Resident Evil is a long running series with many characters and plot threads. Basically A Corporation set up by a few scientists became a global pharmaceutical giant. This company manufactured many things, however this was a front. At its heart the Umbrella Corporation was a secret research program involved with genetic viral manipulations. These experiments had many aims, most importantly the improvement and evolution of man into biological weapons of mass destruction. Throughout the history of the games the T-virus which essentially creates zombies, monsters and super humans depending on whatever it infects has been one of the main focuses.
At the start of Resident Evil 5 we are re-introduced to Chris Redfield, a character seen in earlier games. He is in Africa doing work for the BSAA, an organisation setup to combat the threat of bio-weapon terrorism springing up in the wake of the disintegration of Umbrella.
Chris is given a new African partner to assist his integration into the culture he is investigating. This unfortunately throws up flashbacks to his previous female partner Jill Valentine, who vanished fighting Alfred Wesker a super human viral powered enemy.
Chris believes that Jill may still be alive and has reason to believe that the terrorists he is investigating here in Africa will have leads to her whereabouts.
Chris is sent to meet a man called Irving who is selling bio-weapons and he hopes to capture him in a sting operation. The BSAA team which is backing him up are spectacularly slaughtered by a new bio-weapon. Chris and Sheva chase Irving and his mysterious masked female bodyguard from the meet site across large swathes of Africa hoping to uncover who Irving's boss is and where he is getting the bio-weapons.
Chris and Sheva are likeable heroes, although their dialogue is a little stiff, and their love triangle hardly convincing. Enemies are of the cardboard cut out manically laughing bad guy variety, destroying the world because it's in the script rather than for any good reason. It seems churlish to pick on Resident evil's storyline, as it never really aims to be taken seriously. This is action movie fare and all involved know it.
The story progresses mainly in the cut scenes with only minor details being exposed in the actual levels themselves. The cut scenes are all well done and rendered using the in game engine. The action is suitably cinematic and a joy to watch.
Resident Evil is a fairly traditional third person shooter with no real cover system. This is stupid and or commendable post Gears of war, it does have a cover system, but it's very clunky and you rarely need it. The enemies tend to melee attack rather than shoot, don't get me wrong you do get shot at, just not really that often for the first two thirds of the game.
The major issue with the control system is the aiming system, as is fairly traditional in games for the past three or four years the left trigger is used to sight down your gun. The problem is that movement stops functioning when you do, Chris can't even shuffle slowly while aiming his gun. It feels very claustrophobic as zombies shuffle towards you and you try and gun them down without flinching, but it is a fairly glaring omission that could have been easily rectified.
Your inventory is the other rather old school system, copied from the early games it means you can carry very little. Ammo needs to be loaded into guns manually while in your inventory. You have a large array of weapons but can't carry very many of them and comfortably pick up health etc. during a level. For example picking up a bullet proof vest for Chris and Sheva sees two of your precious inventory slots being permanently used up. Thankfully the game pauses while you micro manage your stocks. As far as realism goes its fine, however, since when has realism played much part in games. Even supposedly realistic games ask us to believe that ammunition grows in crates.
In between missions you can place items in a store and sell collectables for in game cash. Each weapon can be upgraded to improve accuracy and effectiveness. One play through will usually allow you to upgrade two weapons out of the ten or so. This makes climbing the skill tree a fairly prolonged and unattainable goal as most people will not want to play through five or six times to get all the weapons powered up.
The focus on co-op play is evident from the start, Sheva is ever present and her assistance is needed at many Army of Two style moments as you open doors and both of you push obstacles together. At times you split up and work in separate areas towards the same goal. All of these things are novelties that add little. What is important is that she provides a constant companion who shoots at the enemies and attracts her fair share of the trouble for you. Give her good weapons and keep her well stocked in Ammo and she will be useful. Only occasionally does she get killed and halt the game for you. The real point however is the fairly seamless online co-op feature which allows you and a friend to play together. Which really does make the game that much more fun.
The levels are fairly simple, you start at point A and have to get to point B through all the zombies, dogs etc. in the way. Sometimes you have to survive in an area for a set time period to progress, at others there are bosses to kill or keys to find.
There are on rails sequences where you fire from an emplaced gun on a jeep. There is a little bit of QuickTime button pressing at times.
At one point in the game you come to an experimental sandbox area. There is a lake with lots of little villages around it. You basically have to collect four pieces of a key to open the door out of the area. What is novel is that instead of a corridor you can choose any of the four villages in any order to fight in and find the pieces of the key.
Each of the main chapters has little subtle variations in game play. For a short section of the game one of the partners must carry a lamp to light the way, which means that vision is very limited and that partner can't shoot. There is a sun temple which has magnified beams of light that toast you alive along with mirror angling type puzzles. There is also a place where stairs are moved in combinations to find your way to a goal. In a small section you have to be quiet and stealthy to avoid the attention of blind licker monsters. On a ship you have to use cranes to move cargo containers around to make progress.
Enemies are suitably varied; there are Magini types with chainsaws, chain guns, shotguns, and the larger executioner and mutated villager type Magini. Alongside the Magini are a cast of bat/insect hybrids, mutant dogs, alligators, lickers and the cockroach like reapers. At times you also find the enemies using emplaced guns.
The art direction is great, African shanties, labs, ships, all rendered well with a distinctive style. The monster design is of the animal insect mash up variety and done well.
Your reasons for being there and objectives are kept fairly clear at all times.
The character animation is done well, though there is some stiffness, I felt that everyone always seemed to be standing upright. There is no spinning head over feet when blown up, as if the characters were rooted to the ground.
Boss battles are a big part of Resident Evil, this game is no exception. There are roughly ten boss encounters and each one is varied. Black tentacle monsters, huge hybrid creatures, trolls and super humans all have a go at you.
Methods of dealing with them are as varied, basic shooting, luring them into traps and shooting certain targets in sequence. All have their patterns to learn and areas they fight in littered with help for those that explore. Unlike some bosses in other games, I felt these fair for the average gamer on normal, however my foray onto hard after completing the game found the troll monster at the jeep sequence darned irritating.
The Capcom MT framework engine is one of the best in gaming I feel and one that deserves to be licensed and used by all the developers who can't actually make their own. The frame rate and detail supported here are excellent. There is only really the Infinity Ward Engine and Guerilla's Killzone engine that are comparable.
Checkpoints were handled well with rarely any long retreads after you die.
The game took me around 20 hours on normal to complete. I played through half of it again on hard. Once you complete the game you have the ability to gain infinite ammo on weapons you have fully upgraded. This character building adds to the replay value and makes the harder difficulty levels easier to take.
I received 435 achievement points which I feel is fair enough.
Music and sounds effects are of a high standard. Not my taste really I have to say but adequate.
Multiplayer controversially has been added as a piece of downloadable content. Something that I won’t be buying as it does seem to be a blatant attempt to claw more money from fans of the game.
Capcom have made a good game here, taken as a shooter it performs well, those who want the survival horror of the early Resident Evil series will have to look elsewhere. Great graphics and mostly irritant free game play make a game that deserves your money. The inventory system could do with an overhaul, other than that this is a game that needs to be played.
Story 7
Gameplay 8
Graphics 9
Level Design 8
A.i. 7
Total 7.8
Killzone 2 Review
The story picks up from the previous games, however, there is little attempt to fill in those unfamiliar with story. I haven't played Killzone or Killzone liberation; therefore I am left in the dark. Surely a recap would not have gone amiss. The setting is a future where man has went out into space and colonised many planets. Helghan and Vekta are neighbouring planets colonised long ago, long enough for the people to have diverged along different sociological and adaptive paths. Helghan is a harsh desert world and has resulted in a harsh Spartan fascist type society. On the other side of the coin is Vekta which though not shown much in this game seems more liberal.
The Helghast invaded Vekta in the last game and have been driven away by forces of the ISA. A kind of United federation. The Helghast, lead by President Visari, stole nuclear weapons from Vekta and are unable to use them at present due to codes built into the weapons. The Isa are understandably unhappy with Visari and he is to be taken into custody to answer for his war crimes. The ISA launch an assault on Helghan which has the primary objective of capturing Visari and recovering the nukes.
In an excellent scene setting movie at the start of the game we see Visari ranting against the injustice of the ISA's actions and watch as ISA ships launch and establish a beachhead on Helghan.
The character you play is named Sev, he is part of a squad under Rico and including Garza and Natko. There are also officer characters you interact with, Evelyn a scientist and Jan Templar the Captain of the whole expedition.
The Helghast are a faceless uniformed threat for the most part, however there are two main antagonists. Visari himself and his military commander General Radec, Radec is pure cardboard cut out villain, however he does give that boo, hiss, love to hate factor.
The squad are all believable distinct characters, however not enough time is spent with each to allow us to grow attached to them. When one of them is killed we are expected to care, which is hard to do.
The main thrust of the story sees you assist and escort a convoy of vehicles on the long hard fought road to Visari's palace. Along the way you will encounter many difficulties and are side tracked to disable a new defence system that Visari Deploys. Your team is stressed, Rico is hot-headed to start with and team mates are killed in action.
The story comes to a conclusion, which is within this games role as an ongoing series. You were never going resolve the story here; however main objectives are met along with the ISA getting a severe bloody nose.
There are some fairly tense dramatic moments in the story, I particularly enjoyed Radec and Templars scene together. The ending left me a little confused which I can't go into without spoiling the game.
Difficulty levels in games are essential, people of all abilities play games nowadays and there has to be that scalable difficulty to allow players of all skill levels to enjoy a game to the best of their ability. My complaint here is why are some, usually the hardest difficulty levels locked when you first play. If I want to play a game through twice I will do so if I enjoyed it. I don't need to be forced to in order to collect trophies. Too many games these days require you to play through the game before unlocking the hardest difficulty. This is transparently obvious as a way to keep people playing. I play a lot of games, if I want to be masochistic enough to play on elite the first time around why can't I.
Controls are fairly clunky on the default setting and there is a setting which emulates the Call of duty style. This should have been default. This isn't a criticism of Killzone 2 in particular. On PC FPS’s there are default keyboard and mouse layouts that rarely vary, why is this? Well, simply put these setting are comfortable for a great many people. The same goes for controller FPS and TPS layouts. The Call of Duty layout as its being called is simply the most comfortable for a large amount of people. Its common sense, not a failing, if you are making a shooter that layout is the one that works the best.
There is a cover system where you push against an area of cover and hold a button and move your stick around to peer out from behind cover. This is identical to Medal of Honour: Airborne. The cover mechanic is satisfactory, although I found myself using it less often than I should.
Where Killzone excels is peripheral activity, around eighty percent of the time there is activity going on around you that is not directly related to game play in any way. Its window dressing designed to make you feel that you are a small cog in a larger war machine, air vehicles fly and fight overhead and explosions rock the horizon.
The objectives are varied, destroy Apc's, AA guns, tanks, arc towers, buildings, open floodgates, take or defend strategic locations, also rescue missions.
The environments are expansive and detailed, in several areas there are small alternate routes or shortcuts which help you flank enemies. The environments are only destructible in a few tightly scripted areas, however, when they are they usually are blown entirely apart.
Sixaxis controls are used fairly often, the placing of detonation charges is a fairly simple manoeuvre, and is quite fun. On the other end of the scale are the large wheels which need to be turned at certain points, this mechanic does not work and should have been dropped.
There are some small puzzles which mainly involve cutting the electricity supply to gate force fields.
There are two sections of novelty game mechanics; you defend a cruiser using its emplaced guns at one point. There is also a mechanical walker/driving section. Both are fairly short and inoffensive.
Weapons are varied as you would expect, pistols, machine guns, rifles, rocket launchers, grenades, all the usual cast. The flamethrower is fun, as is the lightning gun. As with most overpowered weapons they are rationed heavily, however, their little time to shine is fun. You can only carry a limited number of weapons at a time which makes for some strategic decisions at times.
Enemies wield different weaponry and this serves as mostly the only distinction and difference in enemy types. There are armoured heavy troopers which need to be shot in the face and then shot in their gas canisters carried on their back to kill. There are bugs and spiders in some sections that attack you. Snipers have telltale red line sights to warn you of imminent demise. There are also laser trip mines left littered around.
The squad A.I. deserves mention, they are fairly usual in their behaviour, what annoyed me often was their knack of getting in your way at critical moments and getting you killed. I ended up melee attacking them whenever they got in my way.
The greater portion of the game employs a fixed amount of enemies in an area; once they are dead you know there won't be any more. At two or three stages in the game they change this system for the Call of Duty style infinite respawning enemy mechanic. I personally dislike this system; it rewards recklessness and punishes tactical play. It is also at odds with the slow and steady cover mechanic which is used in eighty percent of the game.
The final stage of the game deserves special mention for game design; it throws out the corridor shooter mechanic used so far. It brings in a sandbox type area with set objectives, which, can be taken out in any order. If only the rest of the game had used this system it would have made for a better experience. As it stands it's a reminder of what the game should have been throughout.
There are two real boss battles, the first with the flying ATAC is fairly traditional with you learning to survive and work out the pattern and tactics used to destroy it.
The final boss is a horrible almost game breaking experience. You basically end up in a square room with a balcony running all the way around it. You are forced to fight wave upon wave of heavily armed soldiers before facing off against Radec himself, who uses a cloaking device and his trademark knife attacks. I played every stage until this one on the hardest available difficulty. On reaching Radec I had to yield after much cursing and swearing and knock the difficulty down a notch to finish the game. This boss battle was just hell, not even fun. I know last battles should be hard, this one just felt cheap, mean and unfair.
Helghan is a dark industrial world a colony built with function in mind over beauty. The Helghast are portrayed as faceless fascists impassive and menacing behind their masks with their trademark red eyes. The levels are thematically similar, slums, shanty towns, industrial plants, cities; some of the indoor environments are imposing and reminiscent of Nazi German grandeur. For the most part the areas are believable as places built for a function other than gaming.
Graphically Killzone 2 is an impressive game, it runs at a good frame rate which very rarely dips below 25-30 frames per second. There is little to no screen tearing. Lighting is particularly good in most areas, while not true dynamic lighting for the most part gives a good impression of it. The character modelling is good if slightly less detailed than most. Textures are adequate if a little muddy in places. I have tried to put my finger on what is improved here over say Resistance 2. The answer is smoke and mirrors.
There is lots of particle and fog effects going on, not I stress to hide draw distance, simply to provide grime and constant movement. Dust storms howl, explosions and smoke billow, camera shakes, flashes and bangs, blood sprays. It's all a peripheral system to the actual geometry and textures. It's this atmosphere, grain if you will, that sets Killzone apart. With that basic understanding it will be easy for other shooters to emulate Killzone. I expect developers have known this since they first saw real game play and have been working to insert these weather and environment effect into their own games. Expect to see a lot of games set in dusty smog filled windy environments. There are little freezes that make you fear for your PS3's stability until you realise that these are loading pauses.
The game is mostly glitch free, for a flagship game it should be as the competitors eyes are on this game watching for a sign of weakness. There are few flaws, I did once get run down by an ally jeep as I stood on a bridge listening to instructions. Once I saw Rico wading chest deep through the metal deck of a train as if it wasn't there, on the whole though it's a very stable bug free game.
The animation of the characters is superbly motion captured; only Call of Duty 4 is in the same league and it's a tough call to make between the two. The characters seem to have good weight and grounding in their environments, essential for believability and immersion.
Music is stirring and militaristic, explosions and bangs are all present and correct. The voice work is above average.
The game employs the checkpoint system well, with only the aforementioned dog of a boss battle spoiling the perfection.
Trophies are implemented, with the usual level completion, collectible and difficulty awards. There are a good portion of online trophies to be earned for those wishing to put in many hours online.
The multiplayer game is given a lot of weight as it should be in a serious first person shooter. There are spins on the usual game modes with a rank up system which unlocks abilities. I am not a huge online gamer and didn't play too far into the online mode. I don't rank games on their multiplayer component. Sorry if you were looking to read about the online. I am afraid my reviews will never really take multiplayer into account.
Score
Story 8
Gameplay 8
Graphics 9
Level Design 8
A.I. 7
Total 8.0
The Helghast invaded Vekta in the last game and have been driven away by forces of the ISA. A kind of United federation. The Helghast, lead by President Visari, stole nuclear weapons from Vekta and are unable to use them at present due to codes built into the weapons. The Isa are understandably unhappy with Visari and he is to be taken into custody to answer for his war crimes. The ISA launch an assault on Helghan which has the primary objective of capturing Visari and recovering the nukes.
In an excellent scene setting movie at the start of the game we see Visari ranting against the injustice of the ISA's actions and watch as ISA ships launch and establish a beachhead on Helghan.
The character you play is named Sev, he is part of a squad under Rico and including Garza and Natko. There are also officer characters you interact with, Evelyn a scientist and Jan Templar the Captain of the whole expedition.
The Helghast are a faceless uniformed threat for the most part, however there are two main antagonists. Visari himself and his military commander General Radec, Radec is pure cardboard cut out villain, however he does give that boo, hiss, love to hate factor.
The squad are all believable distinct characters, however not enough time is spent with each to allow us to grow attached to them. When one of them is killed we are expected to care, which is hard to do.
The main thrust of the story sees you assist and escort a convoy of vehicles on the long hard fought road to Visari's palace. Along the way you will encounter many difficulties and are side tracked to disable a new defence system that Visari Deploys. Your team is stressed, Rico is hot-headed to start with and team mates are killed in action.
The story comes to a conclusion, which is within this games role as an ongoing series. You were never going resolve the story here; however main objectives are met along with the ISA getting a severe bloody nose.
There are some fairly tense dramatic moments in the story, I particularly enjoyed Radec and Templars scene together. The ending left me a little confused which I can't go into without spoiling the game.
Difficulty levels in games are essential, people of all abilities play games nowadays and there has to be that scalable difficulty to allow players of all skill levels to enjoy a game to the best of their ability. My complaint here is why are some, usually the hardest difficulty levels locked when you first play. If I want to play a game through twice I will do so if I enjoyed it. I don't need to be forced to in order to collect trophies. Too many games these days require you to play through the game before unlocking the hardest difficulty. This is transparently obvious as a way to keep people playing. I play a lot of games, if I want to be masochistic enough to play on elite the first time around why can't I.
Controls are fairly clunky on the default setting and there is a setting which emulates the Call of duty style. This should have been default. This isn't a criticism of Killzone 2 in particular. On PC FPS’s there are default keyboard and mouse layouts that rarely vary, why is this? Well, simply put these setting are comfortable for a great many people. The same goes for controller FPS and TPS layouts. The Call of Duty layout as its being called is simply the most comfortable for a large amount of people. Its common sense, not a failing, if you are making a shooter that layout is the one that works the best.
There is a cover system where you push against an area of cover and hold a button and move your stick around to peer out from behind cover. This is identical to Medal of Honour: Airborne. The cover mechanic is satisfactory, although I found myself using it less often than I should.
Where Killzone excels is peripheral activity, around eighty percent of the time there is activity going on around you that is not directly related to game play in any way. Its window dressing designed to make you feel that you are a small cog in a larger war machine, air vehicles fly and fight overhead and explosions rock the horizon.
The objectives are varied, destroy Apc's, AA guns, tanks, arc towers, buildings, open floodgates, take or defend strategic locations, also rescue missions.
The environments are expansive and detailed, in several areas there are small alternate routes or shortcuts which help you flank enemies. The environments are only destructible in a few tightly scripted areas, however, when they are they usually are blown entirely apart.
Sixaxis controls are used fairly often, the placing of detonation charges is a fairly simple manoeuvre, and is quite fun. On the other end of the scale are the large wheels which need to be turned at certain points, this mechanic does not work and should have been dropped.
There are some small puzzles which mainly involve cutting the electricity supply to gate force fields.
There are two sections of novelty game mechanics; you defend a cruiser using its emplaced guns at one point. There is also a mechanical walker/driving section. Both are fairly short and inoffensive.
Weapons are varied as you would expect, pistols, machine guns, rifles, rocket launchers, grenades, all the usual cast. The flamethrower is fun, as is the lightning gun. As with most overpowered weapons they are rationed heavily, however, their little time to shine is fun. You can only carry a limited number of weapons at a time which makes for some strategic decisions at times.
Enemies wield different weaponry and this serves as mostly the only distinction and difference in enemy types. There are armoured heavy troopers which need to be shot in the face and then shot in their gas canisters carried on their back to kill. There are bugs and spiders in some sections that attack you. Snipers have telltale red line sights to warn you of imminent demise. There are also laser trip mines left littered around.
The squad A.I. deserves mention, they are fairly usual in their behaviour, what annoyed me often was their knack of getting in your way at critical moments and getting you killed. I ended up melee attacking them whenever they got in my way.
The greater portion of the game employs a fixed amount of enemies in an area; once they are dead you know there won't be any more. At two or three stages in the game they change this system for the Call of Duty style infinite respawning enemy mechanic. I personally dislike this system; it rewards recklessness and punishes tactical play. It is also at odds with the slow and steady cover mechanic which is used in eighty percent of the game.
The final stage of the game deserves special mention for game design; it throws out the corridor shooter mechanic used so far. It brings in a sandbox type area with set objectives, which, can be taken out in any order. If only the rest of the game had used this system it would have made for a better experience. As it stands it's a reminder of what the game should have been throughout.
There are two real boss battles, the first with the flying ATAC is fairly traditional with you learning to survive and work out the pattern and tactics used to destroy it.
The final boss is a horrible almost game breaking experience. You basically end up in a square room with a balcony running all the way around it. You are forced to fight wave upon wave of heavily armed soldiers before facing off against Radec himself, who uses a cloaking device and his trademark knife attacks. I played every stage until this one on the hardest available difficulty. On reaching Radec I had to yield after much cursing and swearing and knock the difficulty down a notch to finish the game. This boss battle was just hell, not even fun. I know last battles should be hard, this one just felt cheap, mean and unfair.
Helghan is a dark industrial world a colony built with function in mind over beauty. The Helghast are portrayed as faceless fascists impassive and menacing behind their masks with their trademark red eyes. The levels are thematically similar, slums, shanty towns, industrial plants, cities; some of the indoor environments are imposing and reminiscent of Nazi German grandeur. For the most part the areas are believable as places built for a function other than gaming.
Graphically Killzone 2 is an impressive game, it runs at a good frame rate which very rarely dips below 25-30 frames per second. There is little to no screen tearing. Lighting is particularly good in most areas, while not true dynamic lighting for the most part gives a good impression of it. The character modelling is good if slightly less detailed than most. Textures are adequate if a little muddy in places. I have tried to put my finger on what is improved here over say Resistance 2. The answer is smoke and mirrors.
There is lots of particle and fog effects going on, not I stress to hide draw distance, simply to provide grime and constant movement. Dust storms howl, explosions and smoke billow, camera shakes, flashes and bangs, blood sprays. It's all a peripheral system to the actual geometry and textures. It's this atmosphere, grain if you will, that sets Killzone apart. With that basic understanding it will be easy for other shooters to emulate Killzone. I expect developers have known this since they first saw real game play and have been working to insert these weather and environment effect into their own games. Expect to see a lot of games set in dusty smog filled windy environments. There are little freezes that make you fear for your PS3's stability until you realise that these are loading pauses.
The game is mostly glitch free, for a flagship game it should be as the competitors eyes are on this game watching for a sign of weakness. There are few flaws, I did once get run down by an ally jeep as I stood on a bridge listening to instructions. Once I saw Rico wading chest deep through the metal deck of a train as if it wasn't there, on the whole though it's a very stable bug free game.
The animation of the characters is superbly motion captured; only Call of Duty 4 is in the same league and it's a tough call to make between the two. The characters seem to have good weight and grounding in their environments, essential for believability and immersion.
Music is stirring and militaristic, explosions and bangs are all present and correct. The voice work is above average.
The game employs the checkpoint system well, with only the aforementioned dog of a boss battle spoiling the perfection.
Trophies are implemented, with the usual level completion, collectible and difficulty awards. There are a good portion of online trophies to be earned for those wishing to put in many hours online.
The multiplayer game is given a lot of weight as it should be in a serious first person shooter. There are spins on the usual game modes with a rank up system which unlocks abilities. I am not a huge online gamer and didn't play too far into the online mode. I don't rank games on their multiplayer component. Sorry if you were looking to read about the online. I am afraid my reviews will never really take multiplayer into account.
Score
Story 8
Gameplay 8
Graphics 9
Level Design 8
A.I. 7
Total 8.0
50Cent : Blood on the sand Review
First of all, I am not a fan of rap music; I don't know any of 50Cents songs and know nothing of his history or character. Hopefully the events portrayed in the game are gangster wish fulfilment and not a quiet Sunday for Mr Cent.
The story is painfully thin, 50Cent is doing a gig or tour and is in some way underpaid or double crossed out of money. A man called Anwar who is his contact in this unnamed country offers him a valuable diamond encrusted skull as payment instead of cash. On the way to the airport 50's vehicle is attacked and the skull taken by an unknown female adversary.
On speaking to Anwar a man named Kamal is blamed for the theft of the skull. 50Cent then embarks on an increasingly bloody vendetta against Kamal looking for revenge and his skull back. The trail of the skull twists and turns leading to a shadowy gangster overlord nicknamed the Harvester. Many individuals stick their oar in and get killed for their trouble after double crossing 50Cent. It seems that everyone wants the skull for themselves.
By the halfway point I was screaming at the cut scenes telling 50Cent to just shoot the people he was talking to as surely they were going to double cross him later. They always did, though 50 never listened.
The fragility of the human body is grossly underplayed in this game. For example helicopter fireball crashes are not really survivable; yet two characters come out relatively unscathed.
The background to the game is prostitution, gun running, the drug trade and organ harvesting also rears its head, all really wholesome family value type stuff. Is it possible that a certain section of popular culture operates on the premise that the more vile the better.
I have never bought the ruse of most bands who present an image of hardcore partying and gangster lifestyles. The whole thing just doesn't really gel with the study and work needed to write music and play an instrument. Surely the media can't be being manipulated to suggest that our icons are superhuman machines in whatever field of debauchery they choose.
Rap stars almost always have drugs and criminal convictions in their past. They come from the hood where they started with nothing and now have money and women dripping from them. This is the ultimate cliché action game for the ultimate cliché rapper. Still it's a shooter I like shooters, I don't like rap so what have we got as a pure shooter?
The game does one huge thing right, it allows drop in drop out co-op throughout the campaign. You are asked to choose an a.i. companion if playing alone.
The controls are the default standard for third person shooters in the past three years and work well. The Army of two syndrome is evident in the specially constructed shoehorned in areas for character interaction like boosting each other up to higher areas, pushing heavy doors open etc.
Melee kills are given some importance by the developer, though it was something I hardly used. There is a timing button pushing QuickTime type sequence when one is initiated and you can unlock more graphic and violent killing moves as the game progresses. You unlock weapons and moves with money obtained by shooting crates handily filled with the stuff that litter the areas. On occasion you find a payphone and you use these to have an arms dealer teleport weapons to you.
There are also posters and target collectibles which help the achievements along.
Score multipliers seem fairly useless and I never paid them much attention. If you are interested though it seems that headshots and killing people in quick succession multiply your scoring.
On dying there is a long load before you get back into the action, which though understandable from a technical point of view seems needless sometimes as you die in the same room a few seconds after the last load.
Killing the bad guys fills a meter, when it's full enough you can trigger it by pressing Y, this puts you into bullet time which makes things a lot easier.
For the greater part of the game you are just making your way from point A to point B, usually chasing or looking for a person. In some sections you are looking for certain objects to blow up in the map before being able to progress.
There are tanks that need C4 planting on the side, bits of the buildings sometimes collapse and block your way, occasionally you have to blow things up so that the environment changes for you to progress. One example of this is blowing up a crane so that it drops a pipe, which becomes a bridge for you to cross. It's in these situations that the game tends to mix things up and give you a solution before you have found the problem. For example at one point a mission objective tells you to find an alternative route as the way is blocked by fire, this happens before the explosion sets fire to the environment. While not a huge problem it happened enough for it to be noticeable.
There are several driving sections to break up the shooting, you get to drive and your human or a.i. partner shoots. These are mostly short and fairly banal. At least they aren't frustrating or hard. Best thing you can say about them is they are over quickly and you can get back to the shooting. There is also a helicopter mounted gun section which reminded me of the ones found in the GRAW games. This is fairly well done and cinematic.
I found there to be two main problems with the core shooting game-play. Grenades were present but fairly useless, the animation for throwing took so long and could not be done from cover. This meant that death usually came before 50 threw the grenade from incoming fire. Normally when you are in cover and want to lean out to shoot you move the stick in that direction. Here you have to actively point the camera in the direction you wanted to pop out from behind a pillar. It took a while of sticking my head out on the wrong side before I realised this. Once I knew it was easy enough just an unnecessary addition which felt unintuitive.
At one point I was given a choice of opening a security system, which would make it easier for 50 but harder for partners elsewhere in the game. I chose to make it harder for myself. Pity I never found out what happened if I made the alternate choice. Therein lies the faults with choices in games, non-linearity really means that people don't see the alternate choice.
Character animation is adequate; though I have the feeling these mo-capped files are part of some middleware that every developer who can't make their own buys.
Unreal engine is used here and it's a fairly good example, little texture loading after the game is already in progress and a good polygon count with little slowdown.
The art design can only be described as generic, lifted from a string of similar games,
Levels are the usual streets deserts, theatres. Only one or two areas stand out as being imaginative. A graveyard type area in particular.
There are only about five character models for the enemies, ones in yellow shirts, ones in red shirts, oh and blue shirts too. They carry a specific weapon, like shotguns, rocket launchers, grenades and machine guns. Each enemy type only uses that specific weapon and does not vary at all.
The a.i. is very predictable, they will run to the same spots, never really try and flank you and pop up from cover at set time intervals that could be timed with a stopwatch.
Boss Battles occur in the form of five fights with helicopters. When 50 eventually catches up with the person he is after they take to the air in a helicopter and try and kill him. We have to use rockets to shoot them out of the air. Simple as that, which is fair enough as huge tentacle beasties would be out of place. Also, I hate games that suddenly give normal people the ability to soak up a thousand bullets before dying.
The last encounter takes a lot longer and takes place over three stages with waves of enemies in between. There is also one other encounter with a boss type character who attacks you on foot, gratifyingly he takes the same amount of bullets to kill as everyone else he just attacks you with loads of other enemies in an area with little cover.
Music is of course 50Cent's back catalogue and there seems to be around two CD's worth of his back catalogue here. Any fan will already have these songs I presume but it's a good idea to include a music player. Really you get quite a 50Cent package here; two CD's and some videos are unlocked for in game exploits. Not that I am recommending a string of video games featuring bands, but if this was actually music I liked I would have been really pleased by the package. Sound effects are of a good standard.
I played through once on hard taking around 10 hours and received 610 achievement points. I felt that this was satisfactory.
Checkpoints are as usual satisfactory at the start of the game then become a little too widely spaced later on. The game would have benefited with more checkpoints, the final boss battle being a spectacularly bad example of check pointing.
The only multiplayer is the co-op and this works well with little lag and with another human the game becomes slightly better. The only problem I had was that none of my friends bought the game.
It is probably a different game for a 50Cent fan, I can see how that would make the whole package more attractive. For everyone else it's a generic bland shooter that will occupy 10 hours or so of your life. A reasonably fun third person shooter of the type familiar since Gears of War brought the genre back into fashion. I would recommend a rental here only if you are starved of shooters and really enjoy the genre.
Story 5
Gameplay 7
Graphics 7
Level Design 6
A.i. 5
Total 6.0
The story is painfully thin, 50Cent is doing a gig or tour and is in some way underpaid or double crossed out of money. A man called Anwar who is his contact in this unnamed country offers him a valuable diamond encrusted skull as payment instead of cash. On the way to the airport 50's vehicle is attacked and the skull taken by an unknown female adversary.
On speaking to Anwar a man named Kamal is blamed for the theft of the skull. 50Cent then embarks on an increasingly bloody vendetta against Kamal looking for revenge and his skull back. The trail of the skull twists and turns leading to a shadowy gangster overlord nicknamed the Harvester. Many individuals stick their oar in and get killed for their trouble after double crossing 50Cent. It seems that everyone wants the skull for themselves.
By the halfway point I was screaming at the cut scenes telling 50Cent to just shoot the people he was talking to as surely they were going to double cross him later. They always did, though 50 never listened.
The fragility of the human body is grossly underplayed in this game. For example helicopter fireball crashes are not really survivable; yet two characters come out relatively unscathed.
The background to the game is prostitution, gun running, the drug trade and organ harvesting also rears its head, all really wholesome family value type stuff. Is it possible that a certain section of popular culture operates on the premise that the more vile the better.
I have never bought the ruse of most bands who present an image of hardcore partying and gangster lifestyles. The whole thing just doesn't really gel with the study and work needed to write music and play an instrument. Surely the media can't be being manipulated to suggest that our icons are superhuman machines in whatever field of debauchery they choose.
Rap stars almost always have drugs and criminal convictions in their past. They come from the hood where they started with nothing and now have money and women dripping from them. This is the ultimate cliché action game for the ultimate cliché rapper. Still it's a shooter I like shooters, I don't like rap so what have we got as a pure shooter?
The game does one huge thing right, it allows drop in drop out co-op throughout the campaign. You are asked to choose an a.i. companion if playing alone.
The controls are the default standard for third person shooters in the past three years and work well. The Army of two syndrome is evident in the specially constructed shoehorned in areas for character interaction like boosting each other up to higher areas, pushing heavy doors open etc.
Melee kills are given some importance by the developer, though it was something I hardly used. There is a timing button pushing QuickTime type sequence when one is initiated and you can unlock more graphic and violent killing moves as the game progresses. You unlock weapons and moves with money obtained by shooting crates handily filled with the stuff that litter the areas. On occasion you find a payphone and you use these to have an arms dealer teleport weapons to you.
There are also posters and target collectibles which help the achievements along.
Score multipliers seem fairly useless and I never paid them much attention. If you are interested though it seems that headshots and killing people in quick succession multiply your scoring.
On dying there is a long load before you get back into the action, which though understandable from a technical point of view seems needless sometimes as you die in the same room a few seconds after the last load.
Killing the bad guys fills a meter, when it's full enough you can trigger it by pressing Y, this puts you into bullet time which makes things a lot easier.
For the greater part of the game you are just making your way from point A to point B, usually chasing or looking for a person. In some sections you are looking for certain objects to blow up in the map before being able to progress.
There are tanks that need C4 planting on the side, bits of the buildings sometimes collapse and block your way, occasionally you have to blow things up so that the environment changes for you to progress. One example of this is blowing up a crane so that it drops a pipe, which becomes a bridge for you to cross. It's in these situations that the game tends to mix things up and give you a solution before you have found the problem. For example at one point a mission objective tells you to find an alternative route as the way is blocked by fire, this happens before the explosion sets fire to the environment. While not a huge problem it happened enough for it to be noticeable.
There are several driving sections to break up the shooting, you get to drive and your human or a.i. partner shoots. These are mostly short and fairly banal. At least they aren't frustrating or hard. Best thing you can say about them is they are over quickly and you can get back to the shooting. There is also a helicopter mounted gun section which reminded me of the ones found in the GRAW games. This is fairly well done and cinematic.
I found there to be two main problems with the core shooting game-play. Grenades were present but fairly useless, the animation for throwing took so long and could not be done from cover. This meant that death usually came before 50 threw the grenade from incoming fire. Normally when you are in cover and want to lean out to shoot you move the stick in that direction. Here you have to actively point the camera in the direction you wanted to pop out from behind a pillar. It took a while of sticking my head out on the wrong side before I realised this. Once I knew it was easy enough just an unnecessary addition which felt unintuitive.
At one point I was given a choice of opening a security system, which would make it easier for 50 but harder for partners elsewhere in the game. I chose to make it harder for myself. Pity I never found out what happened if I made the alternate choice. Therein lies the faults with choices in games, non-linearity really means that people don't see the alternate choice.
Character animation is adequate; though I have the feeling these mo-capped files are part of some middleware that every developer who can't make their own buys.
Unreal engine is used here and it's a fairly good example, little texture loading after the game is already in progress and a good polygon count with little slowdown.
The art design can only be described as generic, lifted from a string of similar games,
Levels are the usual streets deserts, theatres. Only one or two areas stand out as being imaginative. A graveyard type area in particular.
There are only about five character models for the enemies, ones in yellow shirts, ones in red shirts, oh and blue shirts too. They carry a specific weapon, like shotguns, rocket launchers, grenades and machine guns. Each enemy type only uses that specific weapon and does not vary at all.
The a.i. is very predictable, they will run to the same spots, never really try and flank you and pop up from cover at set time intervals that could be timed with a stopwatch.
Boss Battles occur in the form of five fights with helicopters. When 50 eventually catches up with the person he is after they take to the air in a helicopter and try and kill him. We have to use rockets to shoot them out of the air. Simple as that, which is fair enough as huge tentacle beasties would be out of place. Also, I hate games that suddenly give normal people the ability to soak up a thousand bullets before dying.
The last encounter takes a lot longer and takes place over three stages with waves of enemies in between. There is also one other encounter with a boss type character who attacks you on foot, gratifyingly he takes the same amount of bullets to kill as everyone else he just attacks you with loads of other enemies in an area with little cover.
Music is of course 50Cent's back catalogue and there seems to be around two CD's worth of his back catalogue here. Any fan will already have these songs I presume but it's a good idea to include a music player. Really you get quite a 50Cent package here; two CD's and some videos are unlocked for in game exploits. Not that I am recommending a string of video games featuring bands, but if this was actually music I liked I would have been really pleased by the package. Sound effects are of a good standard.
I played through once on hard taking around 10 hours and received 610 achievement points. I felt that this was satisfactory.
Checkpoints are as usual satisfactory at the start of the game then become a little too widely spaced later on. The game would have benefited with more checkpoints, the final boss battle being a spectacularly bad example of check pointing.
The only multiplayer is the co-op and this works well with little lag and with another human the game becomes slightly better. The only problem I had was that none of my friends bought the game.
It is probably a different game for a 50Cent fan, I can see how that would make the whole package more attractive. For everyone else it's a generic bland shooter that will occupy 10 hours or so of your life. A reasonably fun third person shooter of the type familiar since Gears of War brought the genre back into fashion. I would recommend a rental here only if you are starved of shooters and really enjoy the genre.
Story 5
Gameplay 7
Graphics 7
Level Design 6
A.i. 5
Total 6.0
Halo Wars Review
Halo wars is an attempt to broaden the Halo universe, taking out mostly everything that the previous three games comprise of and leaving only the universe itself. The game is set in a time period earlier than Halo combat evolved. There are Spartans involved in the game, however, Master Chief does not make an appearance. The story is told in a series of cinematic and outstandingly well rendered cut scenes. The game begins with the humans starting to lose the war against the Covenant.
On a planet called Harvest the humans have won back the planet after a long fight. The Covenant remains stubbornly dug in around a structure buried in ice and seem intent on keeping the humans away. The structure turns out to be forerunner in origin. It leads to another planet where the Covenant also make life hell. The plot unfolds to show that forerunner technology could also create Dyson spheres as well as Halos. The Covenant wants hidden forerunner super-weapons and it's up to the humans to stop them.
The characters and art design of the Halo universe are already well established, the Covenant with their religious zeal and the differing alien races that comprise them. The soldiers of the UNSC are also drawn with the same broad brush strokes. Flippant ship a.i. seems to be the norm, gruff commanders and gung ho soldiers.
Forge is a fairly cookie cutter main hero, although no harm to him he does his job. Anders comes through as showing a bit of character as the feisty female scientist trying to decipher all the Forerunner shenanigans.
The story excels in its cinematic action sequences. In particular the ship near miss entering the Dyson sphere is as good a sequence as any sci-fi movie of the last ten years. The obligatory scene where we see the Spartans in action will have hardcore Halo fans wiping away a tear.
This being a real time strategy game rather than an fps means that the cut scenes feel more distanced from the actual game action. It feels like you are watching a movie where you only get to see the next scene by completing a task. I know a lot of games are like this, it's just that there seems to be a bigger divorce between the story and the game than usual. That is not to say that the missions are unrelated to the story, they all follow the story perfectly. It's just a feeling I came away with due to the real time strategy genre being far from cinematic.
The story is interesting, I found myself eager to see the next scene. I felt nothing for the characters but the story itself I enjoyed. Grand space opera on a massive scale, clearly and simply told.
Halo Wars is a real time strategy game (RTS). They have taken the tried and tested RTS formula created by Westwood in Dune and Command and Conquer and simply applied it to Halo with no real attempt to do anything other than just that. This isn't an RTS that is trying to break any moulds or innovate in any way. The brief seems to have been to make a Command and Conquer clone with a Halo theme. If any innovation exists it's the fact that the whole thing is story driven.
If we work on that theory that all that was wanted was a solid RTS with a Halo skin then how did Ensemble studios do? Rather well actually, the game seems to tick all the genre stalwarts. Small square maps, tick. Fog of war that obscures your view until a unit is there to scout, tick. Clicking on a unit, moving the cursor to where you want to go or what you want to attack and pressing go, tick. This game would have been so much better if they had just let you plug in a mouse, I have posted rants about this before, so won’t go on too much here. How hard can it be to write a mouse driver? As it is the controls work, though the entire time you are playing the mantra "better with a mouse" is playing in your mind. The controls are designed to make it easier to fight against the pad, why bother though when mouse would have been easier? You can select all units on the screen easily and also all available units with one button press.
The units available to you progress throughout the game, starting basic and progressing as you learn the game. All units have basic and special attacks. These special attacks are triggered by pressing Y on an enemy rather than X to attack, once used they have a recharge time before being able to be used again.
Soldiers come in many types, from lowly grunts to Spartans. Each has their own upgrades and special attacks. Spartans in particular are one unit wrecking machines, able to capture and drive enemy vehicles and use powerful weapons. There are the signature Halo Warthogs which drive around recklessly like they do in other Halo games. Tanks and special units include Elephants, Rhinos etc. There are air vehicles including fighters and bombers, also airlifting equipment in the form of Pelicans. Special units like the Gremlin which release EMP burst wrecking themselves in the process. The Covenant has their own armoury of creatures and hardware, all familiar as adversaries from the Halo series.
Fights tend to become less than strategic. Lack of precision fast control means that you tend to select all available units and throw them at the enemy, selecting what you want attacked in order and clicking on the next as the first target is destroyed. There is scope for splitting up teams of units and using pincer attacks etc. Though in practice it's far too fiddly and the results tend to be the same anyway.
It's possible that the brief included making the RTS genre less complex and it certainly needs to be as a pad isn't suited to making complex control easy.
Base building and resource management is the real mainstay of an RTS. There is no real disappointment here. You start with a Fortress and attached to it are little plots that you can fill with other buildings of your choice. At the four corners of the base are turrets that can be upgraded with various types of weapon. These turrets take care of most base defence, freeing your units from having to guard it.
Cash to buy new buildings is in the form of supply pads. You need landing pads to bring down resources from your base ship in orbit. The more supply pads the more money builds up. Upgrading the supply pads also makes the cash count grow faster. Reactors supply power and also when upgraded increase your base tech level which allows more complex units to be manufactured. Other structures include barracks and field armouries which allow for better weapons to be created and added to your soldiers and hardware.
There is a unit cap for each single player mission which increases as the game progresses. You will find yourself butting against this level cap frequently. It really is trying to tell you that you have enough units to win. I tend to build huge armies in RTS games and then steamroll the opposition finding I only needed a third of what I have built to win.
At certain points in the game you come across units under different control than your own. These either do their own thing or become available to you to control. When you destroy a Covenant base the site become available to you to build a second base. There are environmental features in the landscape, rivers and mountains are impassable. Force field bridges can be turned on and off, hopefully off when the enemy are crossing them. You can also use your mother-ship to lance targets from orbit, there is of course a slow recharge time on this weapon.
Halo has its own Borg type enemy in the flood, the hive mind which takes over dead corpses of both sides and reanimates them for its own ends. The flood has its own structures and units.
Inventive mission design is evident in small doses, mostly the design is traditional RTS fare. The mission where you fight flood forces on the outside of the mother-ship as it flies into a solar system sized forerunner Dyson sphere has to go into the top ten of RTS mission designs.
The objectives in the missions are story based and varied, mustering scattered forces, retaking bases, storming bases, escaping from locations overrun by Covenant/flood and destroying various locations and pieces of hardware. I played on normal difficulty, only the occasional time limit and the final mission gave me any real trouble.
I played for roughly 10-15 hours and got 285 achievement points. I felt this was a little mean, the remainder of the achievements being given for playing on the harder difficulties and for the multiplayer component of the game.
The game allows you to save progress at any time which is welcome, A word of warning though to consider when you save. I saved once and found myself having to restart the level after finding I hadn’t left enough time to complete the against the clock objective, my own fault, however, a point to consider when playing yourself.
The multiplayer is fairly solid as seems to be expected in Halo games. They might be known more for their multiplayer than the single player. This is no exception; if you are into RTS multiplayer then I am sure you could find a lot here to occupy your time. There are many maps available. You can play as either side, Covenant or human, choosing from a range of commanders who have different super weapon abilities. You can play online or offline skirmishes against human or a.i. opponents. This lengthens the game considerably if you really love your RTS gaming.
RTS games can be graphically punishing, though I question the need. I tend to play with the zoom feature out at maximum, never zooming in close at all. I tend to keep the view facing north unless I need to move it to see units. What I am trying the get at is Command and conquer got by well with 2d sprites on bitmap landscapes, and personally I feel that nothing has been improved by the switch to 3D engines in RTS games.
Comparing this to other RTS on the Xbox360 like Command and Conquer and Supreme Commander this comes of as adequate and certainly has nothing to be ashamed off.
Music is excellent throughout the game, the Halo musical theme was good to start with, a mixture of Gothic synth chants and rock guitar on a truly cinematic scale. The music comes with familiarity due to being remixed from the other Halo games and as such is already in your head and suitably stirring. Weapon sounds are also familiar from the FPS games.
Being an RTS there are no real boss battles. The level design is adequate, cities, landscapes of the snow jungle and grassland variety. Animation of the units is fairly good for an RTS, though comparing it to animations in an FPS for example would be unfair.
Halo wars suffers from being a reasonably good concept on paper, or as a PC game. In practice the game is supposed to appeal to RTS fans, however, they will find it too simplified to tear them away from Starcraft, Command and Conquer and all the other huge PC RTS franchises. Where does that leave us, with Halo fans, caricatured as screaming 12 years olds who love to frag you and shout obscenities, will these fans buy Halo wars and enjoy it? I doubt it, which is a shame as this is a good game hampered by design choices firmly based on it being a console game. I think people who have dabbled with RTS games in the past and found them overcomplicated and intimidating would find this a good game to introduce them to RTS games in general.
Having just soundly rubbished the whole existence of the game I have to confess to enjoying Halo wars. The story is good fun and stylish, the replay-ability is there for those who want to spend time with the games multiplayer.
Microsoft obviously wanted to broaden the Halo franchise, I can’t help thinking that a Mass effect style RPG or Arbiter skinned God of War would be more in keeping with the roots than an RTS.
Story 8
Gameplay 7
Graphics 7
Level Design 7
A.i. 7
Total 7.2
On a planet called Harvest the humans have won back the planet after a long fight. The Covenant remains stubbornly dug in around a structure buried in ice and seem intent on keeping the humans away. The structure turns out to be forerunner in origin. It leads to another planet where the Covenant also make life hell. The plot unfolds to show that forerunner technology could also create Dyson spheres as well as Halos. The Covenant wants hidden forerunner super-weapons and it's up to the humans to stop them.
The characters and art design of the Halo universe are already well established, the Covenant with their religious zeal and the differing alien races that comprise them. The soldiers of the UNSC are also drawn with the same broad brush strokes. Flippant ship a.i. seems to be the norm, gruff commanders and gung ho soldiers.
Forge is a fairly cookie cutter main hero, although no harm to him he does his job. Anders comes through as showing a bit of character as the feisty female scientist trying to decipher all the Forerunner shenanigans.
The story excels in its cinematic action sequences. In particular the ship near miss entering the Dyson sphere is as good a sequence as any sci-fi movie of the last ten years. The obligatory scene where we see the Spartans in action will have hardcore Halo fans wiping away a tear.
This being a real time strategy game rather than an fps means that the cut scenes feel more distanced from the actual game action. It feels like you are watching a movie where you only get to see the next scene by completing a task. I know a lot of games are like this, it's just that there seems to be a bigger divorce between the story and the game than usual. That is not to say that the missions are unrelated to the story, they all follow the story perfectly. It's just a feeling I came away with due to the real time strategy genre being far from cinematic.
The story is interesting, I found myself eager to see the next scene. I felt nothing for the characters but the story itself I enjoyed. Grand space opera on a massive scale, clearly and simply told.
Halo Wars is a real time strategy game (RTS). They have taken the tried and tested RTS formula created by Westwood in Dune and Command and Conquer and simply applied it to Halo with no real attempt to do anything other than just that. This isn't an RTS that is trying to break any moulds or innovate in any way. The brief seems to have been to make a Command and Conquer clone with a Halo theme. If any innovation exists it's the fact that the whole thing is story driven.
If we work on that theory that all that was wanted was a solid RTS with a Halo skin then how did Ensemble studios do? Rather well actually, the game seems to tick all the genre stalwarts. Small square maps, tick. Fog of war that obscures your view until a unit is there to scout, tick. Clicking on a unit, moving the cursor to where you want to go or what you want to attack and pressing go, tick. This game would have been so much better if they had just let you plug in a mouse, I have posted rants about this before, so won’t go on too much here. How hard can it be to write a mouse driver? As it is the controls work, though the entire time you are playing the mantra "better with a mouse" is playing in your mind. The controls are designed to make it easier to fight against the pad, why bother though when mouse would have been easier? You can select all units on the screen easily and also all available units with one button press.
The units available to you progress throughout the game, starting basic and progressing as you learn the game. All units have basic and special attacks. These special attacks are triggered by pressing Y on an enemy rather than X to attack, once used they have a recharge time before being able to be used again.
Soldiers come in many types, from lowly grunts to Spartans. Each has their own upgrades and special attacks. Spartans in particular are one unit wrecking machines, able to capture and drive enemy vehicles and use powerful weapons. There are the signature Halo Warthogs which drive around recklessly like they do in other Halo games. Tanks and special units include Elephants, Rhinos etc. There are air vehicles including fighters and bombers, also airlifting equipment in the form of Pelicans. Special units like the Gremlin which release EMP burst wrecking themselves in the process. The Covenant has their own armoury of creatures and hardware, all familiar as adversaries from the Halo series.
Fights tend to become less than strategic. Lack of precision fast control means that you tend to select all available units and throw them at the enemy, selecting what you want attacked in order and clicking on the next as the first target is destroyed. There is scope for splitting up teams of units and using pincer attacks etc. Though in practice it's far too fiddly and the results tend to be the same anyway.
It's possible that the brief included making the RTS genre less complex and it certainly needs to be as a pad isn't suited to making complex control easy.
Base building and resource management is the real mainstay of an RTS. There is no real disappointment here. You start with a Fortress and attached to it are little plots that you can fill with other buildings of your choice. At the four corners of the base are turrets that can be upgraded with various types of weapon. These turrets take care of most base defence, freeing your units from having to guard it.
Cash to buy new buildings is in the form of supply pads. You need landing pads to bring down resources from your base ship in orbit. The more supply pads the more money builds up. Upgrading the supply pads also makes the cash count grow faster. Reactors supply power and also when upgraded increase your base tech level which allows more complex units to be manufactured. Other structures include barracks and field armouries which allow for better weapons to be created and added to your soldiers and hardware.
There is a unit cap for each single player mission which increases as the game progresses. You will find yourself butting against this level cap frequently. It really is trying to tell you that you have enough units to win. I tend to build huge armies in RTS games and then steamroll the opposition finding I only needed a third of what I have built to win.
At certain points in the game you come across units under different control than your own. These either do their own thing or become available to you to control. When you destroy a Covenant base the site become available to you to build a second base. There are environmental features in the landscape, rivers and mountains are impassable. Force field bridges can be turned on and off, hopefully off when the enemy are crossing them. You can also use your mother-ship to lance targets from orbit, there is of course a slow recharge time on this weapon.
Halo has its own Borg type enemy in the flood, the hive mind which takes over dead corpses of both sides and reanimates them for its own ends. The flood has its own structures and units.
Inventive mission design is evident in small doses, mostly the design is traditional RTS fare. The mission where you fight flood forces on the outside of the mother-ship as it flies into a solar system sized forerunner Dyson sphere has to go into the top ten of RTS mission designs.
The objectives in the missions are story based and varied, mustering scattered forces, retaking bases, storming bases, escaping from locations overrun by Covenant/flood and destroying various locations and pieces of hardware. I played on normal difficulty, only the occasional time limit and the final mission gave me any real trouble.
I played for roughly 10-15 hours and got 285 achievement points. I felt this was a little mean, the remainder of the achievements being given for playing on the harder difficulties and for the multiplayer component of the game.
The game allows you to save progress at any time which is welcome, A word of warning though to consider when you save. I saved once and found myself having to restart the level after finding I hadn’t left enough time to complete the against the clock objective, my own fault, however, a point to consider when playing yourself.
The multiplayer is fairly solid as seems to be expected in Halo games. They might be known more for their multiplayer than the single player. This is no exception; if you are into RTS multiplayer then I am sure you could find a lot here to occupy your time. There are many maps available. You can play as either side, Covenant or human, choosing from a range of commanders who have different super weapon abilities. You can play online or offline skirmishes against human or a.i. opponents. This lengthens the game considerably if you really love your RTS gaming.
RTS games can be graphically punishing, though I question the need. I tend to play with the zoom feature out at maximum, never zooming in close at all. I tend to keep the view facing north unless I need to move it to see units. What I am trying the get at is Command and conquer got by well with 2d sprites on bitmap landscapes, and personally I feel that nothing has been improved by the switch to 3D engines in RTS games.
Comparing this to other RTS on the Xbox360 like Command and Conquer and Supreme Commander this comes of as adequate and certainly has nothing to be ashamed off.
Music is excellent throughout the game, the Halo musical theme was good to start with, a mixture of Gothic synth chants and rock guitar on a truly cinematic scale. The music comes with familiarity due to being remixed from the other Halo games and as such is already in your head and suitably stirring. Weapon sounds are also familiar from the FPS games.
Being an RTS there are no real boss battles. The level design is adequate, cities, landscapes of the snow jungle and grassland variety. Animation of the units is fairly good for an RTS, though comparing it to animations in an FPS for example would be unfair.
Halo wars suffers from being a reasonably good concept on paper, or as a PC game. In practice the game is supposed to appeal to RTS fans, however, they will find it too simplified to tear them away from Starcraft, Command and Conquer and all the other huge PC RTS franchises. Where does that leave us, with Halo fans, caricatured as screaming 12 years olds who love to frag you and shout obscenities, will these fans buy Halo wars and enjoy it? I doubt it, which is a shame as this is a good game hampered by design choices firmly based on it being a console game. I think people who have dabbled with RTS games in the past and found them overcomplicated and intimidating would find this a good game to introduce them to RTS games in general.
Having just soundly rubbished the whole existence of the game I have to confess to enjoying Halo wars. The story is good fun and stylish, the replay-ability is there for those who want to spend time with the games multiplayer.
Microsoft obviously wanted to broaden the Halo franchise, I can’t help thinking that a Mass effect style RPG or Arbiter skinned God of War would be more in keeping with the roots than an RTS.
Story 8
Gameplay 7
Graphics 7
Level Design 7
A.i. 7
Total 7.2
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