If you love Halo then you are probably aware of the impending Halo Wars.  The game releases March 3rd, the demo appeared on Live this Thursday. For those who don’t have a Gold membership you’ll have to wait another week to get your hands on the demo. Basically it’s what you expect: a Halo-themed RTS. If that piques your interest, check out the rest of this post for a more in-depth look at what the Halo Wars demo has to offer.

The demo provides a fair amount of playtime. You can play through two campaign levels as the UNSC, which basically constitute one mission, as well as a short tutorial. There are a fair amount of pretty cut scenes during the campaign which introduce the games story and explain its place in the Halo universe. In addition to campaign mode, you have access to a skirmish mode. Skirmish allows you to build more units than in campaign mode while squaring off against an AI opponent on a small map.  As with most demos, you are locked out of the real meat of the game. Your options are pretty much limited to tweaking the difficulty level, though for skirmish mode you are given the option of controlling Covenant forces.  In both campaign and skirmish you are limited to 30 unit slots. This allows to build 30 Marines, or 10 or so of a heavier unit like the Scorpion.

The controls, while basic, are effective at allowing you to navigate quickly around the map and select units. Ensemble has stated that their aim was to create a streamlined RTS, which they appear to have achieved. If the demo is any indication, Halo Wars is fairly fast paced with a good balance between action and strategy. The only factor that detracted from my enjoyment was the unit AI, which appears to be dumb as hell. If you try to move troops while allied units block the way they will just stop dead, you have to manually move the units and then reissue the order to move. It may seem fairly basic, but it can turn into a big problem during battle.
Bottom line: even if you don’t like RTS check out Halo Wars, you might actually enjoy it.

-Matt Frank

Tags: demo, Ensemble Studios, Halo Wars, RTS

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