I'm stoked about Halo Wars - I've been an RTS fan since the original Command & Conquer came out, and I've played every iteration of that series, from Tiberian Sun to Generals: Zero Hour. I've also beaten the Warcraft and Starcraft games, and have tried my hand and several others.

I played the demo for Halo Wars, and being a long-time C&C fan, I'm a bit wary of some of the things they are doing differently - for example, you can't set up a base just anywhere. It appears from the demo that you have a base area that you must use, that can be upgraded and built onto, but not expanded out to take over a larger portion of the map. Instead, you must defeat enemy bases and defend the area from them for a short period of time - doing that allows you to take over their base, using it as your secondary base. With the experiences I've had with C&C, I prefer the ability to build a Mobile Construction Vehicle and set up a base where ever I please, but I haven't seen enough of the game to determine whether this would be a large problem for me.

Also, their turrets are multi-purpose - all turrets fire on air and ground vehicles. You upgrade them to suit more specialized purposes; the flamethrower upgrade does more damage to ground units, but it will still fire at incoming enemy air units. Also, you can only build four turrets, one at each corner of your base. I like the ability to "turtle"(to build up massive base defenses to deter enemy attacks while building up a large army), which I think this might impede. It would force me to adapt to new styles of play, which is a good thing, but I personally wish I could still build several different turrets in more key locations than simply at the corners of my base.

Garrisoning and soldier movement seems to be taken more from Axis and Allies than C&C - they can move into defensive cover positions, but not into actual buildings. While I think this is more realistic and more suitable for the Halo series, I found myself wishing I could shove ten soldiers in a building and use them to funnel the enemy troops through a smaller path, decreasing their numbers as they attempted to destroy the building. It's a personal opinion, however, and won't stop me from playing the game. In fact, I find that these are all challenges to be used to further my abilities as an RTS gamer.

On a side note, I played the demo on an xbox360 - I'm a die-hard PC fan for RTS games, so a console version that could leave such a good impression on me is, to me, well worth my time. I'm still going to get it for the PC, but I was very impressed with the ease of the controls for the 360 version - I fumbled for a few minutes when trying to select my troops, but I was quickly storming bases and strategically destroying enemy locations using a controller instead of WASD and a mouse. The graphics were amazing, especially the base upgrades and particle effects, and the cutscenes were wonderful and intense. All in all, I'd say Halo Wars may become the first in a highly-successful RTS series.

Asker's Rating:

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