Halo Wars 2
Real Time Strategy games on console have been few and far between. The original Halo Wars being the best selling rts on console to date, so it was no wonder 343 decided to make a second to fill in the blanks between the release of Halo 5 Guardians and Halo 6. But there is a reason these type of games don’t get released on consoles and it comes down to the old keyboard and mouse Vs controller argument. Halo Wars 2 is testament to what you can’t do in an rts game with a controller. So the intricacies of a game like Starcraft, for example, have been dumbed down to suit console gamers but the game still delivers a fresh take on the Halo universe and is a good game in its own right.
In Halo Wars 2 you are faced with the might of The Banished, as opposed to the usual Covenant Grunts, Jackals and Elites. They are a kind of a rogue army made up of mostly Brutes who have opposed the Covenant and created their own faction. Their leader, Atriox, is a Spartan killer hell bent on taking control of one of the Halo rings and it’s your job to put an end to him. The story to the game is one of it’s more stronger points as the mission formats could be taken straight out of one of the conventional Halo titles. Mostly you must hold certain points on the map or escort a certain vehicle type to key locations all the while managing your base and troop resources. On normal difficulty the game doesn’t really pose much of a challenge until the latter missions but I suppose that what difficulty levels are for.
The game is set into twelve missions after an initial and very impressive cut scene that sees the crew of The Spirit of Fire wake up from cryo sleep after twenty eight years. As with the original Halo Wars, the game is spattered with these cut scenes and it really immerses the player in the story and gives direction on mission objectives. They are rendered beautifully and have become synonymous with the Halo Wars games and they are better games because of it.
But it’s the core mechanics of the game that flails on console specifically. This is a review of the game on Xbox One. I’m sure with a keyboard and mouse these grievances would not be an issue. It boils down to troop selection. It’s a very hard thing to do to pick out two or maybe three units in a group and separate them. This results in situations where you may have a couple of Scorpion tanks and are faced with anti-vehicle armed Hunters who will decimate any vehicles you have within a certain distance of them. Trying to pick your tanks out and move them far enough away into safety within the time limit is nigh on impossible with a controller. So more often than not the player will be double pressing the right bumper to select all units and move them away in a rather more simplistic but less combat effective way. It results in the payer just creating as much of a diverse group of vehicles and troops as possible, moving them all at once, and hoping they can withstand a skirmish at any given time.
It takes away any real combat strategy which is how the game was meant to be played. It results in the standard multiplayer matches becoming a matter of who can amass the biggest army the fastest to take over the other players base. Despite that failing the game can be played quite adequately as aforementioned so the campaign remains an enjoyable experience and multiplayer is robust enough that the player with the best skill and strategy plan will prevail. There is an impressive array of unit types to choose from like Gauss Hogs and Hornets to groups of snipers and Helldivers. The player also has access to the Spirit of Fire’s weapon arsenal which acts as a type of weapon wheel. You can use it to heal a group of units or call down some ODST’s, set up turrets or have a barrage of missiles. Cooldowns are in effect here so The Spirit of Fire’s abilities are in relatively short supply.
Aside from the cut scenes the game itself looks pretty nice and runs well but I did encounter a number of bugs like missions not loading and mid game freezes. Not game breakers but enough to have you start a mission from scratch. There are a number of multiplayer game modes such as the standard offering and Blitz which is card based and relies on random card dish outs that determine what units you have. Your deck can be assembled before each game but you have no control over the in game cards so luck plays a part in the outcome. A novel idea but one that doesn’t have much longevity in it unless the player decides to buy decks with real money.
Halo Wars 2 is a happy diversion from not just the fps genre but the plethora of rpgs and action games that flood the market. As far as real time strategy games go it has limited mechanics and seems to have been designed specifically for the console market and rts noobs like me. I can see only realistically Halo fans specifically buying this game as there are so many more sophisticated rts games on pc that target that market. In saying that I enjoyed the game and will come back for more multiplyer action from time to time and might even try the campaign on a higher difficulty. There are a lot of collectibles to find also so it has the replay ability factor. All in all a decent Halo game, maybe if it wasn’t branded Halo it would be something else. [7]
