Halo Wars Premieres at E3
Ensemble Studios gave the public its first look at Halo Wars at the E3 2007 show in Santa Monica. Somewhat surprisingly, it is clearly a Halo game through and through, and not just a sci-fi adaptation of Ensemble's Age of Empires series. Of course, Halo Wars builds on Ensemble's experience creating one of the most successful real-time strategy (RTS) game series ever, but it also does a great job integrating the look and feel of Bungie's Halo games, as well as the unit personalities and capabilities of the shooter trilogy.
Back at the base, Warthog and other unit building is underway.
Control Scheme
Halo Wars has been in development for over two-and-a-half years, with much of the earliest development spent devising an RTS control scheme that works well on a console controller. From what we saw in the early build, this time paid off, as selection and movement looked easy and instinctive. Move the cursor over a unit and press A to select it, move the cursor to the destination, and press X to move the unit. Double-tap the A button to select all units of that type on the screen, or hold down A and "paint select" units using the cursor. Simple. Ensemble has designed Halo Wars to be fully playable using just the left stick and the four main buttons, though advanced users can access further functions, such as setting waypoints or jumping back to the base, using the D-pad and other buttons.
Look and Feel
Despite being transplanted into an RTS, the Halo units look and act just like their shooter counterparts. Warthogs slide as they take corners, and are instrumental in mowing down Covenant units—either using their gun, or by driving right over them. Grunts swarm around Elites, and even new air vehicles like the helicopter-like Hawks have the same distinctive design as UNSC air units in the Halo trilogy. Setting the game in 2531, 20 years before the events of Halo, allows Ensemble to throw some new units into the mix while maintaining consistency with Halo lore.
Defeating this Covenant Scarab will require help from above.
Graphics are stunning even this early in development. The crisp, bright terrains look like Halo 3 footage taken from above the battle, and individual units are very detailed. Warthogs, for instance, showed visible damage after a battle.
Battle Stations
In Halo Wars, ground units are commanded from the support ship UNSC Spirit of Fire in early battles against Covenant forces, aided by Serina, the ship's A.I. As in traditional RTS games, units are built and launched from a base. The emphasis is more on units and battle than resource gathering, though Ensemble did say that there is a streamlined resource element, hinting that your ship may play a role. The gameplay we saw at E3 was a single-player UNSC effort, using UNSC technology exclusively. Ensemble's mum for now on whether you'll be able to appropriate Covenant weapons, or play missions as the Covenant.
And what battles we saw! As the Earth forces attacked a Covenant base, the attack was going well until the enemy started sending in Banshees to attack from above. The UNSC force countered by bringing in some Wolverine anti-aircraft units, which quickly laid waste to the Banshees. Just as it looked like the tide had turned in favor of the humans, a Covenant Scarab (think "giant robot spider with huge green death ray") entered the scene and started decimating the UNSC force. It was time to call in the big gun—the UNSC contacted the Spirit of Fire, which launched a MAC (Magnetic Accelerator Cannon) attack from orbit. Presto—no more Scarab.
And at that point, no more E3 demo. But Ensemble clearly accomplished its goal with this short but exciting sneak peek. Just as we're about to finally be able to own and play Halo 3, we'll also be focusing our energies on Halo Wars.
Article by Denny Atkin
