Halo Wars
After the release of Halo 3, but before the release of Halo: ODST Microsoft enlisted Ensemble Studios to create an RTS (Real Time Strategy) spin-off of the Halo series. It came with mixed reviews as the intention was to create a console-friendly RTS which meant certain elements of the game needed to be simplified for controller use. Now, for someone who is terrible at RTS games this was right up my alley but for others I suppose it felt lacking.
Halo Wars drew a lot of appeal for me since, like StarCraft it's focus is on commanding about ships and other vehicles and one thing I love about Halo is the incredible vehicle and armor designs. Games like this one have this amazing feeling like you're playing with all your toys as a kid again. It's a digital version of a big Transformers (or the like) playset. You've got a bunch of tanks and army guys and you're waging war on the enemy with them. And since I'm typically quite terrible at these RTS games, Halo Wars takes it a bit easy on me so I can actually enjoy it all. In fact, even with the complaint that it's over simplified I still get panicky because it all moves too fast for me.
Though I primarily enjoyed Halo Wars' single player campaign, I had a blast playing the multiplayer skirmishes; which is effectively all I played in StarCraft. Though I did only ever play versus the computer, over and over again and I'd really love to find someone else interested enough to play with online. Though, chances are I'd just get creamed since I'm so terrible at RTS games.
Halo Wars was just the right kind of spin-off Halo game for me. With a property this solid and exciting it's really nice to see Microsoft expand it outside of the FPS genre. It was also smart of them to expand the game into a game type that is still appropriate for multiplayer gaming, since it's such a large component of the Halo series.
While Halo Wars is the one game in the series I've played the least of, it's still one I really enjoyed and although I have yet to beat it I do plan to return to it one day soon and see it to the end.
Halo Wars drew a lot of appeal for me since, like StarCraft it's focus is on commanding about ships and other vehicles and one thing I love about Halo is the incredible vehicle and armor designs. Games like this one have this amazing feeling like you're playing with all your toys as a kid again. It's a digital version of a big Transformers (or the like) playset. You've got a bunch of tanks and army guys and you're waging war on the enemy with them. And since I'm typically quite terrible at these RTS games, Halo Wars takes it a bit easy on me so I can actually enjoy it all. In fact, even with the complaint that it's over simplified I still get panicky because it all moves too fast for me.
Though I primarily enjoyed Halo Wars' single player campaign, I had a blast playing the multiplayer skirmishes; which is effectively all I played in StarCraft. Though I did only ever play versus the computer, over and over again and I'd really love to find someone else interested enough to play with online. Though, chances are I'd just get creamed since I'm so terrible at RTS games.
Halo Wars was just the right kind of spin-off Halo game for me. With a property this solid and exciting it's really nice to see Microsoft expand it outside of the FPS genre. It was also smart of them to expand the game into a game type that is still appropriate for multiplayer gaming, since it's such a large component of the Halo series.
While Halo Wars is the one game in the series I've played the least of, it's still one I really enjoyed and although I have yet to beat it I do plan to return to it one day soon and see it to the end.
No comments:
Post a Comment