By the Will of the Prophets - Matt On Halo Wars

When I first saw the teaser video for Halo Wars I remember thinking, "Fuck Yes," which I've heard was a pretty common response. Playing the pre-release demo, however, I noticed the cons of RTS being particularly prevalent in the game. Limited tech trees, Unalterable base locations, and an extremely limited faction selection all suggested one thought - why would I want to play this for more than one or two games? Sure, it's fun to watch a defenseless Warthog transform into a mobile Gauss Cannon/Rocket platform, but the novelty lost its appeal once you upgraded everyone to their max potential.

With these thoughts in mind, I passed on the game's purchase (even the promise of additional Halo 3 maps couldn't allow me to ignore our current economic state). I did, however end up renting it - in part to allow Mike to accurately gauge the multiplayer, and partially because I felt the Halo universe deserved at lease four of my precious dollars, if not the full $60 retail.

I ended up keeping the game an extra week (won't be going back to that Blockbuster any time soon) and becoming frustrated when Mike moved on to a different game - it had that kind of pull. The weaknesses on the demo hadn't been patched, but they'd become their own strengths - I never had to worry about the other person pumping out something completely off my radar, I took comfort in the knowledge of base location and Halo Wars' expansionist strategies, and I much preferred the impeccable attention given to the UNSC and Covenant over five or six incredibly bland faction selections.

I also found the storyline and cutscenes to be amazing (God, the cutscenes!) and a number of the single-player missions to be quite creative (Scraping Flood off the ship was never something I'd expected myself to be doing in an RTS), but the co-op campaign was a mess.

Giving two people - any two people - control over everything is like giving them control over nothing. Neither person ends up being able to utilize a cohesive strategy - I need more supplies for my Vultures, but my buddy just grabbed the last chunk I've been saving up to pump out another Rhino. Even with good communication and self-assigned areas of influence, Mike and I kept bumping heads on resource allocation, troop deployment, defensive strategy, and mission objectives. Unlike Halo the FPS, where a human teammate with human eyes is a blessing in sighting pesky alternative targets, having two humans in a "god" position is next to impossible. You're both working in a confined space with limited resources, and with no manual labor to do yourself, we're both relegated to management positions. And what good is a multi-person management structure except for the exchange of ideas? In an RTS where time is of the essence, there is no room to banter about what to do and why - there's only action and reaction.

I agree with Mike about most of the other aspects of the game's presentation - especially in that Halo Wars is a good RTS. It's not groundbreaking or incredible, but nor is it terrible and unplayable. It succeeds at what it set out to do, and only fails when people give it expectations they usually reserve for Halo in the FPS realm.

Bottom line? It's a great rental - incredible if you're a Halo afficionado - but I've still got my PC for RTS' and Halo 3 for my Halo-related gaming urges.

-- Matt