It is funny how a lot of people thought that Halo Wars was a sequel to the Halo triology, and had no idea that it was an actual RTS. This is probably the main reason that the game actually sold as well as it did, that and having “Halo” in front of it. It is sad that you can pretty much make a game a piece of shit, but put Halo in the name of it and all the fanboys will come running to buy it.
Thankfully, despite my opinion about Halo, this game was actually fun, a lot more entertaining then any of the three Halo games which pretty much sucked monkey balls. I have always been very weary on RTS games on a console, just because you don’t really get the joy of a mouse for easy movement. Yet, the developers of Halo Wars made it that the controls were very easy to learn and made the game very smooth.
Plot (via wikipedia):
The Spirit of Fire is sent to the ruined planet Harvest to investigate Covenant activity, where Cutter learns that the Covenant has excavated something at the planet’s northern pole. When the UNSC’s main outpost on Harvest is captured, Cutter orders Forge to retake it. Soon after, Forge scouts the Covenant excavation and discovers that they, under the direction of the Arbiter, have discovered a Forerunner facility. Forge’s troops defeat the Covenant forces before they can destroy the installation, and Anders arrives. She determines that the facility is an interstellar map, and recognizes a set of coordinates that points to the human colony of Arcadia.
After repelling a Covenant counterattack on the Forerunner facility, the Spirit of Fire travels to Arcadia, where the Covenant has begun raiding local cities and slaughtering civilians. Forge contacts the local Spartan special forces and assists with the evacuation process. The Covenant builds a giant energy shield to hide the construction of a gigantic Scarab super-weapon, but the UNSC forces use experimental equipment to break through. The Scarab is destroyed, but the Arbiter kidnaps Anders and escapes the planet.
Forge and the Spartans return to the Spirit of Fire and the crew follows Anders’ signal to an uncharted planet in another star system. The planet’s surface is infested by the parasitic Flood, who attack and assimilate any sentient life they encounter. The Spirit of Fire inadvertently activates a Forerunner docking station and enters the planet’s interior. The crew discovers the planet is actually hollow, with a habitable interior and a miniature sun. The Covenant’s plan is to activate a dormant fleet of highly advanced Forerunner starships inside the planet, and use them to obliterate humanity.
While the Forerunner ships are being activated, Anders escapes through a teleportation device and is rescued. Cutter decides to destroy the Forerunner fleet rather than allow the Covenant to use it. Anders formulates a plan to detonate the ship’s faster-than-light drive in the planet’s sun, as the explosion would cause a supernova. Before they can prepare the reactor, Forge and the Spartans are ambushed by the Arbiter and his Elites. The Spartans dispatch the aliens and Forge mortally wounds the Arbiter.[citation needed] The reactor is damaged during the fight, necessitating a manual detonation. Forge volunteers for the suicidal task, telling the Spartans that they will be needed in the fight against the Covenant.The Spirit of Fire escapes just as Forge overloads the reactor, destroying the Forerunner fleet and the unknown planet. Without its faster-than-light drive, the Spirit of Fire is left drifting in space. The crew enters cryonic sleep for long-term storage as Cutter takes a last look at Forge’s empty cryonic tube. If the game is completed on the “Legendary” difficulty mode, Serina wakes Cutter and tells him that “something has happened”.
I really cannot go through a game without finding anything negative about it, which makes it very difficult to like a game. Despite having easy controls and being semi-entertaining, the campaign mode, just like any other Halo game, was very short. I ended up beating the game within the second day of having it, probably put in about 5-6 hours on the campaign. I couldn’t find any reason to replay the game, not even for the achievements, which are semi-easy. The one thing I feel they could have done, kind of like what starcraft did, was to have a campaign mode for each side, the USNC and Covenant. Also, the multiplayer for the game is very lack luster, having only two different modes.
Is the game worth the $60 that it is price right now? Probably not, thankfully I scored it for $35. Is it worth picking up on sale? If you are into RTS, like me, you would probably enjoy the game, but maybe disappointed with the short campaign; with that said, I suggest trying it on the hardest difficult for a challenge. I give Halo Wars a 2.5/5
