No thread about Halo Wars yet?

[Gabriel]

And, it was in my mailbox when I got home today. Which is good, because the last three days have made me want to wage a campaign of genocide.

[+Zeptari]

went straight to walmart after work... used a left over $20 gift card from christmas...

which came in handy...

 

 

 

Has the total halo 3 feel to the frontend... which i like....

what, no achievements for playing through both tutorial levels?

 

I didn't play the demo on live.. but i did make it to level 4 before i failed on normal.

 

I really like the game... I'd still be playing right now... except it's time for bed..

gotta get up early for work...

 

there's only a couple things i'd change... I'd like to be able to zoom out a little bit futher.

and i'd like to see more information on the lower part of the screen....

 

But, yes it's a great little RTS....

 

see ya!

 

-rick

 

edit... still havn't played a live game yet.. i wonder how long those maches last?

Edited March 4, 2009 by Zeptari1

[Gabriel]

I played long enough to get to mission 5 on Normal. As soon as I got a factory, I built a crapload of aircraft and parked my stuff next to transport one while my leader kept healing it. The kamikaze wraiths were pissing me off though.

 

I'm happy with my purchase.

[16-bit]

... I'd like to be able to zoom out a little bit futher.

and i'd like to see more information on the lower part of the screen....

 

 

Ditto on both of those, otherwise it's great. It's refreshing to have an easy pick up and play RTS. You get to concentrate less on resource management/etc, and more on just having fun.

 

Only played the first level or so and had a match on LIVE with a friend, but I'm definitely not disappointed.

[PressureCooker2600]

This game kicks serious ass.

 

It makes up for Starcraft 2 only being released on the PC.

[FastRobPlus]

Sorry - I never replied back to the thread. I beat this over and I have to agree with the prevailing winds. It's a game that uses RTS trappings but is not a pure RTS. I kind of reminds me of the comparison between the Chinese game Mah Jong and the tile matching game Shanghai or Tai-Pei. They all use Mah Jong tiles, and people might even refer to the tile matching game as Mah Jong. But the two are completely different.

Ensemble did create a fun strategy game using the elements of an RTS, but it's not an actual RTS.

 

Some other observations - the cut scene CGI is terrific. Better than the other Halo games.

The Spartan units are pretty cool. They figured out how to make them kick butt without being so strong as to unbalance the game.

The cheap Scorpion tank when fuly upgraded and the 3 ships Spartans are all you need to overrun any enemy. So I guess the classic RTS tank rush survives completely intact.

The limited edition is well made. It comes with a "patch" that didn’t' make much sense. I didn't know what it was at first. It's made of plastic/rubber like a drink coaster. Maybe it's a patch to go on your home-made Maser Chief armor?

[+Zeptari]

I played long enough to get to mission 5 on Normal. As soon as I got a factory, I built a crapload of aircraft and parked my stuff next to transport one while my leader kept healing it. The kamikaze wraiths were pissing me off though.

 

I'm happy with my purchase.

 

boy i feel dumb.... I did finally make it to the next mission after failing 5 times....

 

the forth time i failed i had less then 60 seconds on the clock!

 

 

The reason i feel dumb, i didn't realize up on the d-pad called the spirit of fire,

with it's heal command...

 

Things are looking better now that i know how to do that.

 

ohhh and knowing that really helped out in mission 6.. when it came time to lift and drop

a cobra. At least i think it was a cobra.... it locks down.

 

I'm having trouble getting the first skull... the must grunts i killed was 98! then the mission ended!

What's the deal? And what's with the black boxes? I haven't seen any yet....

 

I'm having alot more fun with the game now...

 

-rick

[Gabriel]

One of my fonder gaming memories is of playing Shining Force for the first time. I got to the mission where the Runefaust had set up a megalaser cannon firing down a bridge I needed to cross. Something about that mission was really neat, despite how simple it all was. There was the feeling of pressure, the rush to get to the cannon and destroy it. Lots of tactical games have tried to capture that same feeling. Halo Wars nails it on mission 7 while providing it's own twist.

[PressureCooker2600]

The Elephant is the unit that 'locks down'......and allows you to produce troops as a mobile base. The Cobra's 'lock down' works similar to the Terran Siege Tanks in Starcraft. It sets itself up as a unit perfect for shelling buildings to pieces.

 

I'm currently getting my ass whooped on Mission 10......mainly because there's a time limit in which you have to complete the level. You have to rescue 3 squads pinned down in various areas that are rife with the Flood. The time limit can be raised but not by much.

 

After quality time as both the Covenant and the UNSC on Skirmish......I still prefer the UNSC over the Covenant.....though the Covenant units saved my life on various occasions....thanks to the mighty Scarab. That is one POWERFUL unit.

[PressureCooker2600]

One of my fonder gaming memories is of playing Shining Force for the first time. I got to the mission where the Runefaust had set up a megalaser cannon firing down a bridge I needed to cross. Something about that mission was really neat, despite how simple it all was. There was the feeling of pressure, the rush to get to the cannon and destroy it. Lots of tactical games have tried to capture that same feeling. Halo Wars nails it on mission 7 while providing it's own twist.

 

If that's the Super Scarab level......I loved it, too.

 

I thought I was doomed a couple of times but I prevailed in the end.

[+Zeptari]

I'm currently getting my ass whooped on Mission 10......mainly because there's a time limit in which you have to complete the level. You have to rescue 3 squads pinned down in various areas that are rife with the Flood. The time limit can be raised but not by much.

 

 

ohhh nooooo another timed level.... I'm not a fan of that nonsense.

 

I'm still on level 6... only because i keep going back to the early levels and try to

unlock some more skulls. Or earn some achievements i missed.

 

The skulls for missions 2 and 3 are pretty easy.... I still haven't figured out how to get

the skull for mission one.... I'll keep trying....

 

I was surprised to see only about 9,000 people playing halo wars online last night....

I tried to start a co-op game from mission 1 but no one joined.

I guess it's because most people are playing skirmish games.

 

-rick

[FastRobPlus]

I'm currently getting my ass whooped on Mission 10......mainly because there's a time limit in which you have to complete the level. You have to rescue 3 squads pinned down in various areas that are rife with the Flood. The time limit can be raised but not by much.

 

 

ohhh nooooo another timed level.... I'm not a fan of that nonsense.

 

I think about half of the later levels are timed.

[PressureCooker2600]

i played some dude last night for about an hour and it was back and forth....my army attacking and then his army attacking (though, he never made it to my base except for one time).

 

When I finally demolished him and his base....I began to go to his last base to crush it and guess what?

we had another quitter on our hands.........instead of allowing me to deal the final blow (which I would've let him do if i were in that position)....he quit early........i mean..c'mon!!! it woulda probably only lasted a minute longer....why quit??

 

I asked him and he was like 'I was bored and i was losing'................and i was like 'it woulda only lasted a couple more minutes...why bail out?'

 

oh well........it still chalked up as a win........i'm currently 5-0.

 

p.s. the computer A.I. (as an ally) sucks ass!!!! I started a 2v2 game with a computer ally and he was defeated in no less than 5 minutes. so now it's up to me to take on two fronts at once.

 

at least i won in the end

[Gabriel]

I completed the game on Normal tonight.

 

I only ever had to restart two missions. The first one I had difficulty with was Shield Wall, mission 10. It was a mission where I was supposed to go to 3 heavily fortified places on the map to retrieve troops and then bring them back to my base within a time limit. However, I missed the message that I had to move a unit to a specific spot for some arcane purpose. Plus, I had a hard time figuring out where the path in the mountains was that I needed to go through at one point. I only had to redo that one once.

 

Mission 15 was very pissy. I think I restarted it 2 or 3 times before I hit upon the idea of using fully upgraded Mongooses exclusively. Before that, I kept on running out of time due to the replenishing enemies on the map. Mission 15 was also the only map I ever had any problems defending my bases. The enemy was just all over the place.

 

I enjoyed the cutscenes. The game had a decent enough plot. As for game length, I could have gone for about 5 more missions in the campaign. On the other hand, the small number of missions makes the campaign realistically replayable and the par times and medals encourage this. I also imagine the Covenant will get a campaign by way of DLC.

 

The next test will be to see how it plays with friends. I've done two coop missions, and that was kind of neat. I have yet to play a versus game.

[PressureCooker2600]

I also imagine the Covenant will get a campaign by way of DLC.

 

Let's pray they take this to heart.

 

I'm hoping for another campaign, too. Maybe even a downloadable update allowing you to play as the Flood in some form or the other.

 

Versus is the bread and butter of this game, after the campaign is over. And I LOVE it.

 

Back on campaign, I just got to Mission 14.....haven't played it yet. I also lost the first time on Mission 10, too. Those paths are confusing and detouring your attack to make way for the Gremlins is basically futile in the end.

[PressureCooker2600]

One of my new favorite options in this game, for the UNSC, of course, are the ODST drops!! I love how in the middle of a losing battle I can drop 4 to 5 ODST units from the Spirit of Fire right into the heart of battle. And only for the cost of 150 resources. Definately a unit that can turn the tides.

 

Unless the enemy has a damn Scarab.

 

Those things are easily taken care of...........IF you have the right retaliation.....otherwise, you're screwed.

[+Zeptari]

I completed the game on Normal tonight.

 

I only ever had to restart two missions. The first one I had difficulty with was Shield Wall, mission 10. .

 

uhh no.. that's where I'm stuck now..... Gabril if that mission only took you a couple tries then

it's gonna take me like 8 or 10!

 

I'm really enjoying the game even if i stink at it!

 

I'm almost afraid i won't finish halo wars, the later levels are hard for me.

 

-rick

 

 

I found the blackbox on mission one..... but i'm still having a hard time finding 100 grunts

to kill!

[Gabriel]

I found the blackbox on mission one..... but i'm still having a hard time finding 100 grunts

to kill!

 

I haven't found the black box, but then I haven't been looking for them. I have one black box and one skull by pure happenstance.

 

I typically get 97 kills on the first map. Interestingly there are three units which I usually can't kill. There are two tanks and a air transport. Once I managed to kill one of the tanks before the air strike came in and I got 98 kills instead of 97. I don't know if that's coincidence or it means you have to kill those three units for the final credit.

[Artlover]

Bah. Not impressed at all.

 

It's just an RTS with a Halo theme applied. IE: Cash grab to make money off the franchise from a different genre of players.

 

Not even what I would call a good RTS. It's been dumbed down so much, it's almost pointless. It's an RTS made for people who don't like RTS's. Which raises the question, if you don't like RTS's, why do you want to play this to begin with. I'm not a big fan of RTS's myself, but even I will acknowledge they are supposed to be more then this. This doesn't make me like the RTS genre, it insults my intelligence.

 

Now, throw in all the bugs..... I'm going to focus on level 3 - map room for my examples here since it shows off these bugs the worst.

 

1: Forces don't really follow directions. Your commands are more of a suggestion that they may or may not follow. They will act on their own regarding movement and combat. You end up having to spend a lot of time baby sitting your forces, making sure they are doing what you instruct them to do rather then just running around doing whatever the hell they want.

 

2: "Select all" force commands do not select all forces, despite that it tells you that it was it is supposed to do. Here is an example: There is one of those floating covenant platforms next to the bridge. One of my main characters decided to go inside the thing, despite the fact that is NOT what I instructed my forces to do. Selecting all forces selected everything/everyone on the screen EXCEPT him in/on the platform. Had to manually click on him and bring him down to the ground before he would respond to select all commands.

 

3: GFX engine sucks. It's got a bad problem of causing characters to vanish. Wait near the landing zone a while and watch. You'll see covenant forces like hunters running up the ramp in droves, and as soon as they step across the door threshold, they vanish. They aren't cloaking either, they just aren't being rendered. Move the camera around a bit, and POP!, a whole bunch of enemies right there in front of you, killing you. I've seen this effect in pretty much every level.

 

4: Mapping engine sucks. It lets characters and things go places they aren't supposed to go. Again, there at the map room, one of my tanks, ignoring my orders of where I told it to go, decided to drive through one of the doorways the covenant forces come out of, despite it being too small for a tank. Somehow, my tank got in there, and through to the otherside behind the walls, off the playable map area. Adjusting the camera angle I could see it through the doorway. Try to get it to come back, and only then does the engine decide to enfore the "tank does not fit through door" logic. Tobad it didn't think to do that BEFORE my tank got stuck in never-never land in the first place. This ended up being a level ending problem since my two main characters were waiting to be revived at the landing zone, and this tank was the only remaining live forces I had left.

 

I can say this tho, it makes Halo 3 seem a lot better now.

[Gabriel]

1: Forces don't really follow directions. Your commands are more of a suggestion that they may or may not follow. They will act on their own regarding movement and combat. You end up having to spend a lot of time baby sitting your forces, making sure they are doing what you instruct them to do rather then just running around doing whatever the hell they want.

 

Yes. Sometimes their pathing can be questionable.

 

 

2: "Select all" force commands do not select all forces, despite that it tells you that it was it is supposed to do. Here is an example: There is one of those floating covenant platforms next to the bridge. One of my main characters decided to go inside the thing, despite the fact that is NOT what I instructed my forces to do. Selecting all forces selected everything/everyone on the screen EXCEPT him in/on the platform. Had to manually click on him and bring him down to the ground before he would respond to select all commands.

 

When you were moving, you clicked on the gun platform. This has the first available selected unit garrison the object.

 

If you had intended to garrison the tower, then you certainly wouldn't want select all to remove all your garrisoned units from their defensive cover.

 

 

3: GFX engine sucks. It's got a bad problem of causing characters to vanish. Wait near the landing zone a while and watch. You'll see covenant forces like hunters running up the ramp in droves, and as soon as they step across the door threshold, they vanish. They aren't cloaking either, they just aren't being rendered. Move the camera around a bit, and POP!, a whole bunch of enemies right there in front of you, killing you. I've seen this effect in pretty much every level.

 

I haven't seen this at all.

 

 

4: Mapping engine sucks. It lets characters and things go places they aren't supposed to go. Again, there at the map room, one of my tanks, ignoring my orders of where I told it to go, decided to drive through one of the doorways the covenant forces come out of, despite it being too small for a tank. Somehow, my tank got in there, and through to the otherside behind the walls, off the playable map area. Adjusting the camera angle I could see it through the doorway. Try to get it to come back, and only then does the engine decide to enfore the "tank does not fit through door" logic. Tobad it didn't think to do that BEFORE my tank got stuck in never-never land in the first place. This ended up being a level ending problem since my two main characters were waiting to be revived at the landing zone, and this tank was the only remaining live forces I had left.

 

I saw this same general thing. I was playing co-op and was exploring down the side with a tank. It got wedged in a narrow slot and couldn't move forward or turn. We played the rest of the mission without the tank.

 

Incidentally, what difficulty were you playing on that all your forces and leaders got slaughtered in mission 3?

[PressureCooker2600]

Mission 3 was easy.

 

Personally, I LOOOOVVEEEEEE this game!!! And I'm a HUGE RTS fan.

[PressureCooker2600]

Anyone who wants to play.........hit me up for a game.

 

My gamertag is DixieWhiskey81.

 

I can't find anyone to play this with...........other than random goobers online.

[+Zeptari]

Anyone who wants to play.........hit me up for a game.

 

My gamertag is DixieWhiskey81.

 

I can't find anyone to play this with...........other than random goobers online.

 

 

Would you be up for a few rounds of co-op campaign tomorrow afternoon around 4ish?

 

-rick

[Video]

Well,I picked it up at wallmart, and got home, and slammed it into my x-box, and played, and was like "holy schit, this is going to be the best game ever" Wish it had more range in zooming though, getting a closer look at action would be cool, and being able to zoom out further to see the map would be nice.

 

However, a few things, one, all my friends wanted me to get the special edition cause of the stuff you get, only to find out you have to have live to get it (that's nice, say it's included on the box, and then inside say you gotta download it) But, eh, I would have gotten that anyways, just for the tin box if nothing else.

 

But, I played it, and then, around the third or fourth mission, I hit a level that has two of my top pet peeves in games, in one level. Protect missions, and timed missions, neither of which make any scense in a RTS game (other than protecting your base) I came within two minutes of beating it, and now that I know what to expect, I might be able to get though it easily, but I think, what's the point? I mean, if that's going to be in the game third or fourth mission in, then it's going to be pretty heavy in the game ovver all. To bad too, I think I would have likied the game if it wasnt for that.

 

One of my friends said it's got coop, but that doesn't make any scense either, unless they just meant there was a vs or something. After all, there's only two teams, yours and the covenant. Maybe we'll try that sometime.

[PressureCooker2600]

Don't worry about the timed missions and protect missions.

 

After awhile, you'll beat the levels and get over it.

 

The "bread and butter" is in the skirmish and online multiplayer. There is no time limit on your fun there.