Halo Wars - Does Anyone Really Care?

Well, now that the release of the spin-off and cash-in of the Halo franchise is coming upon us, the internet is buzzing with impatience.

... Yeah, right. It seems that Ensemble studios just doesn't seem to have the same hype-causing, adrenaline-pumping feel to it that Bungie has caused in the internet since the release of Halo 2. Don't get me wrong, Ensemble are the same guys that brought you Age Of Empires, one of the best series of Real Time Strategy games to grace the PC, but it seems that Halo Wars just doesn't seem to interest the Halo crowd.

The simple reason to this being that for the most part (as a few minutes on Halo's multiplayer will show you) the crowd still interested in Halo is the same crowd that is targeted by Barney The Dinosaur, and who were barely starting education when Beyblades came out (you all remember them... You're a liar if you say you don't!).

The Halo franchise seemed destined for this path since the release of Halo 3 (making just under £120 million pure profit for the makers in one day), and its place on the top 3 games played on the Xbox 360 for months, and even to this day (with it placing 2nd just last week, over a year after its initial release). Unfortunately, as many, many attempts seem to have proven, RTSs just don't seem to work on consoles. Just take a look at the selection of that genre on the 360, and you'll see that the selection is extremely lacking if it’s quality you want.

However, it can be seen that this lack of Real Time Strategies might mean that Halo Wars could be able to carve a niche into the market of Xbox 360 games. Personally, I hope this isn't the case, since it would inevitably mean that many other companies would try expanding into other genres with their games... Imagine a dystopian future, where Bejewelled becomes an action-adventure, where you must save your family from evil diamond-shaped terrorists. Sounds horrifying, doesn’t it?

Halo Wars, however it may seem, still manages to be able to annoy the fanboys of the Playstation 3, at any rate... A 20-second-glance at Metacritic (a comprehensive site of reviews, combining many professional opinions into an unbiased score) will show the user-reviewed score to be a mere 0.8 out of 10. I doubt this is because of the people who are getting this as a console exclusive. It seems far more likely that the people doing this are the same people that dragged Gears of War 2's score down to below half before its release. Fanboyism at its best.

Of course, Ensemble studios is putting its full backing into the making of Halo Wars, confident that it will be a huge success, and fuel the company's profits for years...
What? Oh... It seems that Ensemble studios is shutting down after making this game, making Halo Wars either the last shining jewel in its cupboard, or the final nail in its coffin...
But, with the game being 3 years in development, it can't be too big a flop. This isn't Rock Revolution*, after all... (Bah-zing!).

* See “shameless, appalling knock off of Rock Band”.

Looking at some gameplay previews on websites, I see that the campaign will involve your standard "enemy over there. Kill them" and "protect the scientist while she does some stuff to make you win" missions... Nothing really new, but that wasn't to be expected from a spin-off of the shooter that uses the most basic FPS controls ever seen.

In conclusion, I think that while Halo Wars may be picked up by the fans of the original series, but since they seem to be dwindling, Halo Wars will probably go the same way as F-Zero on the Game Boy Advance… Y’know, the game that nobody remembers, because it tried to go away from the standard in the same way that one would moonwalk to get from place to place… It’s still going the same place as everyone else, except they do it in a weird fashion, that doesn’t really work, and that nobody is used to, so it becomes shunned and rejected.

Treyarch, Keeping Up Their Record Of Glitchful Multiplayer

We all know that Treyarch made Call Of Duty: World At War. And we all also know that they made Call Of Duty 3. We all, also, know that they shamelessly stole everything from Infinity Ward's representation of the Call Of Duty series, and tried mixing it, in a massive pot with $$$ signs all around it, with its "successful" Call Of Duty 3 (it joining the halls of games that I remember putting the "suck" in "successful"), with some form of magical wooden spoon, that was promised to them to make the combination of ingredients incredibly tasty, but instead made the product reminiscent of a pile of rotten horseshit.

Through personal experience, I have beared witness ("to the greatest story ever told...") to many, many, many exploits of Treyarch's sloppy multiplayer map design. One such example that I have found is on a certain map "Roundhouse". Yeah. As in, "even a roundhouse kick into the centre of Patch City from Chuck Norris couldn't make this map any less appalling". If you ever see someone go near a garage door at the edge of the map, shoot his ass. Quick-style. Or he will somehow zip to underneath the floor, where he will laugh like the 4-year-old child he is, racking up the kills, while all others are powerless to stop him.
Since, y'know, Treyarch copied Modern Warfare so precisely, that they forgot any form of booting system to get rid of the cheating little fucker, and since it's Treyarch (with a track record for making suck-ass Call Of Duty games), you can be pretty damn sure that this will go on until the end of time.

Hell, I remember playing Call Of Duty 3 until it was on its dying legs, and I always remember, every time a specific map cropped up, someone hiding in a glitch, killing all who passed by. Unfortunately, it would seem that Treyarch's newest endeavour succeeded in only proving to everyone that we should stick to the even numbered Call Of Duty games, especially when it comes to multiplayer.
But then, what does Activision, the backbone behind all these games, care? As long as it's raking in the cash, so it can steal that nice shiny "I'm a corporate whore" top hat from EA, why should it? It's not like their fanbase wants good content, or anything. Hell, if they did, they probably would have stopped playing long ago...
... Yes, I do taste my own hypocrisy. Tastes like bacon. It merely astounds me as to how the "most played game on Xbox LIVE" can have such a rudimentary flaw in it... Astounding, no? Especially since this is the Counterstrike to Modern Warfare's Half Life 2.

I think I'm going to have to do a compeletely separate post on the trials and failings of the Campaign, too... Oh, sorry, that's "Single Player Un-Cooperative Oh-So-That's-How-You-Want-To-Try-It-Pretty-Boy-Well-Here's-A-Thousand-Grenades Campaign"...

The Inaugural Post

Okay, so this is the first post of many, on the blog of the man known only as the Gunslinger. Have no fear, I'm not here to blow anyone's brains out.
I'm here to blow your minds, instead.

So, back to the main topic. This will be, unless I find something of extreme interest in other areas that are worthy of attention, my gaming blog. Giving opinions on the news, latest demos, games that I am playing, and the such.

I'm also pondering upon the implementation of a features aspect, that will go up weekly/monthly (depending upon how much time I have available - college doesn't do itself, y'know!) basis.
No official name yet, but "The Full Barrel Of..." seems about appropriate for the theme I have going on with this blog. As you might expect of a full barrel (at least, in a revolver... If any alcoholics come on here thinking I'm going to do a keg's worth of items, turn away now), there will be 6 items that I'll list from one bullet (where it's just not so good), to a full barrel, 6 bullets (a guaranteed winner!)

For any reviews that I do, I feel it would just be easier for my scores to remain on the standard 10-point scale. I will, of course, try to make them interesting as much as I can, but we shall merely have to see how things progress, like a train on a set of tracks that are only half-laid.

Now, concerning any new people that decide to join this (mostly barren, apart from my good self and my bestest pal, that rolling piece of tumbleweed), you are most welcome, so long as you're actually able to put across good points... (because this isn't IGN, or Gamespot, people, this is just one/two/cybernetic army of man/men on a simple blog...)

So, with hopefully daily updates, and a good firm grip on the butt of his keyboard, let the blogging commence!

Note: I will also be experimenting with what does and doesn't work, so if things change, just bear with it, everybody.