I should preface this review by stating for the record that I am not a Real Time Strategy (“RTS”) game guy, I’m more of a first person shooter guy.  I guess I’d rather be the make-believe soldier risking my make-believe life in “the shit” then be the make-believe puppet master sending make-believe jerks like me to their digital deaths.  “So why are you reviewing an RTS, jerk?” You may be asking.  My response is simple: I love Halo.  As such, I wanted to take a crack at a game trying to offer a new perspective on the Halo Universe.

Halo Wars (the swan song of ENSEMBLE STUDIOS) takes place some 20 years before Master Chief’s adventures in the first HALO.  The Human Race has apparently been at war with the crafty and fanatical Covenant for some time when the UNSC stumbles upon their plan to unearth and employ an ancient alien technology that will destroy the Human Race once and for all.  Your mission:  stop that from happening.

The campaign mode is split into 15 specific and-self contained missions.  The themes include search and destroy missions, search and rescue missions, escort missions, and totally annihilate all enemy missions.  As with most (or all, I told you I’m not an RTS guy) RTS games, the name of the game is effectively building, maintaining and marshalling your military force to achieve the required (and optional) objectives. 

The primary base for creating these forces is, as the name would suggest, the BASE.  In most missions you are required or at least strongly encouraged to build a BASE, or multiple bases (though you can only do so in specific areas).  Assuming you have enough raw materials and the location to build one, doing so is as easy as clicking on the icon that says BASE BUILDING SITE, which pulls up a CIRCULAR MENU (the primary interface for the game) and selecting the “BUILD BASE” option.  In a half a second the Base is flown in, welded together on the spot (clearly union labor) and ready to go.  From there it’s the RTS Puppet Master’s choice in how to proceed.  The contents of the base, and the strategy for play, is heavily reliant on how well you can utilize and exploit your raw materials – which in this case are RESOURCES and TECHNOLOGY LEVELS.

While Resources (shown as little boxes) can be found in various locals on the maps, the most effective way to get them is via Supply Pads that you can build (and upgrade) on your Bases.  Technology Levels can be increased by building (and upgrading) reactors on Bases as well.  These two building blocks determine what and how many units you can build.  The military units at your disposal are infantry, vehicles, and aircraft.  Each category has a variety of models and options available depending largely on the Supplies and Energy at your fingertips. 

A very, very, basic procedure for starting a mission may be: move infantry to a Base building site; build a Base; build a supply pad; build a reactor; upgrading the base; build turrets to protect base; build barracks to train infantry; upgrade supply pad; upgrade reactor; build vehicle depot; build a Scorpion tank; etc.  Again, building and upgrading the base and the specific areas of the base (i.e., the barracks) is done by clicking on the appropriate are and bringing up the Circular Menu.  The Menu shows what can be built and or used, what it costs (resources/technology level), and how many you can have – point, select, and click.  Very simple.  Even I could do it.

Moving units around the map is just as simple.  The right bumper selects “all units,” the left bumper “local units” (those visible at the time), a single click of the A button selects the specific unit the aiming reticule is on, multiple clicks select multiple units of the same type, and holding the A button down creates and expanding circle that selects all units that fall within it.  Once a unit or unit(s) are selected they are easily moved around the board to a location to take a post or to engage an enemy by pressing X and they can use their special weapon (many units have a “special” as well) by pressing Y.  Once military forces meet on the battleground, the winner is determined by a basic rock-paper-scissors calculation.  Infantry beats Aircraft, Aircraft beats Vehicles, and Vehicles beat Infantry.  It becomes a question of building the right force for the right place and the right time.

If my description of Halo Wars sounds basic and somewhat by the numbers, that’s because Halo Wars IS simple.  But that’s not necessarily a bad thing, especially for non-RTS pros.  In the end it’s all about time and resource management, two things that I am not very good at.  Unfortunately, the simplicity of it all does make it somewhat repetitive.  After a while I felt like I was playing a beautifully rendered digital version of the board game Risk.  Somewhat boring and often times frustrating in its limitations.

After playing the campaign mode I tried the Skirmish mode – wherein you can engage 1v1, 2v2, or 3v3 with real or A.I. players.   The real benefit of this mode is that you can play as the Covenant, taking on UNSC or other Covenant forces on a variety of playing fields.  Unfortunately, I found this mode – lacking the motivating goals of the individual missions – to be more boring than the campaign mode.

The multi-player option looks like a lot of fun.  I say, “looks-like” because I didn’t have a chance to play it.  I sampled the game pre-release (being a dork has its privileges), thus no online community to play it.  Since then, the gods of moving have seen to it to interrupt my on-line abilities. 

Despite my criticisms, there IS a lot of good stuff in Halo Wars.  As I mentioned above, it is beautifully rendered.  The graphics and sound is all top notch.  The entire presentation is fantastic – some of the cut scenes are absolutely cinematic.  Ensemble Studios did a very good job making me feel like I was truly playing in the Halo Universe, Bungie should be proud.  Even the story is … well, it’s a video game story line; chock full of stereotypical roles and relationships, too much unnecessary chatter and not enough scenes of Spartans eviscerating Elites (but there are a few).

In the end HALO WARS is a perfectly fine addition to the XBOX Halo gaming family.  It’s never going be mamma’s favorite, but it won’t be the redheaded stepchild either.  Halo Wars is more like my cousin Victoria: beautiful, well put together, fun to hang out with every once in a while, but neither particularly exciting nor very deep.  I give it 6 glowing Halo Skulls out of 10.