Wesley Fenlon | Not with a bang but a whimper.

I had originally intended for this piece to be published on GameSpite, but as it’s already several weeks out of date, and I hate seeing things go to waste, I decided to post it here.

Halo. It’s a multi-million dollar franchise; once confined to the first-person shooter genre of gaming, it has since broken free from those chafing shackles to populate bookshelves, grace soda cans and slushy cups, and even make a bold venture into the burgeoning cat helmet market. And now, a year and a half after the release of Halo 3, the first game set in the Haloverse not developed by Bungie is poised to arrive on the Xbox 360: Halo Wars.

As you likely know (Halo news is hard to avoid, after all) Wars is also not a first-person shooter — rather, it’s a 360-exclusive real-time strategy game developed by Ensemble Studios, best known for their work on the magnificent Age of Empires series. The pedigree is certainly there — Ensemble knows their stuff when it comes to the strategy genre. But what about strategy on a console?  That’s a whole different beast. There are no keyboard shortcuts, no intuitive mouse controls, no unit groupings. How can a PC RTS really work on a console?

Well, the short answer is: it can’t. Instead of building a strategy game with the expectations of a PC interface, Ensemble molded the experience directly around what they thought they could do with the Xbox 360 as a platform. The end result is essentially RTS-lite — base-building is an extremely simplified, minimal facet of the gameplay and the circular menu interface sports the oversized icons you’d expect on a telephone designed for the visually impaired. Upgrades are quick, and it’s clear from the word go that combat is the game’s main focus.

Considering the franchise’s fan base, Halo Wars may actually be a brilliant move. FPS gamers who spend the majority of their time on consoles will likely welcome the direct-to-combat approach, dumbed-down button interface — X for attacks, Y for “special” attacks — and so on. The game is actually pretty fun, but I have a feeling the simplicity will rob Halo Wars of its staying power, making it more of a March diversion than anything else. Maybe I’m simply not the target audience — I’m actually a Halo fanatic, but I enjoy base building and grouping units far too much to be entertained for long.

Ultimately, Halo Wars is the perfect example of a game that works on a console it really has no business being on in the first place. It’s a shame the game didn’t turn out to be a deep RTS experience — it would’ve been appropriate, given Bungie’s original vision of Halo as a strategy title for the Mac. Microsoft is also getting flak over their business practices regarding Halo Wars. For one, the company delayed the first installment of Bungie’s Mythic Map Pack for Halo 3 so they could pack it in with the Special Edition of Halo Wars as a little added sales incentive, and there’s no telling how long they’ll wait to release it on the Marketplace.  Second, Microsoft is rewarding Ensemble’s completion of the game by shutting the studio down. Congratulations, guys!

Despite the eyebrows and voices raised over Microsoft’s actions, Halo Wars will sell, anyway—and probably grab solid 8s from the reviewers. Check out the demo — if RTS-lite sounds appealing, it could be right up your alley, regardless of your level of interest in the franchise going in.