Halo Wars 2

 

          The Halo series is probably my all-time favorite first person shooter video game franchise.  As far back as its first release, the franchise has always attempted to shake the status que of what is considered acceptable for the genre.  The first game, for example, was the first to popularize the idea of an automatically regenerating health bar, (now a standard practice), and is the game that is often credited with the success of the original Xbox consul, Xbox Live, and the entire concept on online multiplayer in consul video games.  Since then, the franchise has constantly strived to be an innovator for the genre.  Halo 2 popularized co-op play in campaigns and introduced duel wielding guns.  Halo 3 and 4 both pushed the Xbox 360’s graphical limits in ways that blew everyone’s minds at the time.  Halo: ODST tried, (and in my opinion succeeded), in showing the ongoing war with the Covenant from a regular soldier’s perspective and incorporated more Call of Duty like elements into the gameplay.  Halo: Reach, while more then a little overrated in my opinion, introduced a far more sophisticated enemy AI then had really ever been seen in a video game up until that point.  And Halo 5…well I haven’t played it and to be honest I may never given the fact that it is an Xbox One exclusive and I have no interest in getting that particular consul.  The point, however, is that the franchise has always been an innovator when it comes to the main series and has, in my experience, never been one to sit on a formula and grow stale.  That is until you take the Halo Wars part of the franchise into account.

            The first Halo Wars was the definition of a thoroughly…okay game.  It was developed by Ensemble Studios, the same people behind the Age of Empires franchise and was the last game the team developed before being shut down by Microsoft in 2009.  But in spite of the fact that the game was commercially successful and released to mostly positive reviews it was nothing special and ran on an RTS gameplay style that was outdated even at the time.  Games like Rome: Total War and Medieval II: Total War were surging in popularity at the time and were quickly becoming the more popular way design RTS games among audiences and critics.  Heck, even the first Company of Heroes game, released three years earlier, effectively did exactly what the first Halo Wars was trying to do and actually did a far superior job.  But, in the game’s defense, there was a certain novelty in seeing the franchise try out the RTS genera and if nothing else, that’s something that you cannot take away from it.  It’s just a shame that Halo Wars 2 opts to be an uninspired rehash of the first game and reeks of a “Eh, that’s good enough” type attitude.

           The principal problem with the entire game, sadly, is the gameplay and how thoroughly outdated it is.  Like’s its predecessor the game runs off the same basic functionality as the 2004 game, The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle Earth.  Like that game, you had a limited number of predesignated spots to build buildings on as well as various preselected places to build your bases on.  You gather your resources with buildings that generate them for you, build up your army, face down the enemy and the last one standing wins.  Unfortunately, it can’t help but feel like a copy and paste job of its predecessor which, again, used a system that was outdated even back in 2009.  Heck, even by the standards of this kind of strategy based gameplay style, this game actually seems to take several steps backwards.

            As with most games of the genre, you have a number of different units to pick from that each of their own strengths and weaknesses.  Certain units are better against infantry, while others are good against flying units and such.  The problem is that this really doesn’t matter as much as it ought to.  Infantry units are, for example, practically useless and only serve as cannon fodder in the face of vehicle units that are far more effective in both their combat versatility and special abilities.  Often times a one can simply hit a button and run over an enemy infantry units without much sweat or allow the automatic weapons attached to most vehicle units to mow them down.  The only infantry units that have any real value in the game are the anti-vehicle Cyclops/Hunter units who are surprisingly overpowered in this regard but even they feel more like slower vehicles then actual infantry units.  As a result, most games inevitably turn into a big vehicle on vehicle Twisted Metal deathmatches with a few anti-vehicle support units on the side that eventually climaxes with tanks and heavy airships attacking and destroying the enemy base, making for some very predictable and dull matches.

            Now with all of that in mind, compare it to the Company of Heroes games.  Like this game, it runs on a mostly outdated gameplay style and matches can easily devolve into tank battles where infantry units are mowed down relatively quickly.  The difference, however, is that the infantry in the Company of Heroes games actually stand a fighting chance.  There are several areas throughout the maps for the units to take cover from gun fire, greatly reducing the speed by which they are killed.  They also had more than enough special destructive abilities at their disposal to cause significant, if not fatal damage, thus making them far more practical than in Halo Wars 2.  Additionally, tank battles in this game tended to be slow, tense and required actual strategy to win.  It wasn’t so much about knocking the other guy’s hit points to zero as it was about lining up the shot with the right angle on the tank in order to cause maximum damage, while preventing the enemy from getting that angle on you as well.  But in Halo Wars 2?  Nope!  Just put as many rounds into the enemy vehicles as you can until it goes boom and hope your vehicle doesn’t go boom first.

            The one thing that the game does do that is kind of original are the Blitz matches but they aren’t going to keep people playing the game for very long.  The whole thing amounts to a PvP map where you have a limited number of prechosen units that can only be deployed at certain points in the game.  Additionally, it’s always a struggle over certain points on the map but like the core gameplay it, for the most part always seems to end in a vehicle battle.

           Then we have the actual campaign.  OH.  DEAR.  GOD.  THE CAMPAIGN.  You see, I’m one of those weirdos who actually cares about the campaigns and storylines in first person shooter games and Halo’s tends to be superior to that of its competition.  And to be fair, the storyline in this game isn’t that bad.  Unfortunately, it’s also a bit hard to follow, confusing, full of plot holes and leaves a lot of loose ends. 

            The story picks up 28 years after the end of the first game with the crew of The Spirit of Fire awakening from cryosleep to find themselves in orbit around The Arc; the facility that introduced in Halo 3 and revealed to be where the Halo Rings were created.  Not long after, they discover that the war with the Covenant is over but The Arc has been overrun by a faction known as The Banished who split from the Covenant many years ago.  Upon learning this, the ship’s captain decides to avenge those who were killed on The Ark by The Banished, drive them off The Arc and find a way to contact home.

            Now, initially the premise sounds pretty cool and to be fair, the execution isn’t that bad.  The voice acting is all really good and helps adds layers of dimension to these characters in a way the writing isn’t up to and all of the cut scenes are very well animated and directed.  But then you start thinking about everything that is going on and immediately start asking questions.  Why is this the first time we’ve heard about The Banished?  From the way they are described they sound like they were a pretty big thorn in The Covenant’s side for a long time.  Why didn’t The Heretic from Halo 2 ally himself with this group?  Why didn’t The Arbiter try and make contact with The Banished when The Prophet’s ordered the Elites to be slaughtered?  Why didn’t they try and ally themselves with Earth so they could have a friend in their fight against The Covenant?  It’s questions like these that ruin the entire experience and makes it more than a little difficult to take the plot seriously when it seems so disconnected with the lore of the rest of the franchise.

            The actual campaign missions themselves are a bit of a mess.  Some of the can be interesting, especially when you need to accomplish difficult tasks with a set number of troops but they tend to be the exception rather than the rule.  Most of the missions sadly consist of slight variations on the skirmish maps with a few more objectives and restrictions and scales tipped horribly in the enemy’s favor put in to pad out the runtime.  That last bit is especially irritating as the enemy seems to constantly have you outnumbered and has a constant stream of reinforcements coming from off the map that never seem to follow the population limit rule.  The worst campaign missions, however, are the defensive missions.  Many times in this game you will be called upon to hold the line from wave after wave of enemies and it is beyond dull and easy.  After a certain amount of time you’ll know exactly what enemy types will be thrown at you from where and this knowledge will allow you to effectively place defenses that will turn the battle into a slaughter.  And of course, the enemy AI does nothing to compensate for this outside of throwing larger waves of enemies at you that just might break through if you have one to few units at the position.  To call it lazy would be an understatement.

            In the end, Halo Wars 2 is the definition of a lazy game with an “Eh, that’s good enough” type attitude about it.  I didn’t necessarily hate the game as much as it may have seemed in this article but I just don’t understand the thought process behind its development.  Why dust off this practically forgotten part of the franchise and then make such a halfhearted effort to continue it?  I honestly don’t know but as it stands Halo Wars 2 is prime example of otherwise talented developers working on a project and clearly not giving a crap about it.  Skip it and spend your sixty bucks elsewhere.  So until next time, please follow the site, like the Facebook Page, follow me on Twitter and let's hope that future installments of this franchise will prove better then this one.