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.
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