Though Master Chief is little more than an adorable baby during the events of Halo Wars, it should come as no surprise that his Spartan brethren are a pretty big factor on the battlefield. Ensemble recently went into detail about the role of the Spartan in a fight on their official site.
The secret to nailing the right feel for the Spartan according to Ensemble? Not nerfing them. Spartans aren't just dudes in good armor: They're one-man tipping points, able to grab an enemy vehicle and turn the tide. Sounds good to us; now, if there were only some way to get some more Spartans on the box.
Microsoft has released their partial game schedule for the upcoming Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle, and it's chock full of Gears of War 2, Halo Wars, and the New Xbox Experience ... experience. Sure there's plenty of other stuff happening at their booth as well, but we're drooling over these three right now, fetch the bibs. Hopefully those "TBA" slots mean there's going to be some surprises from Bungie someone, which will really kick our saliva glands into high gear.
If you're going to be at PAX, be sure and stop by for some hands-on time with these titles, and then search out one of your favorite Joystiq bloggers to pal around with. We'll be the ones with the plastic spit-shields on to keep the precious electronics dry.
Halo doesn't have a ton of airborne combat in it, but if you've ever been on the receiving end of a non-stop Banshee spawnkilling attack, you know how frustrating the skies can be. Thankfully, Halo Wars feels your pain and is introducing a new unit: the UNSC Wolverine.
It's armed with two anti-aircraft missile pods that can be lowered to target ground units as well, and it features a front-mounted heavy grenade launcher to take out "soft targets," like meat-shield infantry puppets. However, it looks like the thing is pretty vulnerable and will need plenty of ground support so it doesn't get blown to smithereens after it launches its first missile volley. We can't wait to see if they include this in the upcoming PAX demo. WOLVERINES!
Well, we've got a box (from the same team that doodled the Halo 2 and Halo 3 art, no less). That's a start. Unfortunately, we're no closer to nailing down a release date for Halo Wars. The "first half of 2009" is where the date stands.
After all this time we finally got to touch Halo Wars and ... it was good. There's visual polishing to be done, but the user interface (UI) is as intuitive as developer Ensemble Studios has been hyping since (what feels like) the time of the Forerunners. This is an RTS game clearly made for a console first.
The UI is incredibly intuitive. Left analog moves the camera, right analog zooms, A selects, X is the move/attack button and Y activates special moves. If you've played other RTS games ported to the Xbox 360, this is a very different experience.
While spending some quality hands on time with Halo Wars at E3 (hint: it's good, more on that later today), Microsoft's Jim Ying, who was guiding our demo, gave us some great news for Halofans (there are lot of them, you know). The Covenant, the alien race hellbent on humanity's destruction, will be playable in Ensemble's upcoming Xbox 360 real time strategy game Halo Wars. The only question that remains now is whether or not the parasitic Flood will also be playable. We asked, but Ensemble isn't talking. For the moment, we'll just have to be satisfied knowing that we can finally slake the Covenant's (Grunty) thirst for blood.
If Halo Wars' absence from Microsoft's E3 keynote left you blue, you're likely in the right frame of mind to enjoy a new gameplay video of Ensemble's tactical take on the Halo universe set upon a descriptively titled "Ice Level."
Marvel as Spartans rain down MAC Cannon devastation from above. Be astounded as good guys gather resources, and then spend them. Be astonished as you forget to care about Halo Wars well before the game's early 2009 release.
Two words not uttered during the Microsoft keynote today: "Halo Wars." While the game's absence didn't force the only missing piece from an N-column "Bingo!" (curse you Alan Wake!), it certainly raises questions about the RTS's status, despite those supposed demo stations lurking in the bowels of the E3 convention center. 1UP today relieved some of the skepticism, reporting that lead designer Dave Pottinger confirmed last week that Halo Wars would not slip to 2010. In fact, the release date apparently has been narrowed down to ... the first half of 2009. Break out the magic markers, we still gotta lotta calendar days to x off!
In anticipation of next week's E3 Media and Business Summit, we've prepared bingo cards for each of the big press conferences, filled with some likely (and some not-so-likely) predictions for what each of the big three console makers intends to announce at arguably the biggest trade shows of the year.
Today's card is for Microsoft (special thanks to X3F). We're going out on a limb and giving Avatars away as the free space. Click on each of the slides above for more information about our predictions. Microsoft's E3 press conference is scheduled for next Monday at 10:30 am PT (that's 1:30 pm Joystiq Time / ET). As always, we'll be liveblogging the event, so you can play along in real-time with us.
Stay tuned for more press conference bingo cards in the days leading up to the conference. (Also: check out our bingo card for Sony's press conference.)
Ensemble Studios' Bruce Shelley says that "several demo stations" of Halo Wars will be available at E3. This is generally considered good news, because it means Halo Wars has gotten to the point where it's no longer held in captivity by the developers who don't want anybody to touch a thing. It also eases our fears of further delays following Ensemble's "when it's done" quote from last month.
We will certainly have hands-on impressions of the game at E3 and with luck, we'll be able to nail down a more solid release window. We keep hope alive that Halo Wars, built from the ground up for the Xbox 360, could finally figure out the RTS genre for consoles.
If we had a dollar for every time we've heard the phrase "our game will ship when it's done" from a developer, we'd have enough money to ... buy Halo Wars when it's eventually released. Despite MS tagging the game as one of it's biggies for '08 back in January, the Ensemble Studios developed RTS set in Master Chief's 'hood is seeming a little more iffy for this year.
First off, the game missed the recent Xbox Spring Showcase in May. Now Graham Somers, Ensemble's community manager, has uttered the words "when," "it's," and "done" one after another in an interview with Halo Wars Addict. Somers' answer came when asked if the game will hit in 2008 or 2009.
We have been seeing a pickup in new details on the game recently – which is promising – and will hopefully have something more solid to go on than those three dreaded words come E3 next month. That said, can someone please put a dollar in the jar labeled "WID" on their way out? Thanks.
Some new Halo Wars information has trickled out of the latest issue of GamePro, including news that the game will support Xbox Live multiplayer with up to six players as well as two-player online co-op. The magazine also reveals new UNSC units such as the Vulture, Cyclops and Cobras and the game's current control scheme. Fan site Halo Wars Addict has created a handy chart for your perusal.
You can check out the scans via Salad Hats or, better yet, pick up a legitimate copy of GamePro on newsstands. Halo Wars is expected to deploy in October.
Interested in seeing what you'll be playing on your Xbox 360 in the coming months? X3F has compiled the 2008 Microsoft Game Studios Yearbook for you, a list of this year's exclusive graduating class with a detailed account of each title's current status and the stories surrounding them.
The 2008 Microsoft Game Studios Yearbook chronicles the graduates, like the soon-to-be released Ninja Gaiden II, and the titles that didn't make it to grad, like Alan Wake. Yep, he had to be held back for a semester or two. Or maybe three, we just don't know yet.
When asked why neither Halo Wars nor Alan Wake were at the Xbox Spring Showcase, Microsoft Game Studios general manager, Shane Kim, told us the games weren't suited for the event (he wasn't offering specifics). When pressed to confirm if either would make a 2008 release (like every other game on display at the event), Kim insisted that neither have had release dates announced.
Oh? Don Mattrick – Senior Vice President, Interactive Entertainment Business, Entertainment and Devices Division (ie: the big boss) – sent out an internal memo back in January that seemed to indicate both titles would find loving homes in 2008. We're going to take it as a sign that the company simply wanted to focus attention on Rare's two new titles as opposed to discussing any potential delays to other would-be 2008 releases. We hope ...
Still very much part of the rumor mill, website The Angry Pixel, "after enough assurances that this is not a cruel hoax," writes that Xbox 360 exclusive Halo Wars is in development for PC and that the game features cross-platform play. The result: Xbox 360 owners may feel what it's like to play an RTS against keyboard and mouse players -- or might it actually be balanced? CVG followed up with a Microsoft rep about the story and was naturally told, "We do not comment on rumour and speculation."
Cross-platform capabilities have been accessible through UNO and Shadowrun, and it's no real shock to postulate that an RTS like Halo Wars could be in development for PC. Apparently Sega's Universe at War will have cross-platform capabilities when it launches on Xbox 360 this spring, so it would seem somewhat plausible for a first-party title like Halo Wars to feature the capability as well.
Update: Predictably, Microsoft has squashed the rumor. "Halo Wars is being developed from the bottom up for the Xbox 360 and its control scheme to ensure that we deliver a groundbreaking console RTS experience. Given that, we have no plans to develop Halo Wars for Windows Vista at this time," a Microsoft representative told IGN.
Read: Fog of War: Halo Wars for PC? Read: Is Halo Wars going cross-platform?
Posts with tag halo-wars
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