I think LOTR:BFME2 is as good as it's gonna get for RTS games on the 360. I'll rent this but my expectations are not high.

IronsUK

yeh i know thats why im still looking foward to this and just putting it down to the players choice

kelder

@Cheroro: I'm sorry, to me, it looks like Battle for Middle-earth from two years ago. Got nothing on Company of Heroes or World in Conflict.

@kelder: Ensemble did Age of Empires III. That was all about 'mass units until enemy blows up'. I don't see why this will be any different.

Polterg3ist

I'm a huge RTS fan, and just by looking at this I can't say I'm too impressed. I still don't see the level of control with your units that I'd like to. Of course I haven't played it, so I can't be sure- but I feel if I had a mouse and keyboard in my hands instead of a controller, it would solve a lot. I am sure they've tailored the controls to fit really well, but I can't help but think the mouse+keyboard combo would just be simpler, and you'd be able to react quicker and micro your units.

Again, maybe micro isn't such a big part, no idea.

Thugmunk

@JakeDunn: i second that, i prefer my rts with mouse controls but if the control scheme/controller works then i'd pick this up *crosses fingers* please let there be a demo

TragicsNFG

I think it looks great, but then again, im a rts fan.

Cheroro

Why does this game look like it belongs in a DS?

potohead1

@Salen:

Try company of heroes, not all rts's are about outproducing your enemy.

JakeDunn

Is it just me or did it look like they where just massing troops and attacking?I really hope that was just the way the player chose to play and not the way the whole game is,sup commander was very simmilar, as i have high hope's for this game, Ensemble normaly do a very good job with there rts's

kelder

Looks awful...I'll hold out for RA3 and SC2

Ketch2k8

I give it 3 Mehs out of 4. I'm not really impressed by it, although that might be because I'm not a huge RTS fan to begin with. Most RTSes just seem to devolve into outproducing your enemy and I got this feeling that's all I'm looking at now.

Screw realtime. Give me turn based, then I'd be all over this.

Salen

Lame.

Sorry, consoles. You must be taller than a PC to ride the RTS rollercoaster.

Polterg3ist

A console RTS? In halo universe? With lame graphics? No thanks.

Fulgurator

It doesn't matter where I hear it, the Wilhelm Scream is always awesome.

Quicksilver4648

Could this be the first Halo game where multiplayer isn't rife with drooling, hooting, 40-IQ mouthbreathers?

Red Machine D

Animations and effects look really nice for an RTS game. Im not really an RTS fan but this looks like a potential buy.

DanteIX

Really depends on how well it plays with the controller.

JakeDunn

Meh...I stick with Halo 1,2, and 3.

fishing4monkeys

If i have the money after all the others games i want i'll probably pick it up.

Woylez

I was excited for this game, but seeing the gameplay has really disappointed me. Nothing interesting is going on (I didn't finish the video, but I suspect it's more of the same), no use of cover, and when the Hunters fired at the marines there was no reaction. They could have been blasted off their feet for a great cinematic effect.

Jayus

Looks pretty good. Hopefully it won't all just be taking a group of soldiers and running them into a large group of enemies.

who8myrice

@JakeDunn: Is that the one set in WW2? I heard good things about that game. I think I missed it though, since my PC is a big PoS, and my new PC gets here... hopefully later this week.

I might give it a try if I can find a copy.

Salen

Looks pretty good to me. Very much a true RTS game.

Mustakrakish

I'm not impressed by this at all, and I hope they don't damage the Halo brand by releasing games like this. What next, "Halo Racing"?

kylo4

What's with all the hate for this game? I'm a huge PC RTS fan and I think it looks great.

@Polterg3ist:

I admit while watching the units fire at each other, I couldn't help thinking, "I wish they would take cover like in CoH," but other than that I think this looks really cool. Given that it won't have the resource-control nodes map type, it'll play differently, but the carpet-bombing/bombardment stuff reminds me of CoH.

But saying Age III was just about massing units is incorrect. That's one way to play it, but there are certainly other strategies you can use.

@Red Machine D:

You have the option of muting anyone you want in Halo MP. I don't know why people complain about this.

Strangelove

@Salen:

If you have any inclination to play a RTS, you should indeed try Company of Heroes. I think it's available on steam as well.

JakeDunn

PROTIP: Don't let a moron play demos that you're going to post all over the interwebs. Makes the game look terrible.

It looks like Terran vs Protoss really, maybe they'll put Brutes in there as another race?

Oh yea that guy playing sucked pretty bad.

Jaysius

Am I the only who prefers the pre-rendered stuff over the actual game?

ray89

oh my god im an RTS fan but was it just me or was that base building like the most awesome EVER

phantam

Wow, the mighty green army take on the mighty purple army in deadly combat over the bluey-white ice fields.

I guess the covenant will be the mighty yellow-ochre army.

Really doesn't do anything too exciting, and certainly doesn't seem as epic as the rest of the series.

martapp

Watch for the donkey punch at 00:39.

FightingChance

They can be glad there is the word "Halo" in the title... otherwise no one would care at all for this game, it looks mediocre at best.

Starsky

Halo Wars aka Iraq War

Like THAT wasn't obvious

metalhaze

I can't really say it looks good, but the base building seems pretty simple which is good.

DranzerKire

I'll rent it, or borrow it from my RTS friends. Beyond that, only interested the history the story is trying to potray.

~19

Black_Ops_19

@spite_nihilo: I second that. People can't stand that their beloved genre might actually be viable on a console. And I say this as a PC gamer who just happens to own consoles.

ShaggE

@spite_nihilo: What about Battle for Middle-earth? :P

I usually forced myself to play RTS games to learn the story. The trailer got me itchin', so I might play it just to find out how it all goes down. Granted there is a campaign heh.

Schmatz

Wilhelm scream @ :52... Just thought you should know.

.apostle.

hey, it's the first legitimate attempt to bring an rts to the 360!

IT SUCKS IT SUCKS IT SUCKS IT SUCKS BUY A PC BUY A PC BUY A PC TRY THESE OTHER GAMES I NEED CONFIRMATION THAT MY PLATFORM IS SUPERIOR AHHHHH

spite_nihilo

@Polterg3ist:
your comment made me LOL.

So true.

That looked terrible. Dark Reign from way back when looks as though it almost has better graphics.

Game looks fumbly, and relies heavily on super weapons to make up for deficits in controlling armies with a sup par interface device.

i.roboto

@mariospants: "Another" RTS? Can we tally the number of FPSes and RTSes on the 360 and compare that?

smcallah

@mariospants:
The irony of this statement is just staggering.

Archaotic

@Strangelove: Please, tell me, what other strategies are there? Trade monopoly? Yes, capture all the trading posts and defend them with lots of units.

Age of Empires II was where that series ended for me.

Polterg3ist

umm... that demo animation looked great. Why can't we have a FPS multiplayer shooter that looks that good instead of *another* RTS? I guess MSFT thinks they can snag all of those RTS-hungry folks waiting for Starcraft2.

mariospants

@kylo4: Come now, Halo has always been about a war, and an RTS game is a natural progression. How does that possibly lead to "Halo Racing" and ruining the franchise? If this was anything but an RTS, you would have a point, but it's not.

smcallah

Its in the halo universe- win
its an rts- win
its on a console- fail but ill take it
ensemble is making it- epic win

deathtastic

Looks to me like in the second video is that its either really hard or whoever playing either A: Sucks horribly, or B: Is trying to show off the features of the game. I'm going with A because whoever it is isn't showing a whole lot off of the particular match their in and they used a bombing run and a mac round on like one squad of troops instead of going for the most collateral damage.

Falleen9

This might be the first RTS I take a stab at... I'm such a Halo whore.

Lainface

This is a big risk for Ensemble but it's a calculated one given the saturation of RTS's on the PC. It's pretty much owned by Relic's Company of Heroes and Warhammer: 40K games. Not to mention the 800lb gorilla of StarCraft 2 that's coming maybe by the end of this year. It's no coincidence that RTS's are moving to consoles as that's still an untapped market for that genre. The only problem is that almost every RTS was developed with the PC in mind and then modded later for console use. The sales of those RTS's show the discomfort that console players have with those games.

The fact that Ensemble designed the game from the ground up to work with the 360's control is a good sign. It's also no coincidence that they chose to go with the Halo Universe to crack the console market. The Halo Universe has a huge following and will get alot of people to try an RTS on a console that may never have tried one before or just had an aversion to it based on past experiences. Again, it's all going to depend on how well Ensemble can translate RTS gameply to consoles. Given the studio's track record it could go either way. Their last big hit was Age of Empires III which was well receieved by the PC gamging community.

Tepoz

I don't see how people can think this will be good. Have they ever tried playing an RTS with a controller? I love a good scifi game as much as the next guy, but count me out of this.

TheGreySpectre

that guy was pretty good at getting his ass kicked.

mister_shhh

@Rallion: No, it was just a multiplayer video, so half the character models are now bright colors yo know whose on what side.

fearing

@Schmatz: I wouldn't call BFME a legitimate attempt. It was ported from PC, this is not. Everything about it is designed with a controller in mind, not a mouse an keyboard.

fearing

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

MistaJeff

Wow,did this games graphics ever get scaled back from last year,hardly resembles the lush game we saw last year,it went and got all Supreme Commander looking...ewwwww

xIvSlowDeath420

Looks meh to me. But I was practically raised on Blizzard RTS, my standards may be a bit unfair. Just like I feared, it looks like a dumbed down version of a PC RTS.

I could be wrong, that clip may not be perfectly representative. The game isn't exactly finished, after all.

I don't really have a problem with the graphics. Past a certain point, cool effects and high poly counts can just get in the way. When the units are small on the screen, you need them looking bold and obviously unique, not intricately detailed.

Rallion

So if you play as Terrans, you'll get your ass kicked? Sounds fantastic.

BUT, I KNOW I heard Kevin "Batman" Conroy in that gameplay clip, which will make it hard to resist, even with my anti-Halo bias.

Mal-Content

@Salen: Lol, looks like someone sucks at RTS.

That said, I can't imagine playing an RTS without a mouse and keyboard.

Looks fun, but i'll pass.

BostonK

C'mon, folks. We're sixty comments in, and no one's mentioned the VOICE Command? Stop droning on about mice and keyboards for a minute and LISTEN to the gameplay clip.

Gameplay clip, 1 minute mark: the developer playing can be heard giving commands to the game AI through an Xbox headset. That's smart, instead of keyboard hot-keys, it's a new approach using a peripheral that was included with almost every 360.

The sad fact is, putting on a headset will cause many Halo fans to instinctively call their AI troops "f**s" and "n*****s"

DiscipleofJamzy

The graphics and animations look amazing, especially for an RTS. It's an ensemble game, so i know the final package will be AAA. I can't wait for this game.

Pbombas

@Tepoz: SC2 isn't coming out this year.

belo

It just looks so, small. Thought I will admit that base building thing looked pretty cool, but just seems kind of stupid to place all your production structures so close together, get them all taken out in one nuke.

Xerxes 8933A

@Salen: Somebody hasn't played Relic RTS's.

Company of Heroes and Dawn of War are not about out producing your enemy or steam-rolling. Particularly CoH, you need some amount of tatics to win, and skrimishes start within the first 2-3 minutes of the game.

Seems like this game is taking a LOT of nods from those series in with regard to melee battles.

FrigidAir44

ugh RTS on a console.. just doesn't work for me.

radink

Even though the game is being built from ground-up with a 360 controller in mind, it be nice they added keyboard/mouse support...

Shiroi Kaze

@Quicksilver4648: Haha I heard it too.

Shaverdian

@Red Machine D: Yes everyone who plays halo has an IQ of 40, oh wait mine is 134

kagebutsu

Looked pretty terrible to me. Could be because I'm a Blizzard purist, though.

Crawl to China

@Polterg3ist:

Early rush and defensive turtleing, to name two.

Strangelove

@DiscipleofJamzy: I have heard no confirmation whatsoever that this game supports voice commands, and at that very moment you were talking about he was still using the control stick to select and moving the camera to send units around, so either that was the voice of some AI (considering I'm pretty sure this is a direct cap anyway so you can't hear the developer), or the voice commands are pretty much useless. Even if they were there, it didn't look too easy to control. The controls look mega clunky and even the player (who I assume is a dev) was having trouble quickly selecting units and stuff. I'd rather place my faith in Endwar over this game... the only reason it's getting any attention whatsoever is because it's Halo.

tehflyingwombat

... this looks really lame... The graphics are good, but it doesn't look like a very fun RTS game at all.

tehflyingwombat

@kagebutsu: But really, how smart can someone be if they base their intelligence off someone else's system of ranking intelligence?

floppylobster

They're called RTS games but the strategy still involves WWI era 'get a whole bunch a guys together and charge directly at the others'.

floppylobster

They die pretty fast for spartans =\

Tracid

I love the Wilhelm Scream!

Platypus Man

@Office Ninja: Hating on Halo makes you look soooooo cooooool.

Arteen

*yawn* this looks like the worst ghey-lo ever.

Office Ninja

@Strangelove:
Baiting and traps are fun too, I'm a sucker for them

Plan303e

This just looks really, really dull.

Providence

the moment I saw those towers I remembered why I stopped playing ES's games.

Somehow it reminded me Greeks in Age of mythology or Egypt's defenses in AOM.

No thanks ES, no more.

SOyuncastor

while it looked interesting, I couldn't help but get the feeling that it looked like the Covenant forces were VASTLY out powering the humans. Looks like a very one sided game thus far.

Sir_Crocidile

@Plan303e:

My god, that's FOUR strategies! Egads! I think Polterg3ist's head might explode from the possiblities!

Strangelove

@Office Ninja:

Checked your comments ... how many times are you going to make the Ghey-lo joke? Are you here just as a shill for Sony or do you actually have an original opinion or two to contribute? Because, you know, this site has enough blind Halo hatred already.

Strangelove

@kylo4: "I'm not impressed by this at all, and I hope they don't damage the Halo brand by releasing games like this. What next, "Halo Racing"?"

In point of fact, this kind of change up is exactly what the "Halo Brand" needs. Would you honestly prefer ten more Halo games, starring the same guy as the same First Person Shooter running down the same meaningless and winding corridors?

The Halo novels (aside from The Flood, and Contact Harvest's akward and misplaced sex scene at the end) offer a refreshing look at the Halo universe and the state of the UNSC as well as the colonies and exactly how badly the Covenant War is going for the humans.

What Halo Wars is going for is a new look at the campaign and a different setting and cast than M.C. I'm not really concerned with if the game is good or not since I'm probably just going to rent it to play through the story and a new look into the Halo Universe.

@Sir_Crocidile: It should look like humans are getting their asses kicked...they really only had about 3 *ACTUAL* decisive victories in the entire Covenant War. Granted the ground engagements weren't too bad, compared to how the UNSC got their faces molested in ship-to-ship and space combat...I'm still rather curious as to how the game will play out. Seeing as how we won only a few major battles, I wonder if the game will be nothing but constant retreating and failing. :p

PathRifter

@tehflyingwombat: Perhaps my imagination has been working overtime, and I know nothing's been announced, but I still am seeing and hearing things in the video that hint at this. Combining gamepad controls with voice command modifiers like "local units" makes sense yet no one seems to have done it yet.

I have no emotional investment in the RTS genre, I just like to see developers push forward with new ideas and new tech. Hopefully Endwar also turns out as well as you hope. Cheers.

DiscipleofJamzy

Makes more sense to have the gameplay video first, doesn't it? I thought so.

Mrclumpy

This game looks friggin nice. Most RTS footage shows masses of units but this is not how the game will pan out most likely. Its always more detailed gameplay and tactics when the players get them into their hands.

R3load

I'm gonna stick with EndWar. Halo Wars ain't my cup of tea.

michaelleung

They should just make Company of Heroes in the Halo Universe for a winning combo

Luuey

For the love of all that is held dear to sweaty geeks.

Why the hell are they not releaseing this for the PC, its an RTS for gods sake, that genre belongs on the PC, it just does.

FlameReaper