Halo Wars: What’s Wrong with Singleplayer?

We know it’s good but what would make it better…

by TWODOGSz

©2008 Aaron Bertinetti:- NE (News Editor)

So the consensus here at OXCGN is that Halo Wars is pretty damn good. In fact Arthur declared greatness with a 9/10. But personally I’d declare something akin to goodness. It’s made RTS exciting and accessible on a console like never before and has the distinct and authentic smell of the ever-deepening Halo universe.

OXCGN also discusses the missgiving of the Multiplayer aspects in Part two, make sure you check that out to round out your Halo Wars discussion.

But it’s not perfect. In fact far from it.

Halo 3 was for many reasons a critical and commercial darling. Pure gameplay, seamless co-op campaigns, challenging AI and difficulty spread, multiplayer matchmaking second to none, unprecedented online community integration, an engaging universe and story that extended an already epic narrative curve, a captivating and identifiable protagonist, and the many wonders of Forge in which players were provided an abundance of tools for user generated content spanning game modes, maps, films and photo.

And people continue to play it, even when more modern shooters have taken (some) of Bungie’s innovations and deservedly captured audiences of their own (see CoD4, Gears 2, Left 4 Dead, Resistance 2 and Killzone 2).

The problem for Halo Wars is that Bungie set such a high bar, not just for the industry at large, but most particularly for every Halo game to follow. And that’s predictably where Halo Wars falls short.

How can that be changed through DLC, updates and inevitable sequels? Read on for my critique of what’s wrong with the singleplayer experience and feel free to follow up with your own in the comments below.

Story

It’s perhaps the most obvious of criticisms, but Halo without Master Chief is well… different.

What’s perhaps not obvious until playing through Halo Wars is how deceptively fascinating the “chief protagonist” is in Bungie’s trilogy. The development of key characters such as Cortana, the Arbiter, the Prophets, Guilty Spark and Major Johnson ensured the franchise’s players became increasingly complex, conflicted and most importantly engaging.

Halo Wars on the other hand is an exercise in video game storytelling existing merely to service the action. I don’t care about the cardboard cut out stereotypes of the grizzled experienced Captain Cutter, the alpha male Sergeant Forge, the Eurasian American (whatever that means) “she’s sorta hot” scientist Anders, and the casting central bad guy Arbiter.

In fact the nicest thing I can say about Halo Wars’ story is that it expanded my understanding of the events prior to the Bungie franchise and of the incredibly darker origin of the Spartans than I was previously aware of.

The concept that Spartans were initially created to “control” the human population, means that I will now forever regard Master Chief as this generation’s T-800 anti hero.

Many reviewers have rightfully noted how good the cutscenes look, and I’d concur. The problem is that they’re almost completely devoid of humanity and fail to engage the audience in anything more emotional than “that explosion was awesome!”. They’re simply an exercise in “we’re going from A to B” with some substandard dialogue and lazy humour from the Cortana wannabe Serina (not funny).

The one  exception being the latter scene with Forge, the Arbiter and the Spartans going all Neo on a horde of Elites. That scene thoroughly deserved my popcorn.

In comparison Bungie’s franchise used cut scenes more sparingly, with later games more focused on retaining the player’s first person view of events and character in a method that Portal and Left 4 Dead have continued to advance. Being an RTS is no excuse for the lack of a meaningful story with protagonists to care about either. I still vividly remember the stories of Arthas, Thrall and Grom from Warcraft 3, and that had not nearly the technology clearly available to the development team here.

Halo Wars has the shell of characters to invest complexities and conflicts in, but unfortunately for the time being it seems unable or unwilling to invest in anything more than the most basic of popcorn entertainment. Can this be fixed? Well not if we’re talking about the Halo Wars 1, that’s unfortunately “gone gold”. But if the next issue can be addressed there might be hope yet.

Convenant campaign

Now the cynic in me believes that this already exists in some development stage and Microsoft are simply saving it for a sequel or DLC announcement down the road. And there’s probably a reasonable argument that the cost and risk involved in a new IP, even when contained within a franchise’s sprawling universe, made this an unfeasible feature, but it doesn’t stop us from dreaming. Although in light of the mixed reaction of gamers to Halo 2′s Arbiter sub plot, it’s perhaps understandable. But that’s where Halo Wars offers the perfect opportunity.

The FPS trilogy always existed in fear of alienating the core audience and their love for MC.

So it’s not surprising Bungie was yearning for fresh IP, having cornered themselves (with Microsoft’s help) into one (super)man’s story. Freed of the burdens of telling Master Chief’s story, Halo Wars can explore anything in the Halo universe it so desires. In fact there’s no preconceived need to even focus on the motivations and tribulations of the humans at all.

There are two approaches to a Covenant campaign. The most obvious is a parallel campaign in which the current story is told and played from the Covenant perspective. It’d be relatively easy to develop given all the game mechanics and units are already in place and would only require some new maps, cut scenes and a handover to human control.

But whilst I think this is a likely expansion within the next few months, I also think it’s playing it safe. What I’d really like to see is an entirely separate campaign.

Telling a separate Covenant story provides a relatively fertile green field for storytelling.

Entire campaigns could centre around the war & politics within the Convenant, the rise of the Prophets, the Oracle’s human origins, and the defeat of the Elites who died in the hope of preserving the Forerunner artefacts.

The pre-Halo universe would also give developers far more creative licence to design new units and structures for gamers to play with and set a broader base of game-based fiction from which other titles could launch off.

It would represent a prime opportunity to expand the universe for the majority of gamers who don’t care for Halo novels on bestseller lists, whilst potentially expanding the audience of the franchise further and giving context to sequelled developments of the core FPS series.

Whatever the powers that be decide, if the DLC route is taken I suspect it’ll be released as part of a pincer movement, with ODST and Halo: Chronicles, broadening the Halo brand this year.

Stay tuned for tomorrow where I delve into my biggest misgivings about Halo Wars multiplayer offerings… Or should I say the lack thereof?

©2008 Aaron Bertinetti: (News Editor)

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Filed under: 1st Party Titles, Console gaming, Editorial, Xbox 360, Xbox 360 News Tagged: | Arbiter, Bungie studios, COD4, Cortana, Covenant, Halo Spartans, halo wars, Left4Dead, Master Chief, RTS, Spartan, The Phrophets