Halo Wars is a Real-Time Strategy game developed by Ensemble (that's right, not Bungie!). It's attempting to transform the Halo universe we all know and love and turn it into a tactical, unit-managment style of game where you're the commander, instead of the battle-tattered hero.
Be prepared for a number of comparisons to Starcraft, the king of Real-Time Strategy, and note that while RTS games on a console are far inferior, I'm not blaming Halo Wars in any way for it.
Gameplay: 6.0
As I outlined in another article about real-time strategy concept design, a real-time strategy game needs to have several elements of depth for it to be considered a noteworthy or even an elite game within it's genre. Halo Wars was actually the inspiration for that article, before I started writing game reviews.
It mentions how managing several levels of battle within a strategy game is important to separating people that really know how to play, and people that are just pressing buttons and not caring.
In Halo Wars, there's a number of areas they failed to address to make gameplay more about strategy, and less about sending units in and watching stuff die.
Namely, harvesting resources in Halo Wars is as simple as building a building and watching your resources steadily increase, whereas in other RTS games you need to build units to go harvest resources found on the map. So, there's one element of depth gone, and it's now impossible to harass or kill off resource harvesters as a form of strategy, which is a huge part of RTS games, particularly in the competitive community.
Secondly, building placement has also been eliminated since you're confined to a building area, and you have a certain amount of slots to place buildings in, depending on if your base is upgraded. Again, in other RTS games, many times you'll be able to strategically place buildings for defenses, plus a greatly fluctuating amount of particular buildings depending on what your end-strategy is. You can build defenses onto your base if you choose to spend resources on it, but it's not nearly the same as being able to place those defenses or buildings in tactical places to gain an advantage. So there's another area of depth completely eliminated by Halo Wars.
Thirdly, this game has a big problem with giving relevant information related to what units do better damage against certain types of units, versus being able to visually see what they are doing. They have the rock-paper-scissors relationship where vehicles kill infantry, infantry kills air units, and air units kill vehicles. But they don't have any visual representation of that going on - your only method is to read what each unit does and try to remember it (the only place it is displayed as far as I know is where that unit is being built). Ultimately, it seems like the only end objective is to mass differing kinds of units and hope you win by flooding their base.
A lot of RTS games also feature several different races (3 or more), each with differing strengths and weaknesses as a whole. In Halo Wars, you get 2, which are basically the same units, buildings and concept. The only major difference is that you get to choose your general, which is a super unit you can control manually and wipe out enemies, or use special attacks on to gain an advantage in battle, and this is the biggest point in which you can call this game strategic.
As a whole, it does not do the RTS genre justice because of how simple and basic the gameplay is. The most you can do is try to micromanage a battle to show your superior skill, but buildings, upgrades, and resource harvesting have very little room for variation. In a game like Starcraft, managing your income or harming the other player's income is one of the biggest points of strategy in the game, along with building unit-producing buildings strategically around the map and/or in greatly differing numbers. It's got basically half of what the top-tier RTS games have in the way of variation in strategy.
It may sound like I'm nitpicking at the things Halo Wars doesn't do versus what other RTS games do, but since Starcraft is the gold standard when it comes to RTS games, it's easy to see what areas of depth Starcraft has vs Halo Wars, and automatically deem Halo Wars a far inferior game because of it.
The motive behind this game was, of course, "hey, there's something really popular right now! Let's get a piece of that pie." As a game standing on it's own, it doesn't deliver a whole lot.
I should at least come out and say that I played through the entire campaign, and while it's short, they at least attempt to do differing missions throughout the game and make it fun with the limits they have to work with. It's not terrible playing through the campaign, but don't expect to play a top-tier RTS and then play Halo Wars and be very impressed by anything. For the most part, it's about the same as watching a regular, large-scale Halo battle from a bird's eye view.
Presentation: 9.5
Halo Wars actually looks really good. Very good animation, character design. It looks like the Halo universe. Very good job.
Theatrics: 3.0
Once again, a Halo-related game comes out with another non-spectacular story, and tells it in a very boring way. The bulk of what you get out of it is they read mission logs with a voice over. Battle logistics and mission details, synced to in-game action that is lamer than the actual game, can only be interesting for so long, guys. The characters are about as stock and boring as they've ever been.
Controls: 9.0
Considering Halo Wars is on a console only, it's controls are actually pretty good. I'm not going to go into detail about how it's not on PC and you can't play a true RTS with a controller, but Halo Wars does a lot of good things to make up for what you miss with a mouse and keyboard.
Replay Value: 5.0
Considering I've played a lot of really good RTS games, and this one doesn't compare, there's not very much of a reason to play much more than the campaign and a few matches against computers or humans. After that, it kind of feels like you've done everything the game has to offer. It gave me about 12 hours of gameplay before I felt like I had seen everything.
Fun: 6.5
Overall, it's an okay game. Nothing spectacular, but sometimes going through the motions and watching stuff blow up can be fun. The campaign is halfway decent. Didn't play a ton of multiplayer just because I felt like I knew what the game offered, and it just wasn't that great of a product to keep me interested for long.
My Overall Rating: 6.7
Appeal and Recommendations
If you're a mega Halo fanboy, I'm sure you already own the game, so I don't need to tell you to check it out.
If you're an RTS fan, I'd pass on this game considering you can play about a dozen other RTS games that will give you what you want. Halo Wars just sticks to a concept that's older than even some of the ancient RTS games, but tacks Halo onto it. That's about as good as you're gonna get.
If you're just curious and a casual gamer, there are a lot of other games that would be more interesting to you. Pass.
Be prepared for a number of comparisons to Starcraft, the king of Real-Time Strategy, and note that while RTS games on a console are far inferior, I'm not blaming Halo Wars in any way for it.
Gameplay: 6.0
As I outlined in another article about real-time strategy concept design, a real-time strategy game needs to have several elements of depth for it to be considered a noteworthy or even an elite game within it's genre. Halo Wars was actually the inspiration for that article, before I started writing game reviews.
It mentions how managing several levels of battle within a strategy game is important to separating people that really know how to play, and people that are just pressing buttons and not caring.
In Halo Wars, there's a number of areas they failed to address to make gameplay more about strategy, and less about sending units in and watching stuff die.
Namely, harvesting resources in Halo Wars is as simple as building a building and watching your resources steadily increase, whereas in other RTS games you need to build units to go harvest resources found on the map. So, there's one element of depth gone, and it's now impossible to harass or kill off resource harvesters as a form of strategy, which is a huge part of RTS games, particularly in the competitive community.
Secondly, building placement has also been eliminated since you're confined to a building area, and you have a certain amount of slots to place buildings in, depending on if your base is upgraded. Again, in other RTS games, many times you'll be able to strategically place buildings for defenses, plus a greatly fluctuating amount of particular buildings depending on what your end-strategy is. You can build defenses onto your base if you choose to spend resources on it, but it's not nearly the same as being able to place those defenses or buildings in tactical places to gain an advantage. So there's another area of depth completely eliminated by Halo Wars.
Thirdly, this game has a big problem with giving relevant information related to what units do better damage against certain types of units, versus being able to visually see what they are doing. They have the rock-paper-scissors relationship where vehicles kill infantry, infantry kills air units, and air units kill vehicles. But they don't have any visual representation of that going on - your only method is to read what each unit does and try to remember it (the only place it is displayed as far as I know is where that unit is being built). Ultimately, it seems like the only end objective is to mass differing kinds of units and hope you win by flooding their base.
A lot of RTS games also feature several different races (3 or more), each with differing strengths and weaknesses as a whole. In Halo Wars, you get 2, which are basically the same units, buildings and concept. The only major difference is that you get to choose your general, which is a super unit you can control manually and wipe out enemies, or use special attacks on to gain an advantage in battle, and this is the biggest point in which you can call this game strategic.
As a whole, it does not do the RTS genre justice because of how simple and basic the gameplay is. The most you can do is try to micromanage a battle to show your superior skill, but buildings, upgrades, and resource harvesting have very little room for variation. In a game like Starcraft, managing your income or harming the other player's income is one of the biggest points of strategy in the game, along with building unit-producing buildings strategically around the map and/or in greatly differing numbers. It's got basically half of what the top-tier RTS games have in the way of variation in strategy.
It may sound like I'm nitpicking at the things Halo Wars doesn't do versus what other RTS games do, but since Starcraft is the gold standard when it comes to RTS games, it's easy to see what areas of depth Starcraft has vs Halo Wars, and automatically deem Halo Wars a far inferior game because of it.
The motive behind this game was, of course, "hey, there's something really popular right now! Let's get a piece of that pie." As a game standing on it's own, it doesn't deliver a whole lot.
I should at least come out and say that I played through the entire campaign, and while it's short, they at least attempt to do differing missions throughout the game and make it fun with the limits they have to work with. It's not terrible playing through the campaign, but don't expect to play a top-tier RTS and then play Halo Wars and be very impressed by anything. For the most part, it's about the same as watching a regular, large-scale Halo battle from a bird's eye view.
Presentation: 9.5
Halo Wars actually looks really good. Very good animation, character design. It looks like the Halo universe. Very good job.
Theatrics: 3.0
Once again, a Halo-related game comes out with another non-spectacular story, and tells it in a very boring way. The bulk of what you get out of it is they read mission logs with a voice over. Battle logistics and mission details, synced to in-game action that is lamer than the actual game, can only be interesting for so long, guys. The characters are about as stock and boring as they've ever been.
Controls: 9.0
Considering Halo Wars is on a console only, it's controls are actually pretty good. I'm not going to go into detail about how it's not on PC and you can't play a true RTS with a controller, but Halo Wars does a lot of good things to make up for what you miss with a mouse and keyboard.
Replay Value: 5.0
Considering I've played a lot of really good RTS games, and this one doesn't compare, there's not very much of a reason to play much more than the campaign and a few matches against computers or humans. After that, it kind of feels like you've done everything the game has to offer. It gave me about 12 hours of gameplay before I felt like I had seen everything.
Fun: 6.5
Overall, it's an okay game. Nothing spectacular, but sometimes going through the motions and watching stuff blow up can be fun. The campaign is halfway decent. Didn't play a ton of multiplayer just because I felt like I knew what the game offered, and it just wasn't that great of a product to keep me interested for long.
My Overall Rating: 6.7
Appeal and Recommendations
If you're a mega Halo fanboy, I'm sure you already own the game, so I don't need to tell you to check it out.
If you're an RTS fan, I'd pass on this game considering you can play about a dozen other RTS games that will give you what you want. Halo Wars just sticks to a concept that's older than even some of the ancient RTS games, but tacks Halo onto it. That's about as good as you're gonna get.
If you're just curious and a casual gamer, there are a lot of other games that would be more interesting to you. Pass.
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