Tuesday, January 2, 2007

Halo Wars



Heres the FAQ's on the new real time strategy called Halo Wars

Q: What is “Halo Wars”?
A: “Halo Wars” is the next big real-time strategy game from Ensemble Studios, creators of Age of Empires. Designed exclusively for the Xbox 360, “Halo Wars” allows you to take charge of the human UNSC armies and see the Halo universe from a totally new perspective.
Q: Where does “Halo Wars” take place in the Halo timeline?
A: “Halo Wars” takes place before Halo 1 during the UNSC’s first deadly encounters with the Covenant.
Q: Can you reveal anything about “Halo Wars” storyline?
A: Players will lead the crew of the UNSC’s “Spirit of Fire” from initial skirmishes to an all out war against the evil Covenant.
Q: Will I be able to play as the Covenant?
A: Stay tuned.
Q: Why is “Halo” being made into an RTS game?
A: Warthogs are cool. Scorpions are cool. Controlling lots of Warthogs and Scorpions and sending them into battle is really, really cool.

We’ve been big fans of Halo for years at Ensemble Studios, and when we sat down to discuss our next project we thought Halo would be absolutely perfect as an RTS on the Xbox 360.
Q: When will “Halo Wars” be available?
A: Stay tuned.
Q: Will I be able to play Halo Wars on Xbox 360 and PC?
A: Halo Wars is for the Xbox 360 exclusively.
Q: Is the trailer pre-rendered?
A: Yes, and it's based around our world concepts and uses lots of in-game models. The sound and music were done at Ensemble Studios as well. Props to our friends at Blur for bringing it all together and making it really shine.
Q: Other RTS games that have transitioned to console have had issues with controls, how will “Halo Wars” improve on the formula?
A: “Halo Wars” was created for the Xbox 360 from the ground up, which meant we didn't have to make compromises or shoe-horn in artifacts from a Windows PC game. We were able to take all the best aspects of RTS games, make them work perfectly on the Xbox 360, and exclude the rest.
Q: Where can I learn more about other Halo games?
A: Our friends at Bungie, the creators of the Halo Universe, have lots of information about Halo. Check them out here: www.bungie.net.



Looks pretty sweet.

4 comments:

Shade said...

Anybody else out there a RTS gamer? I used to play Command & Conquer (original, Red Alert, Tiberium Sun, Generals) and Age of Empires 2.

Favorite moments on C&C: sneaking in a bunch of Tanya commandos into the enemy's base and destroying all their unit/building production facilities, forcing them on the offensive. Then watching as they got chewed up by the mass of units/defenses/Tesla coils I had waiting for them. Or taking over multiple technologies so you could launch simultaneous SCUD, Nuke,and Ion Beam attacks on the enemy base and just annihilate it.

Other favs, playing AOE2 online. It was 3 on 3, on the Black Forest map (fixed pathways through the forest on the map, unless you had catapults to slowly carve your way through). I was the ever slow, but heavily armored, "if I ever get over there I'm going to kick your ass" Teutonic Knights civilization. My 2 teammates were useless fodder. So my team had the other 3 teams bottlenecked in the forest, but we couldn't punch through, cause my teammates couldn't create big enough armies and move them around. And I was barely holding the stalemate. So what does good old "never give up" Shade do? I used my catapults to tunnel around the back end up the map to the backside of the enemies' bases, took about half an hour. Then I unleashed my reserve army and trashed half their bases before they were able to reinforce from the front line. Not bad for one on three. If only I had decent teammates!

Yup, Shade definitely misses the days of the old massive armies crushing enemy bases....

Shade said...

Another set of reasons to pick up the new Command and Conquer, the list of actors in the live-action sequences. Number Six, nuff said.

Michael Ironside / Top Gun, voice of Splinter Cell's Sam Fisher
Billy Dee Williams / Empire Strikes Back, Colt .45 Spokesperson
Josh Holloway / Lost, CSI
Tricia Helfer / Battlestar Galactica, CSI
Grace Park / Battlestar Galactica, L.A. Law: The Movie
Ivana Bozilovic / Wedding Crashers, Van Wilder
Shanon Cook / CNN reporter
John Huck / Las Vegas Fox News anchor
Shauntay Hinton / former Miss USA
Joe Kucan / Command & Conquer series

Ken said...

Sorry, not much of an RTS nerd. Unfortunately, not even sticking the magic word, "Halo," will probably be enough to draw me to this game.

Author said...

I forget which C&C it was but I really enjoyed filling a couple of transport choppers with commandos right at the beginning of the game and landing it behind enemy base. Destruction within 5 min. Ive made many a twelve year old squeal with that one.