Jon Scoular
It is the year 2559, 28 years have passed since the UNSC Ship Spirit of Fire left the Shield 0459 location, a Forerunner Shield Instillation deep in uncharted space. The crew of the Spirit of Fire is awakened from cryosleep and encounter a new threat from The Banished, on Instillation 00 also known as The Ark.
The Banished are a mercenary faction who broke away from the Covenant Empire, and are led by Jaralhanae Chieftain Atriox. This Brute-led splinter faction lead the fight against SPARTAN Red Team at Instillation 00, you will battle against a variety of enemy from the familiar Covenant Grunts and Sangheili, to the Huragok or Engineers and Brutes, and don’t forget the Hunters and Jackals who also make a return. We see the return of many instantly recognisable vehicles, like the Wolverine and Grizzly, the Wrath and the Banshee. Unfortunately, there are a couple of vehicles that are sadly missing from the game like the Hawk and the Gremlin, I used these frequently when playing Skirmish on the original HALO WARS. A second major difference in HALO WARS 2 is you only have access to ONE SPARTAN for most of the time rather the 3 we are used to, they can still hijack enemy vehicles, but they don’t have the same upgrade system that we had previously. In fact, the upgrade system and the build system are completely different and do take a bit of time to get used to, if you are a HALO WARS veteran, you will quickly adapt to the new system, if you are new to HALO WARS you will get to grips with it quickly, so it does not take anything away from the game in any way. There are 12 missions in the campaign for you to play through, and you have the choice to play it in Easy, Normal, Heroic and of course Legendary. The campaign can be played solo or as a 2-player co-op. You also have Skirmish which can be played 1-1, 2-2, 3-3, or if you are insane you can even set up a game to do 1-3, why not set the 3 enemies to Legendary and see how long you last.
There is an all new game mode in HALO WARS 2, Blitz, this is a combination of Domination and Skirmish with a card system in place, you must have a certain degree of power before you can deploy certain units, then you battle to gain control of an area or capture an objective. To gain victory in Blitz you have to control two areas to gain points, throughout the map you…and your opponent will notice drops which you have to destroy in order to collect additional power. The cards are the game’s way of making extra money as you can purchase packs from the store with real money or you can complete challenges or gain packs through missions. Each pack contains a number of cards that you can use in Blitz and the more of one card you get the stronger it becomes. Blitz mode is aimed to be quick and competitive whilst also adding that extra bit of luck to Halo Wars 2.
There is of course a multiplayer option where you can play competitively online against other players, which again can be 1-1, 2-2 or 3-3. In multiplayer and Skirmish, you can play 3 different game modes Domination where you capture and hold Control Towers to score points, Stronghold where the player with the most Strongholds at the end of the game wins, and Deathmatch which is simply destroy enemy bases to win. To add to all of this, there are Daily and Weekly Challenges that you can complete and you have a game that will keep you occupied for a very long time. Not enough for you yet? OK how about cross play? You can play HALO WARS 2 on console and on Windows 10 PC’s although it is not cross platform so you can’t join your fronds on PC if you are on a console, but who is to say that that won’t come later. The game looks amazing and the imagery is sharp and colourful, the sound is exactly what we have come to expect from the HALO franchise and gives the game a very good overall feel, add to that the haunting soundtrack and you have a game that HALO fans will love. The controls are smooth and responsive, although I would advise if you are using an Elite Controller that you check how you have it set up, as if you have a delay in the movement, for example if it’s set for a driving game, it will affect how the game responds.
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