Halo Wars 2 - Review

When the first Halo Wars was released I bought it without a second thought,  I even got the Special Edition (which I still have).  There are two reasons I bought it; first I really enjoy the Halo series & second I really like Real Time Strategy games.  I always felt like it did not receive the praise it deserved, I think a lot of that came from the studio changing from the standard First Person Shooter format to a Real Time Strategy format & not everyone liked that.   I think the game worked well & when I heard Halo Wars 2 was being released I didn't check; trailers, images or any other source of information I just bought it on instinct.


Who likes Noodle Houses?  I think they are great, the food is healthyish, tasty & often comes in those little noodle boxes.  One of my favorite places to get them was Noodle Box in Cork City,  I loved the staff & the owner who would always pour me a green tea even if I was getting take out.  Alas, they are now closed due to a short term lease, I really hope they open up somewhere else in the future - anyway I digress.  Has anyone ever tried a frozen noodle boxes you buy in a shop?  I have. Apparently, they offer the same great taste as you would get from a noodle house - this of course, is a lie.  Even if you heat it up for the right amount of time you might bite into a piece of ice, it tastes sloppy & while there is a hint of taste that reminds you of real noodles from a real noodle house it is not the same - not even close.   So naturally playing Halo Wars 2 I had to ask myself - did it taste like authentic noodles from a noodle house or a poor substitute?

Halo Wars 2 is set 28 years after the first Halo Wars.  The crew of the Spirit of Fire have been in cryosleep taking a well-earned rest.  Of course, there is nothing worse than being rudely awakened to find you are at a giant installation called the Ark & someone is sending out a distress signal. I mean come on you at least need a coffee first before dealing with all of that. Naturally, Captain Cutter sends some of his best people who are so awesome they don't need coffee, to investigate the source of the signal.  Enter Spartan Jerome-092, Spartan Alice-130 & Spartan Douglas-042.


As always I will be sparing with the plot details but I will say this, the villain in the game is called Atriox.  He is so badass that his strength & the army he commands are a scourge even to the Covenant themselves.  For those of you not sure who the Covenant are, they are a powerful collection of alien races all fighting under one banner to eradicate humanity through the use of ancient weapons. They are well trained & highly fanatical.


One thing I really like about the series as of late is how the AI's are becoming more self aware, more feeling & more alive.  In some cases, this has created a protective ally & in other cases, well not so much.  I feel as the series progresses this will play a bigger part in shaping the Halo Universe.

Graphically speaking the game looks good & is a big improvement over Halo Wars,  that being said it is does not look as sharp I would have liked.  While some parts are lacking others really shine, especially when it comes to the smaller details, for example; the building animations or the way when a Hornet passes over a body of water it parts below them.  Some of the level designs in the game look really cool especially some of the night missions.   The cut scenes look great as always but don't quite have the same beauty as those in Halo 4 or Halo 5 Guardians.


The music used in the game has a very militaristic sound & makes heavy use of brass & strings. Then there are pieces used that sound really epic & remind me of music used in some super hero movies, I don't mean this in a negative way in fact totally the opposite.  The overall result works well & helps add to the atmosphere of the game.  There are three composers who worked to create these sounds:


Gordy Haab - who worked on; Star Wars Battlefront, Star Wars The Old Republic, The Walking Dead: Survival Instincts & lots of music for shorts.

Brian Lee White - who worked on; Massive Chalice & also Halo 2 Anniversary.

Brian Trifon - who has worked on many titles including; Halo 2 Anniversary, Assassins Creed 2, Assassins Creed Brotherhood & Borderlands.


There are some really great pieces of music used in the game, some of my favorites were; 'Catastrophic Failure',  'Recommissioned', 'Incision', 'Isabel's Awakening', 'Arise, Good Child', 'Symbiotic', 'Empathy' & 'Steel Hand, Gloves Off'.  As a whole I felt it was a good soundtrack but not as high caliber as some of the others games in the series.

The gameplay, where to begin? In short it was fantastic but I should probably be a bit more specific than that.  Let's start with some of the units.  There are the Hell-Bringers, flame throwing troops who work well as part of large group & who all sound Scottish.  Hands down my favorite unit in the game are the Snipers, very powerful & if you combine a small group of them with a Spartan then you have an excellent covert team who are unstoppable.


Each mission features optional/bonus objectives & while it is not necessary to complete them they really add to experience.  I found I played harder & often more tactical just to try finish as many as possible.  In the end I finished over 70% of all optional/bonus objectives & I plan on trying to get 100% of them.


I did not feel there were any weak missions but there were some that stood out to me. Two of my favorite were; 'From The Deep', where you try to stop a beachhead invasion.  It felt intense, challenging & victorious when finally winning.  'Under The Dark' was probably my favorite mission as is not only introduced the Sniper unit but also you have to use three Kodiak units to help destroy an objective & reminded me of a mission from Command & Conquer Tiberian Sun (which is a game I really love). All missions were great to play & some were really tough even on Normal difficulty especially if you are trying to complete all the objectives.  The campaign was great & I look forward to revisiting it again in the future.


There are number of game modes in Halo Wars 2 including Blitz.  Any of you who know me know that I'm not big into multiplayer, but I just had to talk about Blitz.  Basically it's a slight twist on Domination; you need to capture two of the three points on the map to gain points, first to 200 wins.
What really sets this aside from the standard domination modes I have seen in other games is that you build a card deck & play cards to summon units.  To play those cards you need energy which can you collect from energy cells on the map or by holding points & destroying enemies.  There are two ways to gain cards & build your deck; buy them or play the main campaign.  Additionally all cards can be leveled up by collecting multiples of the same type.  You can play private matches, standard quick matches or play against the A.I.  Also the spectator is as awesome as he was in Halo 3, my favorite saying are; 'Killtacular', 'Kilimanjaro' & 'Untouchable'.


I must admit even though I only just finished them game I'm really tempted to start it again, so many thing still left to do.  Hmm, might start it again after I finish off here.

So what are my final thought after 15 hours playing the main campaign & another 5 playing multiplayer? I liked it, I liked it a lot.  The story was good, as were the graphics & music.  The gameplay was fantastic & I really hope they make a Halo Wars 3.

Mafia 3 - Review

I don't want to start off this review negatively (meaning I almost definitely am going to) but when Mafia 3 was announced I was not very excited.  Why?  Well, I was just not convinced Louisiana was a great setting for a Mafia game.  When I think of Louisiana, I think of the Dixie Mafia rather than the traditional Italian Mafia.  It's might sound strange I would dislike it for that especially considering I really like the TV show Justified which centres on exactly that.  Outside of that, the game was not exactly stunning looking for a Triple-A title,  based on all that information you might be wondering why I played it - I was waiting for Halo Wars 2 to arrive.


I like Chips but I am not as pushed on French Fries, depending on what country you are from & how you view each of those things it may sound confusing.  I see French Fries as potatoes cut into thin strips, fried lightly in oil & cooked with a lot of salt.  Chips are potatoes cut into chunky shapes & cooked heavily in oil.  While playing Mafia 3 I had to ask myself was eating French Fries or Chips?

The game is set in 1968, in a version of New Orleans.  You play as Lincoln Clay who has just returned from the Vietnam War.  Clay returns home to his adopted father Sammy & his brother Ellis.
Before Clay left for war he, along with his family were part of the Black Mob.  All Clay wants to do is be a good man, get a good job & leave his bad ways behind.  Unfortunately Clay is too loyal for his own good & quickly falls back into bad ways to help his family.


One of the strongest parts of the game is definitely the story.  It's not just simply the story but also the method used to tell it.  The introduction is told in flashback format which I really liked.  The part I really loved was the documentary style story telling.  I found it interesting listening to different people's take on Lincoln Clay,  the characters showed real emotion when speaking on camera.  I felt this, along with the story helped make the world & characters seem more real.


As always I won't spoil the story for you but I will say two things; first I was shocked & excited that there are multiple endings you can pick, two after the credits role this a little extra story which was just epic.

Visually speaking the game is very underwhelming especially for a Triple-A title,  I would not go as far to say it's awful but all the same it's not great.   While I know a game is a lot more than just what it looks like I do feel it let it's self down in a big way because of it.   When it came to look of the main characters they looked quite good but world itself seemed dull & almost out of focus. The documentary scenes looked quite well & I loved that it looked purposefully grainy to make it seem like old footage.  A friend described it best to me, the games looks like it is 8-10 years old.  If Mafia 3 was released back in 2007 visually it would have been considered to be really good but nowadays it just isn't really acceptable, especially from a bigger studio.  But I digress & will move onto some of the better aspects of the game.


The soundtrack in the game is split into two parts; the score & the music, both are equally brilliant. I will start by talking about the score, the two composers responsible for it are:


Jesse Harlin - who is a composer for Lucas Arts & has worked on; Star Wars Republic Commando, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith & Force Unleashed.

Jim Bonney - who worked on; BioShock Infinite, Mortal Kombat Armageddon & Perception.


The music is a blend of Cajun, Blues, Rhythm & Zydeco.  It fits the setting of the game well & I found it hard to pick any fault with it.  My favorite pieces included:

New Bordeaux
No One Is Untouchable
Boy Becomes A Man
Crush N Shuffle
Devil In The Woodpile
5 Years, 3 Months, 18 Days
Hard Fought & Hard Won


The second part of the soundtrack featured many great artists & songs from the era, some of my favorites were:

Animals - We Gotta Get Out of This Place
Canned Heat - On The Road Again
Creedence Clearwater Revival - Bad Moon Rising
Elvis - A Little Less Conversation
Johnny Cash - Folsom Prison Blues
Ottis Redding - Sitting on the Deck of the Bay
The Avengers - Paint It Black
The Rolling Stones - Sympathy for the Devil


Overall a pretty much flawless soundtrack featuring work from some great composers & artists.  Well worth a listen even if you don't plan on playing the game.

Right, on to the meat - the gameplay (also I really want some meat).  Lincoln Clay is a big guy & moves like one, this may come off sounding like a bad thing but it isn't.  By having him move realistically it makes him feel more powerful, you can really feel the benefits of this when using melee attacks.  The game may lack a few thing things but violence is not one of them, it is intense, frequent & awesome.  Taking down enemies feels good especially if you go for the more brutal attacks.  The guns for the most part felt good & the cover system worked well, some cover was also destructible which helped make the gameplay more intense.


There is good selection of cars & for the most part they behave as they should.  I generally found myself using a sports car to get around as they were fast & handle very well. The boats were okay but I tried to avoid using them most of the time as I found they did not handle very well.  Being honest though there is not a great need to use them if you focus on the main story.


Wiretapping is a feature in the game which was a cool idea but the novelty wore off quickly, the only real benefit of doing it is to find collectibles.  The collectibles include;  Album Covers, Communist Propaganda Posters, Hot Rod Magazines, Playboy Magazines, Repent Magazines & Vargas Paintings.


The city is vast & you can't take it all on by yourself so you need some help.  Enter Bourke, Cassandra & Vito.   Each time you take over a racket or district you get to pick who will run them.
Each character offers you something different for giving them a racket or district,  I found myself favoring Vito a lot of the time as I liked what he offered the best.  It is important to keep all three happy otherwise...well I will let you find out.  Each Under Boss provides you with kickbacks which you can increase further by performing some very repetitive missions.  Money as a whole seemed a little pointless in the game as once you had one or two good weapons & upgraded your car there was nothing else to really spend it on.  It would have been nice if you could have invested some of your earnings into something like real estate.


The story missions were often quite fun but the racket missions got old fast,  I wished there had been a little bit more variety with them. Some missions take place at night but if you are driving to the mission during the day the game quickly transitions to night & looks really cool - it's only something small but I liked it.  While the gameplay was pretty good I found that the game crashed way too often for my liking, the only bonus is that the games auto saves fairly regular so I never really found myself losing much.





So how did I feel about the game overall?  I was going to say the game was meh because of the disappointing visuals & some of the missions were repetitive but after some contemplation I have decide to say it was a good game.  I still much prefer Mafia 2 overall but I feel both games shared the potential to be more if only they had just tried a little harder - maybe Mafia 4 will do the series the justice it deserves.