February 21st, 2017. Play Anywhere title on Xbox One and Windows 10.
[quote]
After decades adrift and declared “lost with all hands,” the brave crew of the UNSC Spirit of Fire are mysteriously awoken above an ancient Forerunner haven known as the Ark. In Halo Wars 2, Captain Cutter and his crew will face one of humanity’s most formidable threats yet: The Banished – a fierce and powerful Brute faction led by a cunning and lethal warrior known as Atriox.[/quote]
Neither here nor there I guess, but I only just became aware that they are releasing an updated version of the first game, better graphics and such I guess. Probably cool for folks who didn’t try it the first time around, but I went through the campaign again when they made Halo Wars backward compatible in the Xbone, so I will probably skip it.
But yeah, totally down for the sequel. I am not terribly good at RTSes, they require a level of multitasking that isn’t natural for me. But the first game kept the scale down to a pretty manageable level, what aficionados like Tom would probably consider “baby’s first RTS”, that I found just right. Even on legendary difficulty.
When they announced the ‘definitive edition’ for XB1 and PC at the Game Awards show, the single ‘woo’ from one audience member was kind of embarrassing… so you’re not alone there in your lack of enthusiasm. :)
OK, so I only just now watched the Atriox trailer - I see we’re continuing the long line of high drama and absolutely no humor in Halo games. I don’t remember any brutes in the first Halo wars, think it was all grunts and elites, and Flood of course. Interesting to see how these new guys work out. Well interesting to me anyway, maybe I’m the only person who actually played the first one.
For me it was just unfortunate timing. It was only after I bought the game that I realized that I was done with RTS games unless they were also RPGs (Warlord Battlecry series) or Supreme Commander Forged Alliance or Action RTS hybrids (Brutal Legend, Sacrifice) or Tower Defense (all of them).
That’s a cool idea, because the Flood would have to play totally different. Since they’re just a mindless parasitic organism (disregarding that Audrey II thing from Halo 2) they wouldn’t be builders, so playing the Flood would probably initially have to be a reactive force. You’d wait until your opponent had started building up his base then rush him to overtake it and make it your own corrupted version. You could play it safe and rush sooner so you would have less opposing forces, but you’d end up with a less advanced base than if you held off, but then of course a more complete base would be harder to take down and make your own. That could work.
I’m disappointed that the beta is multiplayer only. I enjoyed the tutorial, but it was very short. And the only thing to do after that is to jump into a match against someone else online. I haven’t played an RTS game against someone else since Supreme Commander. Well, unless you count MOBAs, which I don’t, since they don’t give you the same satisfaction that RTS games give you when you win a battle.
Played a few matches 3v3 blitz mode. was pretty fun… its alot like TC Endwars except that you are limited to sharing resources AND playing cards that are randomly drawn from a 4 card hand from a built deck of i think 20? Like said before not sure how leveled decks will be balanced… since you can buy packs to level up cards and get rarer units. Best thing about this mode is the matches are VERY fast… none lasted longer than 6 or 7 minutes. The one blitz map resembles a moba design with lanes. Awesome part of game is I love how you can get to huge powerful units pretty quick… and matches can counter fast with the right units played.
the beta is definitely worth checking out, on win 10 store. i can see blitzmode as a good casual quick rts… akin somewhat to Clash Royale.
Is anyone playing HW2? I picked it up yesterday through an MS employee discount, and I played the first few missions last night.
I’m totally struck by how the gameplay could have been lifted straight out of any RTS from 20 years ago. There’s not even one iota of evolution on display here. The maps are about the same size as the games from 20 years ago. The units are still brain dead. Nothing has changed except for the graphics. Seriously. It’s depressing as hell.
I had my finger hovering over the purchase button right up until I read the reviews (and watched live gameplay on Twitch). The game sounds terribly bland, and I’m not even an RTS elitest/purist.
Blitz sounded interesting right up until I found out about the monetization scheme.
I never played the first one (always meant to), so I wasn’t hungry for nostalgia so much as a good RTS on my XB1.
