235 replies to this topic

[Jironimo]

omg! Just finished watching the keynote, and Peter Moore said there was just one more thing. Cuts to a dark trailer on an ice planet, then these warthogs just come out of nowhere. Lots of marines, lots of elites and banshees, lots of Spartans.

[Gamble]

http://www.halowars.com/

[Vanwadilion]

The milking of the franchise begins Oh wait, I guess it already started a long time ago with the comic book, etc.

[BRASH]

Halo has been exploiting itself for a while now, and I made my position clear in the Graphic Novel thread. This, I think I can live with.

For one, it's not creating more untied ends, but putting background on the origin of the Covenant. Second, I don't do any RTS beyond Star Craft, mainly because I can't stand all the dragons, elves, warlocks and gnomes bullshit. I have to stay in a futuristic Sci-fi setting to enjoy something like a boring RTS game. Lastly, I think Bungie wanted to return to the roots of Marathon, which unless I'm wrong was much the inspiration for Halo.

I'm honestly not excited about this in whole, but the more important thing is that I'm not upset over it either.

[Vanwadilion]

Im just being facetious. RTS isn't my favorite genre (I haven't really played one not made by Blizzard), but I definitely think this could be cool. I really do like the Halo universe a lot (not quite as much as Voc, ha ha), so any opportunity to see more of it, I'm all for it.

[SharpeWolfe]

I like RTS games, and have played all the Age of Empires Games. They are very well made and I have to say that I trust them to do it well, and to do it right. I look forward to this game.

[Vanwadilion]

I lied, I have played those games a bit too. Has anyone played Rome: Total War? I've heard that game is good. From a Halo standpoint I wonder how the gameplay will work out. I can see this kind of having a starcraft vibe to it (humans=terrans, covenant=protoss, flood=zerg, maybe?). PS that trailer was f-ing sweet, too bad you know the graphics in this game probably aren't going to look great (as good as an RTS can I suppose). Seeing that trailer kind of made me want a Halo Battlefield type of game, drool.

[SharpeWolfe]

haha, you never know...it could, I say could, happen. May not be very likely, but one never really knows. I've heard Rome: Total War was good as well, but haven't played it. Nor have I played starcraft, though I have played a little Warcraft, lol. As for graphics, you're probably right, but the graphics in the LOTR RTS for the 360 aren't that bad in my opinion. Then again, I'm not always the best judge of that, lol.

[BRASH]

Blizzard is to announce their next big project (or two) at the Entertainment Expo '07. It's sure to be a StarCraft title and that will be an RTS or MMO to look forward to.

[Syracuse022]

First, the good:
-I don't give a shit who develops the game. It's not like Bungie's some perfect videogame god standing on a pedestal and crafting perfect games- Halo 2 ended all delusions in that respect.
-A Halo RTS is a fucking awesome idea.
-The story setup has the possibility of being amazing, and the more I get from the Halo universe, the happier I am.
-Those concept images are all so sexy I can't decide which one should be my background.
-Those elites look FUCKING SCARY. Yes. Hopefully they won't speak Shakespearean English (fingers crossed)
-The Warthogs handle like Halo 1 :laugh:
-For fellow Browncoats (Van), that trailer has a hell of a lot in common with the battle of Serenity Valley. I like.

Now, the bad:
-Bungie is so whored out right now it's unreal and it's the same line every time: "We couldn't imagine a better __________ to entrust our universe with than ____________"
Examples:
"RTS developer... Ensemble"
"Director...Neill Blonkamp (sp?)"
"Comic Book... Marvel"
"action figure maker... Joyride"
"soda... Mountain Dew"
"convenience store... Seven Eleven (Slurpee- remember that?)"
Whatever...
-So, apparently the pistol never happened? This game "takes place before Halo 1 during the UNSC’s first deadly encounters with the Covenant." Indeed. Whole lotta battle rifles in play... Christ.
-In addition, how will they balance this game? Here's how the early conflicts went: on the ground, Spartans demolished the Covenant; no Spartans around? Covenant slaughter the Marines. It was all irrelevant, though, since the Covenant usually just glassed the planet and moved on... how are they gonna wrap the story around that one? It can be done, I'm just curious to see how. I'm a lot more curious about gameplay balance though.

[Blaze]

Bungie choosing Ensemble for Halo Wars was a very wise move. The Age of Empires games are the only RTS's that I touch, so putting Halo in the hands of them makes me extremely happy. This annoucnement also brought this advertisement to mind.


It's from a while ago, but perhaps the Roman Numeral 5 was referring to Halo Wars. Also, the name "Halo Wars" is kind of generic and a better name could have definitely been thunked up. Microsoft's request that the Halogen mod be stopped all makes sense now.

The Halo Wars CG trailer was fucking awesome. If the Halo Movie's CG looks better than that, I'll shit my pants. The Elites especially look awesome, and that's why they're my favorite characters in the Halo games... except for Halo 2 -- they were retarts in that game.

[Syracuse022]

The Elites especially look awesome, and that's why they're my favorite characters in the Halo games... except for Halo 2 -- they were retarts in that game.

qftmft

[Jironimo]

Did you guys notice the human aircraft. You see a lot of flying jets, but they don't look like longswords. Then there's this thing that looks like a hoovercraft lowering over the battlefield.

[Va1or]

Freaking Halo Wars FTW!! Edit: Ivan, I don't think it was a hovercraft. Hovercrafts actually don't fly. They "float" on a cushion of air and are designed to travel on water and land. I think the vehicle you are talking about might be the "Albatross." This vehicle is apparently some kind of vehicle or troop transport and can be seen in the MP map Relic. The only three human air vehicles I noticed are Pelicans, Albatrosses(?) and what is probably stylized Longswords. Some other interesting things to note. 1) It seems to take place on a planet with Forerunner architecture. Look at the structures the men who are shot down run from, very Forerunner-esque. This would allow a fictional reason for why the Covenant don't simply glass the planet the humans are on and instead risk a costly ground battle. 2) The human tech seems to be more advanced than the timeline should allow. We are told the game takes place before Halo 1, early in the Human/Covenant war. Yet the soldiers use Battle Rifles, their armor has hints of Spartan IV design and the Spartans themselves look more like Mark V's than VI's.

Edited by Valor, 27 September 2006 - 03:03 PM.

[Jironimo]

Yeah, I didn't mean to say hovercraft, but it was lowering with these fan looking things. I don't think it was an Albatross, those things look more like a giant pelican plane.

[Va1or]

My bet it is an Albatross with a massive visual upgrade. Those LongSwords also look a lot different than their Halo 1 counterparts.

Look at the similarities.

1) Both are vehicles that have vertical land/take-off capabilities.

2) Both are Roughly square shaped.

3) Both have large square-shapped doors than drop from the inside out.

4) Both seem to be transport vehicles.

5) Both seem to be powered by four large engines at their corners (I didn't see any fans).

Add these factors on top of the fact that the Albatross is the only vehicle that remotely resembles this craft in the known Halo universe and I'd say I have a pretty good argument.

[Jironimo]

BTW guys, you must download the trailer on the Marketplace for Halo Wars, it's so much cooler in HD and there's so much more detail. I really didn't appreciate how good the elites looked until I saw it. Don't buy the Theme or Picture Pack, they suck. I expected pics of elites or marines with the picture pack, and just got some logos and shields. The theme is just the art pics on the Halo Wars site thrown over the generic dashboard trim.

[Syracuse022]

Nice call, Valor. I definitely agree that those were Longswords, and now that you've pointed out the Albatross, I'm pretty sure you're right.

As far as the battle rifles, I'm sure you're not surprised that I'm not very happy to see that. They certainly look like better, cooler weapons, which is probably why Ensemble decided to go with them.

EDIT: Um, by the way, ivan, two of those pics on the theme are not available on the Halo Wars site yet... and I found the theme to be pretty fucking sweet.

[Jironimo]

5) Both seem to be powered by four large engines at their corners (I didn't see any fans).

Add these factors on top of the fact that the Albatross is the only vehicle that remotely resembles this craft in the known Halo universe and I'd say I have a pretty good argument.

Yeah, the vehichles definitely resemble each other, but you can't conclusively say that it's an Albatross there's still some major differences. In general, none of the vehichles look the same in the trailer except for the Warthog. I wouldn't even call the planes Longswords simply because they look so different, and notice the overhead shot of the tanks and you'll see they don't look like Scorpions either. Even the Spartan armor isn't the same and all these differences could be because of the fact that this all takes place before the time of the Halo series that we know.

EDIT: Um, by the way, ivan, two of those pics on the theme are not available on the Halo Wars site yet... and I found the theme to be pretty fucking sweet.

I don't know man, I was disappointed with it, I was expecting to see some of the trailer images and not the paintings. The Halo Wars tag at the top also overlaps a lot with the dashboard menu titles, and in general it's not as clean looking. I would say that it's not a bad purchase, but it's NOT a definite buy I would recommend waiting to look at it on the Marketplace website on xbox.com before purchasing it. The picture pack on the other hand is very disappointing, not that the shields aren't cool but there should have been characters.

[phreak]

I think the biggest let-down for this going from the original Halo series is the drop in music quality. There aren't too many people who can make as epic music as Marty. I wasn't too impressed by it. Same cliched lines with lame tough guy voices. 'If they want war, we'll give them war'. Oooh, scary. I'll have to wait for some real gameplay videos before I get too interested in this. Nice concept, just hope they can put it together.