Date: Sunday, February 17 @ 23:28:58 UTC Topic: Xbox 360
I know you have all seen the Halo Wars box at your local gamestop, but with no release date put on this all we have to go on is the fact it will be in 2008.
Here is what halowars.com has let the world know so far.
Ensemble Studios said that, "Attesting to this radical churn of units that end up getting taken out of the game, put back in some other role, and then removed altogether is our new Overview page here on the website. Long time visitors will remember that it once featured a couple of units, the UNSC Cougar and the Covenant Air Artillery, which are units that have been cut from the game in recent months in favor of new ideas."
"One of the many balancing acts that the design team has to play is with the length of a multiplayer game. Do you want games to last 15 minutes or 30 minutes or 60 minutes? We’ve been shooting for a fairly fast paced game that if well fought would last in the 15-30 minute range depending on how big the teams are. Naturally, while we’re playtesting here at the office games can be faster or slower than this timeframe as we test out new strategies with new units and continue to refine gameplay, but that’s about what we’re gunning for."
"A subject that a number of fans have been asking about and commenting on is the existence, or the lack thereof, of space battles in our game. You know, the grand ship to ship combat in the vacuum of space, orbiting some distant colony. The fact is that these sorts of conflicts are not going to be part of Halo Wars. We’ve chosen to keep our boots on the ground, so to speak, with this game instead of venturing into ship to ship conflict out in space where the Covenant vessels are so vastly superior to those that the UNSC can put together. The battles in Halo Wars will rage on the surface of planets, where you can make use of Warthogs, Scorpions, and other iconic vehicles from the FPS games."
It looks like we can plan on a fast pace game with no space battles and thats about all we know so far.
halowars.com will be adding an update to all this info in March so hang on tight for more.
If you live or happen to be in Australia in April you might want to grab a copy of The Official Xbox Magazine (OXM).
The April issue of the magazine features Halo Wars on the cover, an image created by a number of artists at Ensemble Studios. As for what is in the magazine, I don’t have the particulars on what is covered in the article, so Halo Wars fans in the area will have to have a read.