Game review Halo Wars 2

Game series Halo in the early 2000-ies has gained cult status, becoming a benchmark of the genre of console first person shooters. Over time it has evolved, acquiring new elements and setting higher levels of quality. Microsoft, which owns the rights to the series, to treat it, developing and deepening the universe of the franchise, making Halo got a mini-series, comics and books. In 2009, suddenly the fans came out for Halo Wars — excellent real-time strategy game developed exclusively for Xbox 360. The game turned out just great, so the fans anxiously waited sequel that was seven years later, finally saw the light. The release took place on February 21 for the Xbox One and Windows 10.

The Plot of the game takes place 28 years after the events of the first part. Mankind for years of waging a bloody war against an alien theocratic Covenant. Its rulers think people are heretics and tries to kill them, trying to attract all the possible alien races, among whom were Brutus — a huge humanoid with incredible force. The corpses of these men did overwhelm the Earth's space fleet for as long as Atriax, the leader of Brutus, he raised a rebellion, led a group of Exiles, equally hating both humans and Covenant.

The Ship of the Space Command of the United Nations (UNSC) "Spirit of fire" is drifting in space for almost 30 years, and his entire team is in cryogenic freezing. The efficiency of the systems of the spacecraft and crew life supports on-Board artificial intelligence that suddenly intercepts a distress signal from the UNSC with a mysterious space object, and then decides to Wake people up and to report the incident. On intelligence sent a small squad of elite super-soldiers Spartans who are ambushed by the Exiles settled on the basis of the UNSC and killed all its inhabitants. To not let the Brutus to leave the square and to prevent the destruction of new colonies, the crew of seedy space cruiser decides to face the enemies.

For Those who have never played Halo, some points may not be entirely clear, but the writers tried to make it so that even newbies will not have any difficulty to go to understand the story. To help him in this epic and very beautiful gameplay video clips, production of which, as in other games in the series, is beyond praise. The development of Halo Wars 2 are handled by experts from Creative Assembly, the acknowledged masters of the genre RTS — so part of the gameplay here, too, everything just worked flawlessly. Let me remind you that the Studio Creative Assembly in his time was famous for the magnificent Total War titles, won the hearts of millions of fans of strategy games.

The Scheme standard: build and develop your base, collect resources, train soldiers, produce tanks, aircraft, build fortifications, attack your enemies and win. It's simple. Each type of units (and there is quite a lot) can be improved, buildings to finalize and prepare almost any attack. Most importantly — intelligently allocate resources and not to forget to buy new products. The number of structures, as in the last part, is limited, so an infinitely long time to build a base and to save resources will not work. There is a limit on units, so just crush the enemy number will not work, will have to resort to strategic planning and military tactics.

In some missions the number of soldiers and vehicles is strictly limited, and to build a database strongly nowhere. Fortunately, a soldier of the UNSC — not just another alien weakling, standing in the service of the Covenant. A detachment of stormtroopers and a couple of snipers under the guidance of one or two of the Spartans are capable of in dust roll out several enemy fortifications with security. Spartans equipped with the latest technology: power armor, energy shields, and powerful weapons. If suddenly it will be enough, you can always take a moment to call in reinforcements as Shock troops, the orbital drop or request an airstrike.

Story campaign is designed for about ten hours of play on normal difficulty, but in this situation, serious challenges should be expected. But you can be happy to understand the story and play, not really straining at that. Veterans of the genre much more fun to choose the difficulty higher. In this case you really get pleasure from the game: you'll have to activate all possible improvements, to fight for scattered around the map resources, to build defenses and to plan attacks by selecting different types of troops for each type of infantry and enemy vehicles along the way trying to recapture the best place for an ambush, or build defensive structures. Halo Wars 2 is played and feels exactly the same like other games of this genre. No surprises: it's simple, clear and exciting.

One «ridiculous» the developers decided not to limit, adding to the game several multiplayer modes, allowing you to play both with bots against other players via the Internet. You can team up with colleagues and defend their outposts from the enemy, or to defend the main base, capturing and building an auxiliary mini-base with resources, backup barracks and factories. Play with live opponents is much more interesting, and I think that is what it's all about, after all, the whole Halo series is known primarily qualitative multiplayer, which is really well done in both strategic games created for this universe.

In Addition to the usual multiplayer modes added and completely new — Blitz. It's the same strategy in real time, here only databases do not need to build. Instead, the player is given six cards with different units. Task — to take control marked on the map points. To call new soldiers and equipment using the map, the player will have to waste energy, the completion of which need to be addressed in the intervals between the seizure of key points. Reinforcements can be in any point on the map which is not closed by fog of war, but in this case the unit will arrive on the battlefield beaten and weak, so it is better to activate cards with new troops in a special respawn points — here troops arrive without damage.

Game card you can get as you progress through the game and completing any tasks, but those who do not want to bother, can simply buy a ready-made set of cards, and even a couple right from the main menu of the game. Blitz — a very dynamic mode, which fights are fast-paced, so you can play it little and often, because the time to develop databases of spending is not needed. Came, pitched his tent cards, scored units and smashed opponents to hell! Most importantly — not to forget before that to pick up a good deck, of course.

The Game was originally developed for Xbox One and Windows 10, so the fans chords "keyboard + mouse" will be able to purchase a copy for the PC. The owners of the Xbox One experience is not worth — and all elements of the interface perfectly tuned for the game controller consoles, TV screens and your favorite sofa.

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Pros:

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• An epic happening on the screen action.
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• Elegant, flawless gameplay.
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• control the game controller is implemented flawlessly.
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• the Design of buildings, units and game locations.
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• Variety of game modes.
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• subtitles.

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Cons:

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• the existence of microtransactions is somewhat distressing.
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• Not the most outstanding story.

It is considered that the strategy — a genre absolutely not a console, as the control via a game controller is substantially inferior to at the convenience of the keyboard and mouse. But in the case of Halo Wars 2, the developers were able to prove that RTS on consoles is viable. Most importantly — well adapted under the control of the controller, add an epic story, to correctly calculate the size of the cards, simultaneously making available and simple system development units. This scheme worked perfectly in Halo Wars, and the developers of the second part gently moved it to the sequel, refined multiplayer and bringing into play of fresh ideas. The game 8 out of 10 points....