Halo Wars Preview and Demo Review

Welcome to the war that destroyed the Spartan unit!

Halo Wars, the new upcoming release by Ensemble studios, is set 20 years before the events of Halo: Combat Evolved and follows the beginning of the struggle between humanity and the alien covenant race who seek to eradicate humanity from the galaxy. In this prequel fight between humanity and the covenant, you'll start off the campaign by playing as the UCNS and lead the fight against the covenant advance on numerous planets that require your assistance.

There is opportunity to play as the covenant forces but it seems that this is only available in multiplayer mode and that there is no campaign for this team.

The number of units seems to be limited with all units stemming from the areas of infantry, vehicles and air units. This could be seen to be in-keeping with the traditional style of RTS games however there are very few units to be built in any of these areas making the unit selection somewhat limited.

The cut scenes in the game seem set to be visually stunning. This was proven to be fact in the demo recently released on XBL where there was a cut scene depicting a general aboard a spaceship gaining information on the situation below.

I personally found the demo to be slow paced with little continuous action or challenge, especially after maximizing my resource income. This meant that the game became stagnant quite quickly and I was able to complete it far too easily although this could just be because it is the demo and they are saving the fast paced action for those that buy the full game.

Final Thoughts:

Little else remains to be said apart from check out the demo and make your own opinions on the game, see the units and immerse yourself in the beginnings of the story to see if it will appeal to your taste and most importantly, Fight the fight and save humanity!