Halo Wars 2 Beta And Why It Sucks (Opinion)
As many of you may be aware, Halo Wars was the oddball of the Halo franchise, being a top view Real Time Strategy (RTS) game and shying away from the traditional run and gun fps play style. Seven Years after the release of the first game, 343 Industries broke their silence and announce Halo Wars 2 at E3 on Monday June 13th and received a release date of February 21st, 2017. Now I absolutely loved the first game and have been waiting patiently for a sequel, so when I heard the the announcement, naturally my reaction went something along the lines of this:
The news of the release date being on February 21, 2017 had me crying:
Then the next thing the 343 representative said had me back to my dancing self because the next thing he said was that the Halo Wars 2 beta would run from the end of the Microsoft Panel on June 13th to Monday June 20th. He also said that Halo Wars 2 would be part of Microsoft’s Play Anywhere program so, it would be available on PC as well as Xbox. Now after their flashy trailer I was more than eager to jump straight into playing this beta, so I grabbed some friends and we hopped on to our old stomping grounds.
ENTER THE BETA
Initially, the first thing that happens when you enter the beta is that the game updates and forces a restart. In my head, I’m thinking: “This is the Beta right, how can there be different versions already?!” After you get through that and the enormous amounts of loading lag do to literally everyone trying to get on, you are brought to a tutorial, which you have the option to skip if you are a trial by fire kinda guy like me. After that come the menu with one option: 2v2 domination mode. The game mode brought my mood down very much, simply because i do not see the appeal on an RTS game. Yes, one can make the argument that the appeal lies in domination being more challenging and more realistic. However, that is not me. What draws me to an RTS is the ability to build an army and send it to destroy every soldier and building of the opposing army, call it DeathMatch, but i like the term Total War. The next thing I saw that drew my vision of this beta to the dark side is that the roster size was limited to two people, meaning a group of four, like my friends and I, could not play each other and had to split into two groups and play in different lobbies. So we split and find games. So by time my friend and I got into a game, my expectations are still high, yet dampened.
GAMEPLAY
So here I am in the beta of one of my favorite games and I am not having fun. As stated before, the game type is domination, so theirs strike one. Now the controls and Menus of Halo Wars 2 are similar to Halo Wars yet they have their differences.
For example, the picture to the above is an in-game shot from the Barracks building menu, looks the same right? Wrong. If you look, the circle menu is the same, its contents have been changed. While the flamethrower unit is still there, the marines and Spartans are gone. in their place, a cyclops unit and a sniper unit. So where did the marines and Spartans go? Well, the marines are now built from the main base unit and the Spartan is built in the Armory. Other changes include the disappearance of the cobra anti-vehicle unit, the warthog is now built from the vehicle depot, and the addition of two new units, the Jackal, which can be built from the main base, and the Nightingale, a support air unit. Looking at the rest of the menus, your change view (select) button on the controller bring up your commander’s power upgrades, this new feature reminded me of a mix between Supreme Commander and Command & Conquer. You also have more upgrade options for your base turrets.
Moving along with the actual gameplay, 343 made it extremely too easy. In Halo Wars, to acquire another base, you had to defeat an NPC base and some units, during begins game staging this was challenging for some. Now extra base slots are empty, Strike two. My third and final strike for this beta falls with the animations and warning system. Don’t get me wrong the graphics are amazing:
However, despite the graphics, the battle animations were shotty at best. I was watching my platoon of marines take on so sentinels at a control point and there was nothing, no bullets, no lasers, just my units and the AI standing there, trading invisible damage. The same goes for the warning system. My friend’s base was being attacked, and we weren’t notified on point of attack, the system notified us a couple of minutes and half a base later. Strike Three. We ended up winning our match but after that we were done with this beta. 343, you guys have a lot to work on between June 20th and February 21st, listen to your fans and don’t fuck up.
Well that is it for my rant. What were your guys’ experiences, comment them below. Don’t believe my rant, download the beta and try it out for yourself. In the meantime, enjoy the E3 footage here:
