There are not many examples of great real-time strategy games on consoles, but back in 2009, Microsoft released an entry in its popular Halo universe that wasn’t an FPS title. Titled Halo Wars, it was a RTS game built for the Xbox 360 and featured a particular hallmark of games set within the Halo universe: really amazing CGI cutscenes.
Much like Microsoft’s Age of Empires franchise, the game received a new lease of life in the form of a Definitive Edition in 2016, and that’s the version of the game that I’ve been playing for the past couple of months. The squad-based units remind me of the Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War titles and base-building is as simple as it gets. There are only a few places in a map where you can set up shop, and starting from small outposts, you’ll have to upgrade and expand bases in order to increase the number of buildings you can build.
All this simplicity is necessary due to the controls for Halo Wars, which were developed for the Xbox 360 controller. The keyboard and mouse controls seem really tacked on, and simple things like zooming in and out on the battlefield are a bit harder vs a single button to select every unit visible on screen. One word about the in-game graphics of the Definitive Edition: they definitely look polished, just remember to zoom out to be able to take it all in (Alt + Mouse Wheel).
Being a Halo title, the levels are full with secondary objectives and you are graded (Halo-style) by among other things, the amount of time you take to finish a level. The level design is quite interesting for a RTS-title, regardless what platform it was released for in the first place. The mission that I’m currently playing is having me clear the surface of the USNC warship Spirit of Fire of Flood forms (yup the boogeyman aliens in Halo 1, 2 and 3). In the mission prior to that, I’d faced off with a Scarab superweapon which was destroyed with great difficulty before it can zap my base to oblivion.
Halo Wars is definitely a RTS title to check out on the PC, assuming if you can get pass the weird PC controls. It’s currently available on Steam.
