Downloadable Content:
By this point in the game’s life, there are two DLC packs: Strategic Options, a pack that adds three multiplayer modes, four achievements, and Historical Battle, a pack that adds four multiplayer maps (and four more achievements).
Strategic Options adds Keep Away, Tug of War and Reinforcement modes. Keep Away will spawn a flag on the map, somewhere. Pick it up with a unit and hold onto it for a certain amount of time to earn a capture point. Get enough points and win the game. Tug of War changes the game so it’s less about attacking your opponent, and more about building units, making upgrades and so on. There’s even a little gauge showing which team is winning the tugging. Be the strongest when time is out, and win. Reinforcement is easily my favourite of the bunch. Every little while, the game will do a reinforcement wave. At this time, resources will be taken away, and a number of units will be given. This depends on how many resources were available, as well as population. I found it to be an odd little mode, because it was entirely possible to appear to be crushing an opponent, only for them to get dual Scarabs because they’d been focusing on production. Maybe not for everyone, but it’s a fun change.
Unfortunately, someone decided that this pack should be priced at a whopping 800 MSP. Although it adds some much-needed variety to the multiplayer scene, there’s almost no one playing any of these modes online, making it hard to recommend. This pack is something that should have been included in the box, sadly. If there’s a crowd that’s interested investing in the pack, it could show some value, though.
Most recently there was the Historical Battles map pack, which includes two 1v1 maps, one 2v2 map and one 3v3 map. They’re as well-designed as the ones that came on the disc, and should inject a bit of variety in online play, presuming the maps are embraced a little more than the previous pack. Again, the whole thing is priced at 800 MSP, but it seems a lot more reasonable in this case.
Barrens (1v1) is a Flood-infected, S-shaped map with four extra bases, two Forerunner reactors and a healing spire. It’s set up to be almost entirely linear, but a few well-placed airdrops or some creative Covenant leader movement seems like it would really open up some insane flanking opportunities. The other 1v1 map is Blood River, focused around a river with only two ways across, only two extra bases, and a number of garrison spots and Forerunner facilities on either side. The placement of the second base, sort of off to the side in a corner, next to the river, would make it a great place to set up an Air Pad or Summit. I’m not a huge fan of maps with choke points that are so obvious, but that’s probably because I always lose the tech race.
On the team front we get Memorial Basin (2v2). It’s a surprisingly small map. It’d probably be possible to throw a grenade at your opponents right off the bat. But there’s a ton of base locations around the outside, four guarded, four unguarded, making for almost immediate upgrades for a co-ordinated team. There’s a couple of Forerunner Reactors and resource facilities to fight for, as well as some garrisonable cover right in the middle of the map, making for a great place to do pushes, or send troublesome infantry to die. Finally, we get Glacial Ravine as the 3v3 map. It sports eight spare bases (all guarded), a Sentinel factory that can be captured for each side, and a controllable wall. When the wall’s closed, the only way to the opponent’s side is over the mountains. It’s another chokepoint map, but I like the layout of it. And Sentinels are always a blast.
Halo Wars is a hard one to recommend, not because I don’t think it’s worthwhile – it’s easily a favourite of mine – but because people will come into the experience with a lot of expectations. It’s not going to set the RTS world on fire, but it does provide an experience that can’t be obtained anywhere else, while still remaining very faithful to the roots of what made Ensemble such a popular developer. Download the demo, give it a shot, and maybe you’ll get hooked like I did. It’s been out for a few months now, and looks like there’ll be patches and DLC to support it for a while to come. So stop practising your mancannon headshots on Narrows for a week or two, and learn some Halo history.
Brad Petch has been playing games longer than most gamers have been alive. This does not mean he's good at them, or has good taste in them. Online interactions are not rated.