Remember that episode
of Buffy the Vampire Slayer
where Buffy and the rest
of the gang fall under a
demonic influence that
forces them to communicate
solely via Broadway-style
musical numbers? (If your
eyes are glazing over at this
unbidden blast of geekery,
hold tight. It gets worse.)
It wasn’t just a matter
of the series creators
deciding it would be fun to
do an all-singing episode
of Buffy. The thing that
made it work so well was
that the core structure of
musicals — people voicing
their innermost thoughts
in song — provided a way
to give fans new insights
into the show’s characters,
and the characters a better
understanding of each other.
Halo Wars is Microsoft’s
attempt to take the multi-
million selling Halo first-
person shooter series and
turn it into a real-time
strategy game, similar
to home computer faves
like Starcraft or developer
Ensemble Studios’
own Age of Empires.
On paper, it sounds kind
of cool — cooler than singing
vampire slayers, certainly.
But unlike that Buffy
episode, Halo Wars doesn’t
quite work well enough in
its own right to make the
effort seem well-spent.
Make no mistake,
Halo Wars is absolutely
dripping with the essence
of Halo, in setting and
mythology and the familiar
machinery and enemies
from video gamedom’s
favourite future-war.
Instead of controlling a
single heavily armed guy
in power armour, you’re
indirectly guiding squads
of marines, convoys of
Scorpion tanks, flocks of
Hornet aircraft and so on,
waging war against the alien
Covenant threat (in the 15-
chapter solo campaign, set
20 years before
the events of the
original Halo)
or duking it out
head-to-head in
the multiplayer
modes.
Halo Wars
does a good job
of reworking real-
time strategy
game controls for a console
gamepad — much better
than most attempts at
bringing this PC-centric
genre to living room gaming
machines — yet something
still gets lost in translation.
The problem is that too
many concessions have been
made to shoehorn this genre
onto the Xbox 360, and to
do it in such a way that Halo
fans who’ve never played this
kind of game can appreciate
it. While the basic elements
of real-time strategy games
are here — base building,
unit manufacturing, tactical
planning and so
on — a lot of what
makes these games
so compelling has
been left out.
Sure, once you’ve
got a handle on
the controls and
memorized the
various shortcuts
for selecting units,
Halo Wars is fun to play.
The production values are
excellent, and the storyline
offers some nifty new
glimpses into the Halo
universe, much of it told
in slick CGI cutscenes.
But as you grind your way
through Halo Wars, you
might ultimately wonder:
Why? Why try to morph
one of gamedom’s most
successful shooter franchises
into a strategy title? Was
the world crying out for
a Halo strategy game?
No, but then the world
wasn’t clamouring for a
musical episode of Buffy
the Vampire Slayer, either.
Thing is, the ends justify the
means when it comes to
entertainment, and while
Halo Wars is slick, solid
and reasonably fun, it’s
not memorable enough to
stand alongside its shooter
brethren in the Halo
franchise. Not even if you
were to set it to music.
BottomLine
While Halo Wars is an
enjoyable strategy game full
of familiar elements from the
Halo universe, it ultimately
never quite clicks. Fans of both
Halo and real-time strategy
games should love it, others
might not feel compelled to
see it through.
3½
Halo Wars
Xbox 360
Ensemble Studios/
Microsoft Game Studios
Rating:
Teen
