Halo Wars (360)

[EvilBoris]

Bought this last week (mainly for the Halo 3 maps to be honest) but I'm glad I did.
If you've played the demo you'll mostly know what to expect; a console centric RTS. I particuarly like the way they have dealt with base building and resource gathering. Your bases have to be built in preset slots, which you either find in the fog of war or when you destroy a covenent base. Resource gathering has cut out the spice/ore harvesting of most RTS games and instead you just accrue cash over time, you can speed it up by using up the limited slots on your bases with supple pads.
The units have been kept to a bare mininum, there are probably less than 10 different kinds for each team, each upgradable over several stages.
I've found it really enjoyable so far, particuarly the more skirmish like missions and playing it online (which supports upto 6 players).

I've not tried co-op yet but the few games I played of VS were amazing fun and very quickly turned into full on battles.

The graphics are fairly standard to be honest and I feel the cutscenes don't really feel like they belong to something brandishing Halo in the title.
Alot of the time I feel like they have got the Halo style wrong and you are infact playing some kind of C&C mod.
I suppose that they have put more effort into the gameplay though.

[Daragon]

Whilst I agree that the cutscenes feel out of place, they're certainly the nicest pre rendered I've seen on any 360 game I've seen to date. The in-game visuals look fine to me as well, certainly better on any of the 360's previous attempts at forging an acclaimed example of the genre.

Like you say, gameplay is overly simple, very RTS lite which I think is slightly disappointing - with games like Age of Empires, I just loved all my little farmer dudes hack down trees and rocks, lifting the fog of war only to discover an enemy camp right on the other side ready to tear six different shades of **** out of them. That said however, I don't believe the 360 is the right platform for a real RTS - when people sit down to a console, they don't want to be spending hours amassing an army or filling up half the map with buildings or resources, the PC does that sort of thing far better.

[chopemon]

I really enjoyed playing through this and completed it last night.

I think it was a bit short and easy but good fun.

Coop on Legendary is immense and thoroughly enjoyable!

[EvilBoris]

the actual simplicity of the RTS side of thing didn't bother me, as you could still acheive the same epic battles you get from storming an enemy base, which to me is a big part of what makes RTS games fun.

I think if you are a strategy fan, the c&c/red alert games on 360 work fantastic

[yesteryeargames]

ive been playing it single player and online which is good fun,
just wonderd tho somtimes your trying to build more tanks or other things and it says u need so many power stations , fiar enuf, then there is another which has a human shape ? what does that mean plz? ive had enuff res to build them but the human shape thing stays red?

thanks, ps sorry im a bit of a noob to rts games

[chopemon]

The human shape is your population cap. Each unit has a population value and these combined cannot exceed your pop cap.

The only control thing that bugged me was the inability to really have separate armies. In PC RTS games you can assign a group of units to a number key so you can select them with just that key. They could have solved that in HW by allowing you to bind units to dpad directions.

[yesteryeargames]

Hi all, got a problem.


i got the collectors edition with the downloads scratch card, i used the map code, and the 49 hour code, however the honour gaurd code will not work, it says its invalid, ive triple checked it several times, and checked different charcters which could confuse it like B and 8 but no luck

it simply says each time the code is invalid?


what should i do who should i contact please?

[Dazzyman]

Whats the unit count on this lads?

Ive got it saved at Gamestation from last week when I did my credit note (for the tradins when took defunct 360 pack for replacement) but Im unsure whether to get it or get something like Hawx (RE5 already reserved lol).

[EvilBoris]

I think you can have a max of 40 units, although some of those units consist of 5 marines.

[ChrisF]

Actually played this for a bit over the weekend... Anyone else still playing it?

My damn units keep on getting stuck in the map. WTF? I can select them but then they decide not to move.

[cutmymilk]

This game is epic fail. Months after retail and 10 posts on First Play!

[ChrisF]

Bit of a shame really as it's very polished... apart from the bugs It does what it does really well, nice enough story, and controls are suited well to the pad.

I just think that perhaps Halo fans only want FPS games, and people that like RTS games don't like Halo. Who knows eh? Its becoming quite cheap to pick up now though so it's becoming worth grabbing.

[Flabio]

This game is epic fail. Months after retail and 10 posts on First Play!

It hasn't done well at retail at all. Although it certainly hasn't had the marketing push that MS games usually get.

[ExtremePabs]

Yes this is actually a really good game and very accessible due to the easy control system. I have been lucky and not hit any of the mentioned bugs though. The graphices and the story are really good and it all seems to hang together well.

There are still a few playing it online but like you say unfortunately not enough took a chance on it.

[prinnysquad]

I think it's a great game with intuitive controls, some nice missions, and a decent skirmish mode. Thoroughly enjoying co-op mode, and working through it on Legendary.