Civ's HW Demo Thoughts

Yes, I posted this at HWF, so if you read it there, don't read it here. Otherwise, enjoy. ^^

So, I came home yesterday and finally downloaded what I've been waiting a year to get, the Halo Wars demo. Unsurprisingly, it took about two hours, but I encountered few problems and after a very suspenseful wait, I started up the game for the first time. I was greeted with a familiar screen, much like that of Halo 3. I was kinda hoping that ES would go out and make their own menu screen, so I was a bit disappointed; but after clicking on the campaign button, I found that much of it was changed.

I started off with the tutorial. It didn't take long for me to get frustrated, having to sit through the stupid thing explain to me that I need to select my unit and drive through the darkened area, but I finally got the controls to myself. The first thing I noticed was how low quality it was compared to what I've seen in the videos, but I can pretty safely assume that this is caused by my non-HD TV, not the game. It didn't take long for me to miss the exaggerated fishtails from E3 '07, but I can live with that. I rapidly guided my single warthog up the map and finally got some new marines to mess with. At once, I noticed that the units all move together. This came as a bit of a surprise to me, as I had never seen a warthog wait up for marines, but that would just be because of the cool effect it gives in the cut scenes; so, yet again, no problem (In fact, I kinda like it... though the marines are awfully slow).

It wasn't long before I made it to the campaign, and after watching the Five Long Years video... again... I finally got a chance to actually play the game. Over the course of the first level, I worked on mostly unit selection. I found the system a little alien at first (I've never actually played an RTS on a console before), but I'm getting a little more used to it now. I did find it a little bothersome that there wasn't a shift key or way to select only certain units from your current selection, though.

After a very short while, I found myself in the second level... but this time with a firebase. After a little toying, I have found the firebase to be a pretty handy little toy and I like the concept. I constructed a fair assortment of units and sent a several armies into battle (well, shortly after collecting the little supply crates around my base - which, BTW, don't seem to help all that much). The hellbringer's (flamethrower's) flame was a little odd (not much like flame), but I'm getting picky again. So, I went through and finished the campaign, which I found to be devoid of any real emotion... but it's only the first two levels out of several dozen, so there will be plenty of time for that. I'm not sure what happened to the arbiter in the second level though.

Having completed the campaign on normal and feeling a lack of a challenge, I decided to try my hand in skirmish, on heroic. I set up the game (which wasn't hard as the demo only lets you play 1v1 on Crevasses with either Cutter or Regret) at got to work as Cutter (gotta play as the good-guys first, right?). Serina gave me a nice bit of information, Regret was building up his defenses and I'd have time to build up an army; useful info, no? So I began to equip my base with two supply pads, a turret, a barracks, and a reactor complex.

During this process I had the chance to play with the elephant for a minute and send my scout hog out to scout the tech buildings. I got to the first building and found, to my surprise, resistance. Are they URF? Hope they're not in the campaign... Anywaysm they looked more like Star Wars rebels to me, the ones with the big white helmets that curve back, but whatever. They chewed up my warthog, so I brought it back to base just in time to find the prophet of Regret himself attacking my armored UNSC base with just four honor guard elites.

Look, I know Regret loves battles, but this was suicide. With only four elites, he attacked my elephant, which was stationed right next to my base's turret (*cough* cannon *cough*). As you can imagine, I pretty well obliterated the small attack wave (though Regret escaped), but that's the last time I trust Serina to tell me what my enemy's tactics are. Sadly, I wash short on cash, and Regret was back again with a dozen honor guards to finish off my nearly-destroyed elephant and claim my poorly defended base. Not even my two spartans stood a chance...

Having lost at an alarming rate, I started a new game, but this time on normal, and as Regret instead of Cutter. I must say, I think I like the Covenant better than the UNSC, a shocker to me as I always prefer to play as the campaign team in RTS games. It was interesting to see that this time, the map was different. This is good and bad: good because the game will retain a lot more value in multiplayer, bad because this time my enemy was just across a short, straight pathway with no obstacles (just two Covy sniper towers). Okay... it wasn't that big of a problem.

I got two warehouses and a barracks right off the bat. Yet another surprise, Regret came down from the grav lift less than 5 minutes into the game! So, here I am with Regret, equipped with a beautiful (super) plasma rifle and "cleansing beam" but nothing to kill; so, with little hesitation, I sent him to the near-by tech building to deal with the little rebel problem. I unloaded my cleansing beam on the poor souls and finished them off rather fast. I was (surprised? No, this time I was...) shocked to see that the beam drains your cash supply. But that's okay because I was swimming in resources anyways.

After cleaning up the mess and collecting the resource crates that spawn once you kill the rebels, I hopped back to base and constructed a temple, third warehouse, vehicle depot, and whatever-you-call-the-air-bases (I hadn't cared about what they were called up until now). Honor guards were cheap, so I built a trio of them to support the two jackal squads I had constructed early on in the game (along with the ghost that you start with). I also built two pairs of hunters (also shockingly cheap; grunts aren't gunna get my use in this game ^^).

Sadly, the scarab required my to upgrade my base from the temple twice (each costing a ton... that explains why units were so cheap). So, I started the first upgrade while I sent my ghost and Regret out to clean up a small Rebel camp on the other side of my base. Another surprise, the rebels had their own base with defensive structures and units (but not near as sophisticated as the UNSC and Covenant). Despite this setback, they were easy to dispose of on normal and the area was secured in just a few seconds.

My first tech advancement was finally done, and I needed a lot more materials for the next one. The Covenant AI popped in and warned me that the enemy had "taken position here." Glancing at my minimap, I saw that this "here" was just north of the computer's own base, about a third the way across the pass. Not wanting to fight a battle until I had a scarab, I made sure to eliminate the small marine squad that had garrisoned in the sniper tower at that location. Unfortunately, I had to go up and eat after that and had to leave, so I never had the chance to unleash a scarab.

I played again today as the Covenant on heroic. It went much like before, but this time I got a second base where the URF was. I did notice, though, that it was the same map as before when I played as the Covenant. ='( Is that just because it's a demo? (I just saw it from a different point of view, my bad) Anyways, I got creamed by the flying hornets of death. Covys seem to lack in AA... and vultures pwn. I also found out that there is no save function. I really hope that's just part of the demo.

In all, I think the game plays pretty well and has a fair amount of units (per faction, I still think there are too many total), though there are still more (per faction) than you would normally use in a real game. I did notice, while playing as Cutter, that the spartans did have shields (a big no-no). But aside from the few errors I've found so far, the game is great and I can't wait to play multiplayer.

hmm yes i think so aswell (espically with the spartan sheilds...) though the end of the second level left me wanting more to find out what happened to forge...which probbaly leads to the third mission.

They're not shields, their regenerating health. When they get shot, a bit of blood comes off, not shield fluctuations.

It's a weak argument, but that's how ES put it.

First of all, spartans don't have regenerative armor. Putting something that they never had in place of something they had later is even worse. And plus, regenerative armor doesn't make SHIELD NOISES!

I think it's fucking ridiculious as well, but that's their feeble way of justifing it.

You can select specific Unit types.
I.E.

If you have Marines and Wolverines, you can select all the wolverinesto attack specific targets and the Marines to attack others

You do this by pressing the right or left triggers with a group of units selected.

My Thoughts on the Game:
The campaign was pretty good, (played it on heroic my first time through, the difficulties are disappointing)
The tutorial... no skip button (which i feel is needed)
Now Skirmish...
As the UNSC i found it relatively easy to muster my forces after putting all 3 of my spartans inside of Scorpian tanks right off the bat, and 3 supply pads with the upgrade make it more than easy to start and retain an army, while getting ur base ready. Needless to say it was very easy to do as every time they sent regret, or a Scarab at me i just used the Mac cannon on it.
As the Covenant, i thought id try a different approach. I played it on Heroic my first time through and low and behold all they used was Warthogs without any gunners making it to easy to destroy my enemy with no less than 1 ghost, 5 tanks, and 2 hunters without any of them dying.

Ratings:
Campaign: 7
Skirmish: 4
Tutorial: 2
AI: 3
Difficulty settings: 1
Resource Rate: 5

Despite this fact, the game was still pretty enjoyable, and it had some pros to it, but the Cons can overwhelm, hope they can fix some of these before release

Yeah, they really effed up the difficulty settings

There will be a legendary in the actual game. Good thing too, cuz I already beat skirmish on heroic with both factions. The selection is a bit screwy (especially with the secondary attack when you have multiple types of units), but it works. I do find it kinda hard to believe that that is regenerative armor.

they need to put truths specail on a timer cause this is pretty much how u win with covies
1. get 30K+ resources, or 8 Supply buildings, all upgraded
2. get truth close enough with escorts
3. UBER LAZER SPAM THE HELL OUTA THE ENEMIES!

This can be countered but u gotta be fast.
Use ur Mac cannon 2ice on Truth and ull be clear unless they have multiple enemies coming as well

As UNSC:
1. get ODST
2. Get in sight of hostile base
3. DROP LIKE A MOFO
4. use RPGs on the base and it will fall
5. repeat

The only way i can think of countering this is by keeping all of ur units concentrated on all nearby enemies, while constantly killing any new reinforcements

This game has a few to many flaws in it, but its... suitable as an RTS game

Or you could just spam Jackals and Locust (and maybe some Hunters) until the enemy can't touch ya.

Sounds decent... I wish I could play it, probably won't buy it though.

CivBase wrote:There will be a legendary in the actual game. Good thing too, cuz I already beat skirmish on heroic with both factions. The selection is a bit screwy (especially with the secondary attack when you have multiple types of units), but it works. I do find it kinda hard to believe that that is regenerative armor.

Civ, you are making me want to kill someone(plus the frustration from idiots on HWF)

You can CYCLE THORUGH THE UNIT TYPES using the right trigger, and thus select what units are needed for their secondary attac

I know, but it's not very comfortable in my opinion, and you cant select units for primary attack using this method.

I'll just rent the game and borrow a friend's Xbox 360.

yeah you can
just use X instead of why
Its extremely simple and easy to use

The point is, there is no "shift" key. If I have a group of five Marines and three Flamethrowers, and I want to send three Marines and two Flamethrowers to respond to a threat in the middle isthmus while the other two Marines and Flamethrower go clear out some URF, I have to select each unit individually, order him to his location, and then go back and select the next. In most RTS games, when you hold shift, you can click a unit, then click another, and both are selected. So if I want to make selections of multiple units of varying types while not selecting other units of varying types, well, I can't.

You can use the paint.
Its the closest toa shift key function

But normally units are all massed together. That means that to use paint as my "shift", I need to select the units I want, one at a time, move them out of paint range of the other units, then paint them. That is still a helluva lot of work just to select particular units.

Can someone list the control please?

ES could have put in a lot more options at least and button combinations for controls just for experienced users that may want more tactical control. The ability to use the joystick as shift and select with A wouldn't effect the noobs, but it would make things a helluva lot easier.

one thing i found realy annoying was when i wanted to move my prophet and leave all my other units in the same place nothing happend, i select prophet and click(?) the place i want him to go again and i realise he's stuck inbetween a warth and a pair of jackals whitch was stupid cause he had more than enough room (in my eyes) to get through and i had to move the unit that blocked the jackals to unblock the jackals, to unblock the prophet all whilst i was being attacked from the marines -.-


^lul wall of text for 1 pretty small point XD

You've obviously never seen a wall of text...

yeah, that is not a wall of text