Halo Wars is aptly named. It contains both the ‘Halo’ universe, about 20 years prior to the original Halo title, and ‘Wars’ in form of real-time strategy combat. The game on a whole seems to be pretty good meld of both of these things, although though neither is perfect. If you’ve never played a Halo game, that doesn’t mean you won’t enjoy Halo Wars, but you probably should skip to the 3rd paragraph.
Starting 20 years before the original Halo means that Master Chief won’t be saving the day, the first halo ring hasn’t been discovered yet, and humanity still feels as if it has a fighting chance of beating the Covenant. You command troops from the UNSC Spirit of Fire, a earth ship who is taking the fight to the Covenant on the planet Harvest, when a discovery is made that could shift the tide of the war, which starts a race to see who can unlock some ancient Forerunner secret. If this makes sense to you, you’ve probably played 2 or 3 of the Halo games and are pretty invested in the storyline; Halo Wars will not answer any questions or give you any information that will really help you understand the universe any better.
The better way to look at the story is a side tangent to give the main universe more flavor. Unfortunately, the characters are fairly wooden, despite the beautifully animated 3d cut scenes, and fall into typical stereotypes (beautiful mousey female scientist, hardnosed old ship captain, grizzled tough as nails army sergeant, etc…). The story is functional. It gives you a reason to keep playing and gives purpose to why you move from location to location as well as varying up the mission objectives. It’s not the reason to play the game, but nor is it a reason to stay away.
The gameplay plays like a typical real time strategy game. You watch the battlefield from a bird’s eye view, build bases and units, then move them around the battlefield completing objectives and destroying your enemy. However, while Halo Wars may have the ‘real time’ part down, the strategy element is a bit lackluster. The combat is supposed to work like rock-paper-scissors: vehicles beat infantry, infantry beat aircraft and aircraft beat vehicles, but in the single player game, a smattering of units of just about any type upgraded sufficiently should overcome against most odds. The ease of which experienced players will be able to make it through the game’s campaign will probably make the ‘strategy’ element seem nonexistent. On the other hand, players new to RTSs will have an easy time being introduced to the streamlined controls, easy unit management, and will probably end up having fun with the game’s more action oriented style.
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