I’ve never been much of a PC gamer. I know that there are those who swear by the mouse and keyboard and refuse to bring themselves down to the console gamer’s level when it comes to first person shooters. I say good day to them because Xbox Live is full of enough elitist pricks as it is. However, when it comes to RTS games I find myself siding with the PC crowd. The only games I’ve ever felt compelled to play on the PC were the Command & Conquer games. I can still remember playing the first Red Alert at school when our computers were supposed to be displaying quizzes or tests and quickly hitting the Windows key when a teacher would walk by. Indeed, PC gaming has been the only real avenue for RTS games for a very long time.

I’ve given some of the console versions a fair shot before. Red Alert on the original Playstation, Command & Conquer 3 on the 360, Battle For Middle Earth on the 360, and even the newest Red Alert all fail miserably when compared to their PC versions. I think that is where the problem lies: they’re just ports. They weren’t made with consoles in mind and rightly so. Why would a company bother to put any real effort into bringing something as complex and intricate as a fully featured RTS game to a platform that it simply wasn’t made for? I don’t blame EA for not putting a lot of effort into making the games fully functional on a console. Hell, I’m not even sure it would be possible to make those games work as well on the console as they do on the PC.

Here’s where Halo Wars is different: it isn’t a port or just another version. This is a game built from the ground up to be played on a controller and it shows. Halo Wars proves that it is possible to have a functional RTS game on a console (with some sacrifices which we’ll get to later) so why can’t EA do it? Or the more pressing question, why should they? Think of how many Halo fans there are. Imagine how many of them are going to buy Halo Wars on release day just because Halo is in the title. An absolute ton of people are going to be buying this game just because of the name. Now compare that to the Command & Conquer series. Does it have its own fan base? Of course (and I’m one of them). But how many console gamers would buy that game based on name alone? Not many. Even if they thought the demo was just decent, they probably wouldn’t  go out and spend 60 dollars on it, simply because it’s an unfamiliar brand. Would a Halo fan who thought Halo Wars just decent go out and spend 60 or maybe even 80 dollars on it? Yes. Halo is a brand name now whether you like it or not and its here to stay. At least for the time being.

So how does the game play? As good as it possibly can on a controller. A person who is new to the RTS genre can pick up this game, spend a few minutes in the tutorials and pretty much know exactly how to build a functional base and army. That’s not to say that there isn’t depth, but it’s obvious that this game was built to be able to be played by anyone with a functioning set of hands. The same can’t be said for all RTS games. Now I can hear the PC fanboys crying out “Consoles are just dumbing down another one of out beloved genres! Starcraft FTW!!!”  Halo Wars is to Starcraft what Halo is to Deus Ex and there’s nothing wrong with that. The same thing was said about Fallout and the same thing will be said to any PC-centric genre made playable on a console. From the demo it doesn’t seem like the depth of the game is anywhere near Starcraft but there is something there worth playing.

It is still a strategy game folks. One thing that RTS vets are sure to notice is that resource collecting in this game is severely tuned down from most other games. I’m sure this was done to allow the player to focus more on building other structures and fighting with their units and overall it makes the game feel not as stressful as other RTS games. Though if you lose your resource gathering structures you will immediately feel it, especially if you are in the later parts of a battle.

At first I wasn’t crazy about all the units being the same color. I understand the functionality of it but still, seeing the Covenant in the cutscenes with gleaming armor and the UNSC soldiers with their different layers of uniform just reminds you that much more that the battlefield is populated with green people and purple aliens. Of course if all the units looked different and had different colors and variations then it would be very hard to decipher who’s who in big battles (and there are certainly some big battles).

The first few times I played I just played it on normal difficulty and the games were fun but they did go by rather quickly. Personally, I enjoy RTS games that can go on for an hour or more at least. Cranking the difficulty up solved this problem and immediately made me play differently. On the easier difficulties it’s easy enough to just turtle back in your base and build an armada. Then you simply go out and crush the enemy. When I played on heroic, I tried the same strategy and was quickly forced to retreat to a secondary base that had only one reactor when the enemy completely wiped out my main base in the first 10 minutes. The heroic level A.I. in this game is good but I have heard from some people that if the game goes on long enough the A.I. begins to give up. I haven’t experienced this personally because I play very offensively but I hope it isn’t the case.

One of the draws of Halo Wars is the ability to play as the Covenant. You can’t play as them through every campaign but they are available in skirmish and multiplayer modes. I played through the demo as both the Covenant and the UNSC and I have to say that I felt the covenant were more suited to a defensive play style. When I was the UNSC it wasn’t nearly as difficult to take out enemy units and buildings and the games ended much faster. Whereas when I was the Covenant, I had to play more defensively and the games took significantly longer. It could just be that my play style is more suited to the UNSC but I did prefer them overall. In the demo only one leader of each faction is available so it is possible that the leader choice could have an effect on the speed of the game. Each leader provides you with a certain “power”. The UNSC leader available in the demo allows you to build an Elephant which is basically a mobile barracks. The Covenant leader available is a prophet that, when completely upgraded, can fly around the map raining a beam death down upon anyone unfortunate enough to be within firing range. Unfortunately the flood aren’t playable in the demo or the full game, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see them as DLC because they are in the full game as an enemy.

I’m very excited for Halo Wars and do intend to purchase it. I’m not sure if the collector’s edition is worth it for me because I don’t play much Halo 3 multiplayer anymore with all of the bullshit that goes on and the Mythic map pack that is included in the collectors edition is really the only draw. The collector’s edition also comes with the ability to use the Honor Guard Wraith, six cards depicting each faction’s leaders, a graphic novel that looks to be pretty small and a spirit of fire patch. Apparently the demo has set some records and while I don’t think that everyone who purchases the game will really “get it” or stick with it for very long, it’s good that there is finally a viable option for those of us who like RTS games but want to play them with friends on Xbox Live. Being a fan of the Halo universe doesn’t hurt either.  Whether your a hardcore RTS fan of just a fan of the Halo mythos, there’s a lot to like in this game. It delivers a real RTS experience while still making it accessible to people who have never played an RTS before. If your only in it for the nods to the Halo universe, I would say at least rent it just to see the amazing looking cutscenes. I doubt the campaign will be very long but if the care that was put into other Halo games’ multiplayer was put into this game as well, the online community could last for a very long time. Halo Wars will release on March 3rd.