 and '96 respectively, the Marathon trilogy was one of the era's most advanced FPSs, but being a Mac-only release flew under the radar next to ID's all-conquering DOOM for PC.

  If you want to try Marathon and witness Halo's spiritual heritage, you can download it here.

• History of Halo: HALO WARS

  HALO WARS - Xbox 360 (2009)

  
  

  With the FPS trilogy now complete, Microsoft began exploring other avenues for the Halo brand. One of the most obvious was to turn the epic conflict between humans, Covenant and Flood into a Real-Time Strategy game. And with Age of Empires developers Ensemble Studios at the helm, Halo Wars was guaranteed great gameplay to match the series' epic scenario.

  Story: 20 years before the events of Halo, human forces are locked in battle with the Covenant across the known universe. Halo Wars sees players controlling the forces of UNSC warship the Spirit Of Fire and uncovering Forerunner technology to aid in the interstellar struggle.

  Gameplay: Typical RTS fare, with a few efforts at streamlining the genre for the console crowd, and controls tailored specifically to the Xbox 360 pad. A story-driven campaign (which could be played in co-op), plus online multiplayer Skirmish mode made Halo Wars one of the few strategy titles to succeed on console, and easily the best RTS on Xbox 360. At the same time the plot, characters and ambience all allowed Halo Wars to fit snugly into the franchise, meaning it also appealed considerably to existing FPS Halo fans.

• Bungie lifts the lid on Master Chief

  Bungie has been discussing the creation of its iconic Halo star Master Chief over at Industry Gamers - thanks for the story, Eurogamer - and the developer has explained why the big green giant tends to keep his thoughts to himself.

  "We left out details to increase immersion; the less players knew about the Chief, we believed, the more they would feel like the Chief," explained Bungie lead writer Joseph Staten. "Immersion was the main goal here. Also keeping the Chief a man of few words reinforced what we wanted to be a tough-as-nails soldierly persona."
  
  Staten adds that to give the game a bit of oomph, Bungie wanted players to understand the Chief predicament. "In the first Halo game we absolutely designed experiences around themes of loneliness and abandonment," Staten revealed. "Halo didn't dwell on the loss of the other Spartans (the closest we came was some of the 'combat dialog' from friendly A.I. For example, 'Look, a Spartan! I thought they all died on Reach...'), but we did absolutely want players sometimes to feel the weight of the Chief's heavy responsibilities. Take, for example, the mission where the Chief leaves Cortana to search for his commanding officer, Captain Keyes, only to end up witnessing the recorded deaths of other soldiers who might have lived had the Chief been with them."

  Master Chief was last seen in Halo 3, of course, but if you want to catch up with his Spartan buddies in something a bit newer, check out last year Xbox 360 exclusive, Halo Reach.

• Microsoft unveils Halo Fest

  Ready to feel old? Microsoft best-selling Halo series is 10 years old this year. A decade of Master Chief! To celebrate, the Xbox giant has announced Halo Fest, a three day event celebrating all things Spartan, which will take place during the Penny Arcade Expo, due to hit Seattle this August.

  The event should be a blast, and will see Microsoft swamping attendees with tournaments, panels and all sorts of prizes. The reason why wee excited, though, is that, even if wel be stuck in rainy old England for the event itself, several websites looking at you, Eurogamer - are speculating that Microsoft might use the occasion to announce a new Halo game.

  With Bungie leaving the series it created with last year Halo: Reach, it over to the franchise new custodian 343 Industries. The team has been hiring game developers left, right and centre for quite a while, and Eurogamer seems to think that a tenth birthday party would be the perfect time to reveal what 343 been up to.

  If you're not in Seattle this August, don't worry too much. We'll have all the news for you right here.

• Halo 4 beta invites are a hoax, warns 343 Industries

  Halo 4 beta invites are a hoax, warns 343 Industries

  David Ellis of 343 Industries, the studio which inherited the Halo series from Bungie, has taken to Twitter to warn fans that offers to take part in a beta trial for the upcoming Halo 4 are not to be trusted.

  If you see a page claiming to allow you to sign up for a Halo 4 beta be advised, IT'S A FAKE, he posted, which is pretty conclusive. It seems fans had been lured in by unscrupulous phishing sites which requested personal account details in return for access to the hotly anticipated FPS sequel.

  Halo 4 sees the return of Master Chief, having sat out both Halo ODST and Halo: Reach, and marks the start of a new trilogy for the award-winning series. The game is expected later this year, exclusively for Xbox 360 of course, but Microsoft has yet to announce any further details.

• The Rise of Multiplayer Gaming

  It's hard to image there was ever a time when we couldn't assume our grimmest war-face, fire up our consoles and do battle with a global army of enemy combatants from the comfort of our armchairs. We're certainly come a long way from sitting hunched over our Commodores, battling as much for keyboard space with our siblings as we were on-screen! But where did it all start?

  Things really started to evolve in the 90s though when LAN parties were the in-thing for the hardcore gaming hobbyist. If the prospect of the violently seductive Doom wasn't enough to keep you up into the early hours by itself, there was no better way to bring the competitive minds of a whole generation of gamers together than by syncing up a few PCs and spending hours, even days, doing battle in the flesh.

  

  The blossoming Korean e-sports scene took the concept even further, and now commands a staggering national audience for televised championships. Blizzard's outstanding StarCraft series rules the roost in this domain, and not even the awesome sequel released in 2010 has put a dent in players' enthusiasm for the best-selling original. The competitive scene for StarCraft II is still buzzing in the West, and it's never too late to get stuck into a game that'll be around for years to come and still has two explosive expansions in the works.

  

  Then there's World of Warcraft, the game that really did change everything. Released in 2004, it arrived just at the right time as the mass uptake of increasingly fast broadband connections became the norm, unleashing a greedy clamour for the world of Azeroth - one so extreme that it saw Blizzard pull the game from store shelves at one point, their servers unable to keep up with the snowballing demand. It now enjoys a seven-figure subscriber count, and with three award-winning expansions under it's belt, there's more content for you to get stuck into than you'll know what to do with!

  

  While consoles such as the sadly-undersold Dreamcast teased gently around the potential for global gameplay, it was arguably Microsoft who broke new ground for console gaming with the launch of the Xbox LIVE service, putting a whole new world of gaming at player's feet - and long before PCs became a breeze to hook up for the living-room lounger!

  So while PC gaming might have dominated the early days of competitive multiplayer, it was titles like Halo 2 that brought the idea of mass gaming to the forefront of game design. While the single-player components of the Halo games continue to blow us away, the passion for Halo 2 was so extreme that players left their Xbox 360s running for days at a time to prevent the eventual switch-off of multiplayer support for all original Xbox games in April 2010.

  

  These days it's show-stopping blockbuster titles like Call of Duty that continue to change the way gaming is viewed and played online by the console crowd. For many, it's the only game they need to buy each year, and new services like Call of Duty Elite are doing even more to add greater depth to the experience, allowing gamers to track, log and show off their finest moments on the battlefield.

  

  No-one can guess what the next evolution in multiplayer might be, but we're already seeing some extraordinary innovation in the likes of Nintendo's StreetPass, allowing gamers-on-the-go to make new friends without ever saying hello, and the awesome potential of the augmented reality features in the upcoming PlayStation Vita. One thing's clear, multiplayer is here to stay and the future can only bring us even closer together.

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