If you’re an RTS fan and you own an Xbox 360, you’ll be happy to hear that Halo Wars looks to redefine the console RTS control scheme. Unlike most of its unwieldy counterparts, Halo Wars was designed from the ground up based on control. The developers repeatedly reminded us that they felt that the single most important ingredient in the experience was the control scheme.
Typically it is tedious to draw your way around units with a controller in hand rather than a mouse; well, the developers recognized this common flaw, and thus they sought to reinvent the RTS controller mapping. Pressing a on a unit selects that individual unit, while holding the A button produces a circular selection field (a la Pikmin) which you can move around with the analog stick to collect however many nearby units you desire. Other shortcuts are also present, such as the ability to select all of a particular unit or all units on-screen.
Base building is equally simple to manage. Bases consist of a construction-yard-like central unit coupled with surrounding sockets in which new buildings can be constructed. In other words, you can’t place buildings wherever you like; instead, you’re limited to spots adjacent to the central building, and you can only build where an empty socket exists. In the E3 demo, there were seven surrounding sockets… but in the real game, you’ll start with just three and will need to upgrade if you wish to have more. The choice of buildings you place in these slots is then monumentally important—part of the strategy is properly managing your sockets and upgrading buildings like power plants within them so that you make the most of the very little space you have. It is possible, however, to produce new bases in addition to existing ones, or to take over enemy bases… so that does help to alleviate the space constraints to some extent.
Simply position the cursor over a building and press A to bring up a circular quick-select menu. Since this menu never contains over eight selectable choices, it’s always very easy to navigate. RTS veterans will recognize the first integral difference between this game and classic Command & Conquer (which the game resembles quite closely at times): in Halo Wars, you’re able to build multiple structures at once if you like. However, since your overall number of structures is so very restricted, this doesn’t affect the pace of the game too much. While building, you can visibly note the structure rising incrementally out of the socket pit; when it reaches the top, it’s ready for action.
The unit types will also seem familiar to fans of the RTS genre; there are infantry, such as machine gun soldiers, marines, flamethrowers, and elite Spartans, and all sorts of vehicles and machines to spice up the mix as well. These units possess the usual abilities—though, unlike other RTS games, they also can execute secondary attacks by pressing Y. These range from super-powerful missile shots from robots to the Spartans’ unique ability to take over enemy units and provide transfer of ownership to their army.
There are even superweapons included, such as an air strike-like Carpet Bomb and a gigantic laser that wrecks nearly anything in its wake. If it sounds a lot like some other games you’re used to, that’s because it is. But the biggest difference here is the little mechanical changes, the storyline, cinematics, and the wonderfully adapted control scheme, which is simply much easier to manage than anything I’ve witnessed to date in an RTS console game. So far, as a real-time strategy fan, I’m impressed, and intrigued to see more. You’ll be able to get your hands on Halo Wars for yourself when Spring 2009 rolls around, but until then, keep checking back for updates.
