Halo Wars - Gen. Discussion & Info

[quote name='JimmyH']I don't think you understand what I'm saying. Anyone who downloads an item from Marketplace (demos included) will have the option to redownload it in their download histories. Your download history can be accessed on xbox.com and links to every item can be accessed (even stuff that the general public doesn't have access to). Typically with free items such as demos or "exclusive" DLC anyone with access to the respective Marketplace item link can add it to their download queue to be automatically downloaded the next time their 360 is switched on. This has been the case for plenty of exclusive content and demos in the past. As long as the item doesn't have a MSP value it can usually be added to anyones download queue without the need for special code. A couple of past examples were the L4D demo and Gears of War gold Lancer amongst countless other freebie items that were supposedly "exclusive".[/quote]

Oh my bad...I wasn't aware of that. That's pretty neat.
 
I'm pumped that there is a demo for this game. I have heard the controls are supposedly good, but reviews of the LOTR RTS and C&C said the same thing but I could not endure them long enough to complete the demos. I guess I will find out tomorrow.

Also, anyone watch the Vidoc that was available on Live? Did you notice the part where a Spartan jumped up into the air and hijacked a dropship? I know they are supposed to be super soldiers, but that was kinda lame.
 
[quote name='LinkinPrime']Oh my bad...I wasn't aware of that. That's pretty neat.[/quote]It only seems to work on some content but with the Halo Wars demo being free and releasing tomorrow anyway I'm pretty sure it would work. I suppose I'll just have to wait a few more hours :cool:.
 
[quote name='JimmyH']I found the Marketplace demo link but it doesn't seem to be available in my region.

http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/g...sb=1&did=0ddf000a-0000-4000-8000-00004d5388ba[/quote]
Darn, yeah, no luck here either. Would be awesome to play tonight :D A great thing is though, my college has this thing called Winter Carnival. Basically, an excuse for the students to get drunk and play in the snow. Nice thing is though, it starts tomorrow and goes through the end of the weekend, and means no classes :D Yay for a day to sit around and just play the demo!
 
[quote name='dropbearGSH']
Also, anyone watch the Vidoc that was available on Live? Did you notice the part where a Spartan jumped up into the air and hijacked a dropship? I know they are supposed to be super soldiers, but that was kinda lame.[/QUOTE]

How was that lame? The special feature for the spartan is to hijack vehicles and jumping into the air to hijack air units is hardly lame. Just watched the new added videos on IGN, looks like it will be really fun to play.
 
A very nice surprise.
I forgot that this was even coming out this month.
And just found there's a demo less then a day from it's release.
Definitely gonna try it out and possible buy it when there's a sale.

Halo fan, check
RTS fan, check
Ensemble studios fan, check
 
[quote name='Immortal fWd']It's not out yet. I don't know why spybreaker said it is. According to Major Nelson's twitter it should be another four hours or so.[/QUOTE]

I was telling supraazn that the demo is coming out today, not the game. Sorry to mislead you, I'm still waiting too lol.
 
[quote name='LinkinPrime']I know that the Warthog 'Flame' Skin is a pre-order bonus, but anyone know how to get the Wraith 'Honor Guard' skin?
[/quote]
I read on a description on either best buy or amazon that the honor guard skin comes with the limited edition version.
 
I actually recorded some footage of my playthrough earlier, I might post it up not sure yet.

I am so split by this game if I get the game i'll get standard edition but I really want the Mythic map pack only available with collectors.. and the maps don't have a release date yet.
 
So, I just played through the tutorials, the 2 campaign levels available, and a Skirmish as the UNSC. All I have to say is WOW. Good job Ensemble. The controls are really well done and easy to use. Never did I have any trouble navigating around and playing. The gameplay itself is great. Really easy to do and a lot of fun. Nothing better than finding an enemy base and dropping some ODST pods down to take care of some infantry while I pummel the base with MAC rounds. I cannot wait for the game to be out in a month.
 
I REALLY wanna try out this demo, but I'm on a bandwidth cap and its a 1GB download. if I give someone my gamertag and they download the demo using it, will I be able to access it when I recover it using my internet, or will I still have to download the full demo?
 
[quote name='Spades22']I REALLY wanna try out this demo, but I'm on a bandwidth cap and its a 1GB download. if I give someone my gamertag and they download the demo using it, will I be able to access it when I recover it using my internet, or will I still have to download the full demo?[/quote]

The demo has to be saved on your hard drive. Just take your hard drive to a friends house and download it there.
 
I enjoyed the demo more than I expected to. I'll probably pick it up when it comes on sale somewhere, or I may rent it.
 
Sorry if this sounds stupid, but is it the Mythic Map pack for Halo 3, or is this some brand new map pack for Halo Wars?
 
[quote name='evil monkey']Sorry if this sounds stupid, but is it the Mythic Map pack for Halo 3, or is this some brand new map pack for Halo Wars?[/QUOTE]

A set of 3 maps for Halo 3
 
Is this a single player demo? /lazy. (And I'll probably JFGI right after submitting this post. :lol: )

[quote name='evil monkey']Sorry if this sounds stupid, but is it the Mythic Map pack for Halo 3, or is this some brand new map pack for Halo Wars?[/QUOTE]

The thing everyone is downloading today is a demo of the game Halo Wars. No new map packs, yet.
 
[quote name='Kayden']Is this free or "free". I'm not going to turn my 360 on if it's another free to gold members POS.[/quote]

Gold members exclusive till next week.
 
[quote name='Reck_Havoc']Anyone else downloading slow right now?[/quote]

It's pretty slow for me too, which is unusual considering I rarely get significantly slower downloads despite high load.


EDIT: Since it only hit 4% after more than one hour, I stopped the download and deleted it off my HDD. Then I re-initiated the download and it's running fine. Passed 4% in the matter of a couple minutes.
 
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[quote name='YodaEXE']So, I just played through the tutorials, the 2 campaign levels available, and a Skirmish as the UNSC. All I have to say is WOW. Good job Ensemble. The controls are really well done and easy to use. Never did I have any trouble navigating around and playing. The gameplay itself is great. Really easy to do and a lot of fun. Nothing better than finding an enemy base and dropping some ODST pods down to take care of some infantry while I pummel the base with MAC rounds. I cannot wait for the game to be out in a month.[/quote]

Good to hear, especially the part about the controls. It's downloading really slow though. Bummer, I guess I'll actually do my calculus HW today.
 
I am so glad I woke up early to start the download. Got out of bed a second time lol and was able to just start up the demo. I'm really impressed and I might pre-order this puppy. Good amount of content for the demo as well.
 
[quote name='wubb']
The thing everyone is downloading today is a demo of the game Halo Wars. No new map packs, yet.[/quote]

Yeah, I realised that, I meant in the collectors edition it apparantly includes a 'Mythic Map Pack'- Is that the Halo 3 one, or a pack they made for Halo Wars. Probably should have been more specific.

Also, I second the stupid 'Gold only' thing.
 
[quote name='flatliner718']I read on a description on either best buy or amazon that the honor guard skin comes with the limited edition version.[/quote]

Cool...thanks!
 
Halo Wars - Seemed like an intuitive control scheme, LB = select all, RB = select local(on screen only), RT = select next unit, left dpad = go to base, down dpad = previous group or encounter, right dpad = forgot lol, up dpad = powers. Radial pop up window for structures/powers.

My impressions after playing through both tutorials, campaign missions and two skirmish games, (UNSC first/Cov sec):
Support Powers
The UNSC gives you the MAC blast, Disrupter, Repair and Transport powers

MAC Blast - orbital artillery, can be upgraded
Distrupter turret/tower - locks down any hero's abilities within radius
Repair - Sets a repair radius onto the battlefield
Transports - Transport units from Point A to Point B

The Covenant gives you powers with the hero units
Forgot the technical term but the Prophet gets a particle beam which uses resources as power
Prob more but this was all in the demo

Each side generates resources, UNSC use supply pad, Cov. use warehouse, both have a barracks, vehicle factory and air base. The Cov get a Shield Generator, shields base, and Temple, ability to use prophet/upgrades, and a tele-pad which allows you to teleport your units to the hero unit. Each side has a building to gain an additional tech and level up your base and units. Each side also is allowed to upgrade general topics using their base.

This is a solid RTS game, attack moving on default, easily capable to select the units you want and activate their special abilities such as grenades or ramming into infantry and the graphics look great let alone the cutscenes. You can do 1vs 1, 2 vs 2 and 3 vs 3 in the skirmish as well as be able to fight against your own race, contrast to Star Wars Empire at War which wouldn't allow this.

Sorry, some info I forgot, does LT do something, or don't remember the technical naming.
 
It's alright, I can see it getting stale pretty fast though. I'll rent it or buy it when it is like $30.00.

The Campaign looks like it could be interesting, nice cinematics and such.
 
Promising, but what's included in the demo is so easy that it's hard to really get a feel for what the finished product will be like IMO. I still need to take on the 2nd level in the campaign (had to quit and unfortunately you must start over from the beginning once you exit out of the demo) so maybe that one gets interesting, but based on a few impressions I've read I don't think so.

The skirmish mode they let you play is extremely easy. It'd be nice if they had some sort of slider to give the AI an advantage or let you go 2v1. (Based on the grayed out menu options that doesn't appear to be planned for the full game.)

Looks like resource gathering is going to be a minor thing in this RTS as you create buildings which produce resources for you at a steady rate.

A big part of the game will be how the two races balance against each other in multiplayer and they aren't showing that off in this demo.

Definitely agree that the cinematics are very cool.

Controls seem pretty good considering you are limited to a controller. What I've played so far hasn't really required attacking on more than one flank so it's been a lot of 'LB' all units ordering about. But I think the 'RB' to order nearby units should work for managing multiple fronts. Like I said the demo isn't challenging enough to know if it's going to be too simple and get stale as yukine put it.

Hopefully this one will be good.
 
Yeah I believe one of the lead designers have said that Halo Wars is more combat oriented, not resource oriented like it is in most RTS.
 
[quote name='wubb']Promising, but what's included in the demo is so easy that it's hard to really get a feel for what the finished product will be like IMO. I still need to take on the 2nd level in the campaign (had to quit and unfortunately you must start over from the beginning once you exit out of the demo) so maybe that one gets interesting, but based on a few impressions I've read I don't think so.

The skirmish mode they let you play is extremely easy. It'd be nice if they had some sort of slider to give the AI an advantage or let you go 2v1. (Based on the grayed out menu options that doesn't appear to be planned for the full game.) [/quote]
I dunno, I kicked the AI up to Heroic in a skirmish and proceeded to get my ass handed to me, despite having done fine on Normal. Now, that might have just been a fluke, but I'm not so sure. I need to try again and see what happens.
 
I didn't have too much trouble in a Skirmish on Heroic. I believe both you and the AI start on fairly equal footing.

My strat was pretty much what I'd do in WarCraft or Starcraft. Establish a strong resource chain, grab a few key upgrades, and build a bunch of attacking units.

I would like to play around with skirmish more and build out some of the buildings and units I didn't use in my first blush strat.

I built 3 of the supply pads, a barrack and a reactor right from the start. Then I upgraded the 3 supply pads asap (IMO that's the key upgrade for the USNC) and built a vehicle depot and a 2nd reactor while pumping out a few marines. New Blood upgrade for the marines while spitting out a few Scorpions and more and more Marines. At some point they sent a fairly weak attack force over which I crushed. Then I rushed through the middle of the map and pounded their base. They hit my base from the side but I just had new units hold them off while their base went down.

I'm a little worried the simple controls and (almost) no resource gathering means the opening of multiplayer games will be extremely rigid. Build A then B then C etc and if your opp doesn't know to do things in this exact order you'll be able to blitzkrieg him with your first wave of forces.
 
I just played a skirmish game using a turtle strategy, and DEAR GOD does it take forever to get all the UNSC upgrades. 1800 for the ability to drop ODSTs? I had about 15 full upgraded supply pads running and it took over 20 mins to get all upgrades.

~HotShotX
 
I've worked my way up to heroic and
basically you can just pump out one barracks/hall and a number of supply pads or warehouses then sell them later to free up space on your base.
Yea the AI is a bit weak but heroic gave me a good challenge and it's understandable with a demo for everyone on the 360. Wasn't able to make the Scarab (20 pop), had too many people, too bad you can't instant kill some of your units lol.

You have to scout out and gather up resource crates so yes resource gathering is still apart of the formula but just not as heavy as previous Ensemble games. It is more combat and upgrade based by far which is a lot of fun. I just played Age of Booty and I tried to move using X lol whoops, lol.
 
I was very impressed. This game wasn't even on my radar but now its going to be hard not to purchase it. I'm kind of excited for the online co-op but I'm not sure what exactly the purpose of that would be in an RTS. Anyone have any clue? I mean, I can control all the units on the screen, will the other guy have his own units or will we be fighting over who gets to use what? Will we have separate bases? Theobjectives are all pretty straightforward. If I want to blow up the base...then he will too, and if we are just splitting the normal amount of units then it would just be useless to have someone in co-op essentially just watching.
 
[quote name='genfuyung']I was very impressed. This game wasn't even on my radar but now its going to be hard not to purchase it. I'm kind of excited for the online co-op but I'm not sure what exactly the purpose of that would be in an RTS. Anyone have any clue? I mean, I can control all the units on the screen, will the other guy have his own units or will we be fighting over who gets to use what? Will we have separate bases? Theobjectives are all pretty straightforward. If I want to blow up the base...then he will too, and if we are just splitting the normal amount of units then it would just be useless to have someone in co-op essentially just watching.[/quote]

I would think it is similar to co-op in RA3, you both have a base and you both share equal objectives. However I have no idea lol.

I really wanted the AI to use some sort of Air unit so I can see the anti air units in action, oh well.

Yea I need to scrunch up some cash for this game as well.
 
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