Hands On with the Halo Wars Demo

Published January 26, 2009

Longtime fans might remember that the Halo franchise was initially tossed around the halls of Bungie as a real-time-strategy (RTS) game before morphing into what would become a seminal first-person-shooter franchise for Xbox and Xbox 360.

Welcome to a whole new kind of Halo.

With Halo Wars™, the blockbuster series returns to its RTS roots, thanks to the folks at Ensemble Studios. Xbox LIVE subscribers will have weeks, rather than days, of advanced playtime thanks to the Halo Wars demo, available for download for Gold members on February 5 and Silver members on February 12 from Xbox LIVE® Marketplace.

Demo Features
Before we discuss Halo Wars' approach to real-time-strategy gameplay on Xbox 360, let's first examine what exactly this remarkably feature-filled demo offers. Indeed, few demos offer as hefty a sampling of gameplay as Halo Wars.

There's no laborious menu navigation in Halo Wars, every tool at your disposal is just a click or two away.

Tutorials
If there's a genre you don't want to wade blindly into, it's real time strategy. The Halo Wars demo offers both Basic and Advanced tutorials to introduce the game's fundamental mechanics. This even includes a brief tutorial covering the strategic differences between the UNSC and Covenant forces.

Story Intro
The demo features the Campaign mode's first two levels, complete with gorgeous, plot-heavy cut-scenes that reveal a few of the game's major players—Captain Cutter of the Spirit of Fire, the ground commander Sgt. Forge (one wonders if he takes his name from the Halo 3 feature of the same name), a new A.I.-powered character, and even a cameo from a familiar Halo nemesis. All of this takes place twenty years before the infamous "Halo Event."

The opening moments of Halo Wars reveal the Covenant has found an item of interest in a mysterious snowbound structure. It's up to Forge and company to discover just what peril this artifact leads to.

"Chasms" is a Skirmish battle against an A.I. opponent.

Skirmish
The demo also includes a one-on-one Skirmish battle between the UNSC and Covenant. Skirmishes are one-off affairs played against A.I. or other players. In this case, it's you against one A.I. enemy on the snow-swept tundra of a map known as Chasms. Beyond the battle itself, there are a few interesting factoids that come to light by setting up and playing the Skirmish match.

• Three on Three: While you can't explore the option in the demo, you can see Halo Wars supports up to six simultaneous players for three on three matches. Indeed, each map appears to be dedicated to a particular setup.
• Standard and Deathmatch: You play a Standard match in the demo, which means resources are collected at a rate consistent with the single-player Campaign. Deathmatch, on the other hand (not available in the demo) amps up the resource production for a faster, more explosive battle.
• Leaders: Thanks to the setup menu, you can see that each team handpicks their leader, who will in turn grant their respective teams unique units and powers. For example, Captain Cutter grants access to the ELEPHANT, MAC Blast, and ODST Super Unit, as well as starting your base off with an advanced tech level. Meanwhile, the Covenant's Prophet of Regret adds Elite Honor Guard units to the mix, plus access to the Cleansing attack. There are three leaders to choose from on each side.

RTS on a Pad
Beyond the features and game modes in the demo, it's also worth discussing just how Halo Wars differentiates itself from other real-time-strategy games on Xbox 360. The game was built from the ground up exclusively for console play, and every feature, mechanic, and strategic thread of game design was crafted with Xbox 360 solely in mind.

Troop control and selection is a breeze. For example, to select every available unit, simply tap LB. To focus to all on-screen units, RB does the trick. "Paint" with a large cursor to hand-select a specific grouping of units.

Quickly direct your units in the middle of battle.

Once your army is selected, it's a simple matter of using the right trigger to cycle through each individual unit (each of which is represented by large, easy to identify icons near the bottom of the screen) in order to give them specific orders.

Every tool at your disposal is just a click or two away. There's no laborious menu navigation in Halo Wars, just a slick control scheme that keeps pace with your line of strategy so you can think, execute, and move on to the next task in a few seconds.

Order your infantry to toss grenades to level a building, send a Spartan to commandeer an enemy vehicle, or direct your flamethrower units to stun the enemy with flashbangs. Direct your units wisely to gain the tactical advantage mid-combat.

You'll recognize many units from previous Halo games.

In Halo Wars you begin with a single base, and that base holds several open slots to build what you will. The strategy then depends on slot management as you balance power plants against supply pads, land-based vehicle factories versus airborne ones, and so on.

Halo Universe
The demo proves that not only does Halo Wars successfully translate the real-time-strategy genre to console play, but it also demonstrates just how successfully it has injected the magic of the Halo universe into the game.

Halo fans will love watching a newly researched Spartan jack a Ghost, seeing the Warthog's trademark fishtail as it slithers around a corner, hearing the irreverent chatter bandied about among the UNSC infantry, or simply garrisoning units inside a Pelican for a mid-battle drop. Halo Wars captures the spirit of the series while allowing us to use the familiar world, units and characters we've enjoyed for many years in a whole new way.

Article by Ryan Treit