i think that it will be like the "starcraft ghosts" of halo. there is no place for a strategy game in a fps universe.
Even with ensemble working on it i'm fairly sure it won't be that great.... But because its Halo its still gonna make millions >>. Most people will just buy the limited edition for the extra halo 3 maps.
It'll suck horribly because of one reason: it will spawn yet another generation of lifeless twelve year olds who make the worst forum trolls in history seem like venerated scholars.
I personally don't like anything about the game at all. I don't know if it's because I have no interest in the Halo universe or just because the gameplay looks kinda bad. Yea, Ensemble Studios worked on the most recent age of empire games and their 2 or 3 expansion packs and even though they were alright games they didn't sell that much. I think most people that will buy it are for the halo 3 maps and current halo fans like marinefreak previously mentioned.
i think it'll be a meh game. It wont totally suck donkeys slongs, but yeah..halo should stay within their genre.
I think it could be the start of making RTS exclusively for consoles, since ensemble studios is concentrating on halo wars to be very suitable for the xbox 360 for the controls and gameplay. But i have no clue what it would be like, i'm downloading the demo on xbox live (1.4 GB, indeed it is a large size for a demo).
i already downloaded the demo and it isnt that bad, no where near up to the competition of starcrft II i didnt really feel in danger ever. its such a large demo because it actually has alot of content. Multiplayer and Campaign demo. vs computer of course.
Based on previews (I haven't played it), I don't think it'll do that great. It was supposed to be different from other RTSes, eg less focus on base building. Dawn of War II does that, but not Halo Wars. In fact, it's less advanced than Warcraft III in some ways. While the UI is astonishingly good for a console game, it doesn't seem able to handle putting buildings in control groups (either one or more than one). During a single-player preview, the action went from watching an exciting battle (right after a cinematic no less) to ... showing base building. Although maybe I'm wrong, and the presenter wanted us to see the base building, but if so, that was a very poorly timed interruption. I looked at the human tech tree on their site; it looked way too similar to StarCraft. In some cases, it looked like they just renamed StarCraft infantry. (Not really their fault; how much variety do you expect in sci-fi?) (Note: Halo Wars does have rally points and queues; we saw squads of lightly-armed marines rushing to the battle front.) On the positive note, the graphics are freaking awesome, especially the colorful attacks and the way air units move. (I think they overdid the fish tailing on the Warthogs.) Each unit has a special move or two, but they're simpler than in Warcraft III. Indeed, micro must be simple, since you're pretty much always using groups of units (and the strange UI). The "all units" button is pretty cool, and it was kind of good (but strange) when Sergeant Forge's Warthog blew up. He vanished and then later reappeared as a marine. (I would drop the vanishing act, at least when unit switching occurs.) Right as he "died" the first time, we were told that he was "down" (not dead) and it was implied a medic patched him up while he was "gone".
I don't think it will be polished enough, ensemble studios didn't even properly balance age of empires 3: the asian dynasties before going under i'm leaning more towards fail. Of course i'll never play it so i'll never know.
Played the demo from Xbox Live. Easy to control, gave me some memory of Goblin Commander because of the simple and easy way to select things and accomplish stuff. Story is kind of better than what Halo 3 presented, from the few levels I played. Starcraft-esque unit counter system, although armies are much smaller. Clean looking graphics, but still fancy enough to catch the eye. Forgettable characters so far... Small little things making it look better. Like if you have a squad of four marines, as the unit slowly loses health, marines die off one by one. 7/10 Don't think I'm buying it though. It was interesting, but personally... not enough for me. Still surprised me how bad it didn't suck.
i agree with major willy. it was a lot better than expected. having just played the demo, i would only play it for the story at this point, but i bet one of my buds will get it and i'll test it out more expansively with multiplayer and stuff. i thought the user interface would be a lot worse, but it was surprisingly easy. my only complaint was that it was too tedious to set a rally point.
i've played the demo rather extensively. I think it's worth buying to at least pass the time untill starcraft 2 is released. The human side is kind of easy to play as , and the convenant is easy to beat, even on heroic ai. hopefully theyll put out something harder to bonk heads with. I think the multiplayer will be fun. Ensemble did a really good job on the UI considering its a console game.
