Halo Wars

[Roger]

Seeing as the demo hit Live yesterday, and I assume at least half the 360 users have downloaded it/are interested in this game, here's a thread. :3

Initial thoughts?

I like it. Although I feel the soundtrack is far weaker than the actual Halo series, and that I can see the game play getting repetitive at a point (like most RTS games) I'm happy with it. The graphics are great, I have encountered no slow down at all despite large troop numbers, the units are well thought out and diverse. Here's hoping for a beefy campaign and some excellent online play.

[Andy]

It's Halo... so I doubt I'll be falling for that one again.

[AP]

Yes, but it's made by a completely different team and is a completely different genre - just the same series. That's like saying you won't play FF13 because FFTA2 sucked...

Anyway, the music was amazing. Fantastic. Great controls, looks very very pretty, and overall just a really positive impression from the demo. Definitely looking forward to this.

[Andy]

I'm well aware of the corporate details regarding the game. My comment was mostly said in jest... much like the covenant grunts themsleves, who don't take themselves seriously and think it's funnier to talk crap as they die.

As I deviate from the norm, I'd suggest playing some music from Street Fighter "no, you've lost your balls" the movie. Not the one with "Bufalo" and tits - The one with Gomez Adams in his final sad role and Kylie trying so hard to be British.

Halo itself was perfectly playable, especially in co-op. Which was great fun. I just wouldn't call it a 10/10. However, in these days where games attempt to provide more than just score attacking, my qualms lie mainly with the over-rating of the narrative and characters... which are, in standard shooter faire, underdeveloped and clichéd. Sure, we have a holy war with raspy aliens (which is a moderately fresh angle) where the human's colonies are destroyed left and right. Human colonies are always the first to be destroyed in everything. It's damn dangerous to be a colonist in science fiction - just look at Samus... oh, yeah... there are unbelievable "space zombies" too. Except they can talk. My Mother always told me not to talk with my mouth full

Though, sadly, they'll still release novellas and pointless crap based around it - which is just silly. Such is the case for anything that gets overhyped - they did it with the convoulated Resident Evil series, they did it while forcing the teats of Final fantasy VII. Those, however, have more substance to begin with, and 100% more Jill sandwedge. In Halo, the Master Chief (notable for being named John like everyone else's dad and his passive Eagle wanking as he struggles to be a silent protagonist that won't stay quiet) looks like a bystander for most of the arc as the Arbiter weaves his tale of torture and swordy-ness around his soundbyte-emitting, religious message-filled green head, and now we're supposed to care for faceless grunts? It's really triple A, gripping stuff!

I'm sure as a mindless excursion in killing alien scum though, Halo wars will be an interesting experience. I'll try it, but I'd just like, with all the hype... them to deliver something as big as the claims. Instead of just "another shooter and its cash-in, genre spin-offs" that will inevitably be used as a benchmark for the 360 over everything else, regardless of qulaity. Anything with that green dude would be heralded as the "poster boy" utilised to attack the wider gaming community, or "opposition" as they are known. Those of the Wii and PS3. Which is as bad as the religious zealots that are attacking the UNSC. Which, of course, distills into "Space terrorists versus the overly-American Spartans!" Hell yeah!

...but I'm being pedantic and harsh, as usual. I know most of the target demographic are the "Confirm button mashers" that skip every cutscene they can and make tea when they can't. My commentary on the gameplay alone would be more friendly. However, I feel their is a requirement to form a consensus between one's plot and gameplay, without irony in the construction. I suppose they'd rather see what happens to their gamerscore than to their characters.

It isn't the fact that it has a "sucky story," It's the fact that it has a story that is treated like holy scripture for the teabagging church of Xbox. Conversely, it's hard to give a shooter a story that isn't just blowing shit up because of the nature of the beast. Metroid, for instance, never tried to impose much narrative, (until recently where the Galactic Federation also went American, and started to signpost EVERYTHING, to my great disdain) and was all the better for it.

So what's next? Halo Football: Madden from Space? Halo Kombat? Or perhaps a Cortana that you have to feed and wash, extending her life for about three weeks while she babbles about her various flood-induced psychoses. It'll probably go the way of Pokémon eventually. Which is also a series of decent games, that peaked in its second release and carried with it the same repetitive storyline in every iteration - just a different figurehead creature and "Team" of villains that give up all their carefully conceived plans of global domination after having their pets beaten up by a small child they could otherwise flick off his/her pedestal.

The biggest annoyance about the franchise's direction? The big kick in the teeth was the Mountain dew promotion. Calling it "Gamer fuel" was an oxymoron. This misnomer, asserts that "gamers" must drink pure distilled Halo in order to continue running or be labelled by proxy as "non-gamers." Which is ironic because the only people I ever saw playing online were sexist, racist, homophobic young men who always seem to inexplicably be at max-star rating and never sound old enough to meet the age rating

There is reason to my madness. Though, I suppose something has to be financially grandiose, while others with critical merit, like Lost Odyssey fall sadly into the bargain bin of oblivion. It spits in the face of the concept of our apparent meritocracy. These things never work how they should though.

Sounding a tad Marxist... but yeah, I'm in a minority. At least it isn't Haze though. I could just accept Red versus Blue as canon and forget about it.

I know, I know tl;dr.

[AP]

My final thoughts on the game.

[Minion]

Played the demo.

Eh. Not a fan of the Halo series, not a really big fan of RTS.

[AP]

What a pain in the fucking ass skulls are to get in this.