5 years. 5 long years... that's how long it took for Act Man to review all the Halo games. At first it was going well, but then Halo 4 and Halo 5 came out...
Y’know, this Arbiter’s death was kinda fitting. He acted incredibly annoyed or angered, and as an Arbiter probably expected to go out in a blaze of glory. Only he didn’t.
from what i've read in the lore, rega moramee was a criminal before become an arbiter, prophet of regret specifically chose him after looking at his feats
Wow, I didn't realize how Ensemble were victims of Microsofts decisions and Bungies temper tantrums. Feel so bad for them. I hope those people we saw in the trailers moved on to fulfill their dreams.
One of the developers of Halo Wars, Sandy Petersen who was also an important Developer of Doom, Doom 2, Quake and moved on to form his own game company after being with Ensemble since 1997. He also has a TH-cam channel where he talks a lot about game design and his history making specific games he worked on.
@@SirNarax yeah but he's never made another videogame. One mobile title, and now he makes board games. Bungie and Microsoft screwed him so hard he left the industry. Definitely never giving Bungie money again.
@@bigdaddychemster1201 He didn't leave the game industry because he was fed up he never considered the video game industry and board games as separate entities he just like making games He is happy how it worked out now because where it put him today.
I wouldn't call them "Temper tantrums" makes bungie sound slightly immature. They had every right to be annoyed, especially with microsoft, just not with ensemble
@Fozzerino Still had some of the best fight cutscenes in the franchise. Red Team vs the OG Arbiter's elite death squad. Holly hell that was amazing. And thats not even getting to the fact that Ensemble studios managed to get even deleted stuff from the past halos into Halo Wars. Such as making the flood somehow even scarier.
I at first was nervous about halo wars since it was an rts. But after gold starring every mission on legendary I can say it is a true halo game that is definitely deserving of praise. What a great, refreshing take on the franchise
@@ninja1man4u yup one of the best genre changes I've ever seen. It comes in and transitions from fps to rts very well. It's not the most advanced rst out there and could definitely steal a bunch of mechanics from other games as well, but for an uncertain foray into new territory for the series it was a good start. Edit: really hope this one and halo wars 2 gets ported to pc.
@@joenuts8312 I actually only played multiplayer with my brother. Never the online so I don't know what is going on over there Edited before the grammar Nazis arrive
It's really great to hear that Marty helped to do soundtrack for the game, while rest of the Bungie seemed to not care alot. Proves once again that Marty is an amazing guy. After watching interviews with him it's just the feeling I get "Wow I wanna be as passionate and nice as this guy"
Its kind of disheartening really. Assemble were forced to make a Halo rts. Instead of Bungie of helping them make the transition easier they kind... did barely much to help. And seeing Marty being the few peeps that were kind enough really shows how... troubling is working at Bungie even before Activision.
Man what Bungie did is just .. Damn I had no idea this is what was happening. Here is a team that is trying their hardest not to upset anyone and trying to keep lights on in their office only to be hated upon.
ensamble do great halo my 1 fav game with what they have, now look a t halo infinite, clearly its eaise to defile this IP than recreate it, nothing good ever last
Ya know, I just realized. If Ensemble hadn't done halo wars, We would haven gotten 2, which means no banished. If the og Halo wars never happened, what would Halo infinite look like?
Considering the Banished are an original concept completely divorced from the first Halo Wars and that 343 still could've created them at any time and used them in any way they wanted, probably not much different
@@nagger8216 yeah but it was made in halo wars 2. if the first one wasnt made the second one has zero to no chance of being mafe. so it would be differnt
Sometimes.... I lay awake at night, plagued by that horrible, terrible sound. I beg for it to end but I can never stop hearing it, and I cry myself to sleep as all through the night and in my nightmares I hear, "The transport ships have been destroyed. We need to restart this operation."
I still find it funny how Bungie left Microsoft because of bed buisness practices and then went to Activision. This is not just ironic, this is stupid.
I know right? They wanted to go independent but didn't have the massive amounts of money required to make Destiny. Of all publishers they went to Activision though, I suppose it's better than EA. Actually I'm not sure what publisher would have both liked destiny and been good. At least they're independent now.
While I love Halo wars now. I remember seeing the trailer for it and being so excited to play another halo game. I downloaded the Demo when it came out and I was like..... What the hell is this? This isn't Halo. Why am I seeing this assault rifle crosshair birds eye view. I can't shoot anything. And immediately deleted the demo because I didn't know what an RTS was and I just knew it wasn't a shooter, so I wasn't interested until a friend had me play Starcraft with him and then told me Halo wars was the same thing
As starcraft fan getting into early halo fps games, and when halo wars was announced and tried demo at release, my impression was: "WTF is this? this is like, BABY-EASY mode starcraft lol" But i still bought the game following weeks later cause i love aesthetics and halo lore.
This video brought me a lot of good and also sad nostalgia. I come from a broken family- I lived with my mom, who was a drug addict, and I never saw my dad because my mom would always try to kill him (He was the best man I have ever known in my life). My dad was old school- he loved fishing, playing guitar, wearing flannels and keeping his hair long (heh, I followed his footsteps now that I'm an adult). He knew I loved Halo, and one of the times he was able come see me without my mom being crazy, he gave me a copy of Halo Wars that he bought at a Game X Change, a store I know he wouldn't ever go to- but he went there just to get me this game. I have a ton of great memories of playing this on my old tube tv for hours. Rest in Peace, dad. He passed last year, 2 years I was able to reunite with him after becoming an adult. A great man.
One thing you forgot about Keyes is that Cortana writes a program to land the Autumn on Halo but he actually pilots it manually. He manually landed the Pillar of Autumn on Halo, that's pretty badass.
@@ScumRat42 yeah this video seems to forget that keyes doesnt have a ship and barely has any crew left and is waging essentially guriella warfare on the covenant upon the ring meanwhile cutter is asking questions and thinking tactically it doesnt put to light the completely different situations both captains are under one still very much conneted to the UNSC for most of the story and hast to think tactically about his resources the other is surrounded by a covenant fleet and is lucky to survive as far as he did because the covenant wouldnt glass the ring
2 Points I feel need to be stated in the defense of Cutter: 1) In regards to the fact that Keyes is deemed "more badass" than Cutter, something to keep in mind: Keyes *ran* from Reach. He didn't do what he was supposed to do, dude took off in a random direction and accidentally discovered Halo and left himself open to the six or so Covenant capital ships that gave chase to him. I was going to originally point he also lost his ship which is a *huge* deal in most military situations, he at least went down with it and eventually gave his life so it kinda worked out, but I just felt like Cutter has his moments where Keyes also fucks up pretty hard. 2) Cutter doesn't treat the covenant as a serious threat. From what I understand of the battle for Harvest: It started off as a suprirse attack by the covenant, a then-at-the-time unknown enemy for which the UNSC had no real idea how big it was going to be. Couple that with the fact that Cutter literally explained in the opening that the only reason they didn't have Harvest for sure yet is because Murphy's Law hit them like a speeding bus. It makes sense that he'd consider them a minor inconvenience because up to that point that's all they had been, the war hadn't broken out in full force yet so all he was dealing with was a small sub-sect of a much larger problem that he wouldn't ever become aware of due to events that occur in the game. I'm a huge Halo Wars fangirl, so my opinions are probably pretty biased, but I try to be as unbiased as possible when making critical comments like this and it feels like you're being a bit tough on Cutter here.
I feel like his criticism of the other characters is like this too. Like a lot of the characters do fit into the same archetypes that the original trilogy had but I think that's the point - it's meant to be homage and be familiar with people. Thing is while the characters do fit the same archetypes they're in different styles. Serina is a sarcastic AI like Cortana but her humor and style comes off more in the British style of sarcasm rather than Cortana's. Forge is a cocky badass like Johnson but is more direct and focused compared to Johnson's colorful enumerations. Douglas is a walking 10 foot machine like Chief but he comes off much more as a leader rather than a lone warrior. etc etc.
What could Keyes realistically do during the Fall of Reach though? He had one ship, two spartans on board (one which was in critical condition) and a very powerful AI made by Halsey that absolute shouldn't fall into enemy hands. Keyes even relays how important it is that Cortana does not fall into enemy hands because of the data regarding human defenses she holds Keys didn't run like some coward, he got the fuck out of dodge because staying would place humanity in an even worse circumstance, with both Chief dead and Cortana picked apart for information regarding Earth Also while under the flood's control, he did not give a single bit of info to them. All he kept doing was reciting his name, rank and service number despite the agony he was placed in. He went down with his ship and was not afraid to get his hands dirty in a fight Keyes remains one of the best of the UNSC because he did not falter under extreme stress and gave the flood little information to work with in consuming mankind. Which is an agonizing and horrific way to go His actions, even during the fall of reach saved humanity just as much as Chief and Cortana has, because without him and his decision to leave a planet that was doomed from the start the both of them would be dead and the Halo Array wouldn't have been discovered and it's truth remaining secret until it's too late The fleet that destroyed Reach was too much for the Pillar of Autumn to realistically win a battle against. To stay would be suicidal and lead to certain death, much like with the case for Noble 6 The covenant was just too damn powerful here for Keyes to do anything. Running was the ONLY option and picking a random direction tends to throw the enemy off, but the covenant had better slipspace travel so they were pretty much there before the Pillar of Autumn came out of slipspace. If cutters situation can be subject to Murphy's law than so can Captain Keyes as everything went wrong for him I don't think Cutter would have the same resilience if such a similar situation were to occur to him. But he stands as a shining example of the UNSC on his own, but he can't hold a candle to the heroics Captain Keyes displayed in the face of everything. He also didn't have a whole team of Spartans. Just one, with the other wounded in cryo
Read the book, it's pretty good. A lot of it got retconned, but basically it wasn't actually a random jump and Keyes got orders from up on high to keep Cortana away from the Covenant at any cost
The pillar of autumn was acting under something called the "Cole protocol" human ships under threat from the covenant were to jump at random to avoid drawing them to human worlds, and in the event of capture fry every computer and ai on board to prevent data from falling to enemy hands. Keys is a badass cause he felt the full force of the grave mind attempting to pick his brain to find earth and didn't give any information.
I 100 percent do not find that true the online community of this game is still alive and well every unit has a use. amazing strategy’s fantastic map design and hugely competitive the graphics are fine I play it to this day and it’s one of my all time favourite
@@RYZE_Reborn do people still play it online? I just started to play HW2 bc i thought the online from the 1st would be dead by now. I was good at the first. But havent played it in years so i most be a little rusty
I couldn't beat that part back in the day and never finished Halo Wars. Convinced my copy had a glitch with it because I followed fucking guides verbatim
It does make me sad that the great Ensamble Studios were shut down after Halo Wars, Ensamble were the legends that gave us RTS memories, they made the greatest RTS games, may the Forgotten continue Age of Empires series for us
How could anybody complain about the story of Halo Wars? I’ve never even had a slight issue with it. For a team that was not Bungie to make a halo game at the time in a totally different genre, they did amazing. Loved the characters (besides Anders).
100th like here. Storywise, I would put Halo wars in the top 3 of the series. Having a prophet and an Arbiter helped connect the events to the mainline story, and killing the Arbiter tied up the loose ends. They properly kept brutes and elites separate, just as Bungie did. I specifically love how the ship is constantly a part of the game, not just in cutscenes, whether it's destroying the tethers, using its weapons, fighting on its surface, or opening a huge door on the map for it to fit through. The story and level design are perfectly blended the entire time.
@@theneoreformationist Absolutely agree. Up until Halo Wars I didn’t even know that humanity had ships as enormous as the Spirit of Fire. It made much more sense to me that they would be able to wage war from a ship that big as opposed to in Halo CE when the pillar of autumn took on overwhelming odds. That’s one part of the story I felt like they nailed.
It fits perfectly within the story of Halo and gives us an interesting glimpse at the early Covenant war. The aesthetics are great. The Elites look fantastic, and the Marines are some of the best in the entire franchise. I'd love to have more Halo games like this, but as FPS.
Finally!, I found out why Ensemble studios shut down. I wondered to myself, why are they not making the next age of Empires? Then this explanation cleared my questions about them
The devs are still around in the gaming world though, to some extent some remain in a new studio robot entertainment (orcs must die etc) at microsoft others went on to make mobile games as Zynga that studio bought up a few other new developer companies made out of former Ensemble studio workers essentially gathering many under one roof, some are around in other developers aswell under various publisher. But while some are spread around they still make games for various plattforms for different companies.
The multiplayer 3v3 with the bois will always have a place in my all time favorite memories. They map with the gates makes it a game of 1v1 at the beginning where one person on each team was the rusher and HAD to control those gates while the other two saved and built the end game units. Such a solid and fun gameplay loop
The moment you see what true game dev's are : When nearly all of them, despite the inevitable comming, fought on and completet ONE OF THE BEST Shooter to RTS transition games EVER.
Am I the only one that only struggled on the Scarab head mission? Even on Normal it took me dozen of tries, and on Legendary, I think I still haven't actually finished it. All other missions were easy enough.
@@RoadRager1904 I found it quite easy if you mass produce warthogs and harass down everything with them. Infantry - run them over with the ability, armor - bump into them with your armada of angry warthogs. Once the generators were taken care off I just focused on the Scarab and basically got it down before it had even done a pass with its head.
Especially since Jul has a great backstory and is a super interesting character in the books. I was more invested in him than I ever was the (not thel vadam) Arbiter.
I actually thought it was a great way for Forge to defeat Ripa Moramee. There was no way Forge stood a chance at defeating Ripa head on. So he used his overconfidence against him. Anticlimactic... maybe. But clever and a well earned victory. Especially since you already get the intense action in the form of Spartan II destroying a group of Honor Guards.
If I had to choose between 343's Halo or Bungie keeping it and turning it into what Destiny is, I'd choose 343. I don't think 343 haters realise the bullet we dodged.
"Warthogs are perhaps the most iconic vehicles from the Halo games. Everyone knows what a Warthog sounds like, looks like, feels like, drives like. So getting that right is really important." These poor guys who were adapting a franchise they didn't want to tried harder than a group who enthusiastically adopted it. 343 changed everything about the 'hog that this man said. It sounds, looks, feels, and drives different.
That is partially incorrect considering they were minor changes made a by company that wanted to give their artistic hand a series instead confirming to the needs of a bunch of man children who couldn't accept change
@Nagger The Warthog in no Halo game has ever looked like a plastic toy (except maybe Combat Evolved only due to graphical limitations of the time.) That's an exaggeration at its finest and is literally a prime example of people who can't accept change nitpicking for the sake of nitpicking (and not any of the actual valid criticisms of the 343i Halo games.)
Jason Antonucci Here I opened your soy drink for you, pal. You’re totally right, just consume media and don’t complain about it. Spend your money, peon.
@@thebigyes8482 ooooo sometimes salty Because I'm defending 343. Sorry they didn't make carbon copies of halo 3 like y'all apparently want. Didn't realize defending just the warthogs design made me a mindless consumer. But you do you
It's heartbreaking what Microsoft did to this company. They truly loved their game, and Microsoft never gave them a chance. They barely knew anything about Halo and still made a game worthy of an Act Man awesome review. Wow.
I feel this game was hugely underrated. I remember playing the crap out of this when it came out, taking my X360 to my friends house every week to play through co-op. Just started playing this again on PC and really enjoying it
Wow, Bungie were real jerks. Seems like Ensemble really tried to stay faithful to the Halo franchise, and Bungie was like: "Nah, this IP is exclusively ours, stop whoring it out"
@@BullworthGraduate I think it's more about the fact they were pissed that another studio was not only using their IP, but they didn't get to say no to it. also this is all hindsight. Bungie employees could have been under the impression that ensemble wanted to use the halo wars IP
@@aniki6575 When you build something unique and pour 7 years of your life into it, I think you'd be annoyed to that the thing you created falls out of your control
@@Bo0Mgameplaya After all these years and I still haven't beaten Arcadia on legendary, and not for lack of trying. I sware the transports are at full health and I turn away for ten seconds to make more troops and suddenly I lose. Every other level is completed on legendary with gold except Arcadia.
@@frankficcle7081 the way I managed was making sure I kept that gauss warthog alive at all costs, used it for hit and run operations (against locusts and banshees) and then have it return for base defense, then sent warthogs to surround the transport ships, I completely ignored the first one that blows up anyways and just killed the wraith. So much guarding and managing 💀. Ohh and in the last few minutes a group of banshees fly in so I send the gauss warthog to defend the transports.
My favorite part is all the little details. Like the units voice lines and the fact that units could actually miss and the cool executions of melee units, honestly i really missed those in halo wars 2
So bungie threw shade at ensemble for creating a game they were forced to create? Tf kinda shit is that that's like getting mad the pizza delivery man because the cook made it wrong.
No that's like getting upset when someone takes something you specifically crafted and then a big corporation comes in and says that someone else gets to do something that you don't approve of with it. They have every right to be upset, go make a multi-million dollar franchise and then have corporate tell you that it's not yours anymore.
It wouldn't be as bad if they actually let you BUILD A DAMN BASE from the get go rather than pissing around, waiting to be told to. And by then the battlefield is swamped by Covenant.
Dome of Light Normal difficulty 1hr in: finally managed to get out of the base 2hrs in: Finally Rhino in place then... One of the others get destroyed Mission failed The worst 2hrs of my life I spent on a single mission 😭😭😭
"It's fun just watching your units fight each other." You got that right, my friend and I spent hours in 1v1 just seeing how different units matched up to each other. We had 2 Scarabs vs full marines just to see who would win and TBH I don't remember.
@@heededshadow509 The two Scarabs would win, but a Scarab would be lost in the process. A full pop of Marine's focusing RPG's on a single Scarab can do some SERIOUS damage.
Oh this game brings back so many memories such as my entire team of Captain Cutters using our combined Mac Blasts to take down a three star Scarab that was wrecking our team... Good times.
@@Enclavefakesoldier Well, to be fair, the Bungie we know is love is long gone. The Bungie creating Destiny isn't the same team. Joseph Staten is gone, they kicked Marty out, and only a scant few of the original team remain.
@@Omega4Productions Yeah I've swallowed that bitter Pill. I hope they can gain some of their former glory back now that they've broken ties with Activision.
Enclavefakesoldier They have stated that they can now explore what they want for Shadowkeep and future stuff now that they broke their ties with Activision so I have hope for them
As far as the story goes, I felt it was great. The characters were not meant to be these spectacular saviours of humanity, they're just a cog in the war machine.
It doesn't seem like matters though, he was talking about how good the characters are, how depth filled they are and how much emotion they show, maybe I'm wrong but I thought he was comparing characters, and not the settings they were in. Also, didn't Keyes have to (SPOILERS FOR HALO CE(maybe)) help stop the Covenant from getting whatever they want from the Halo Ring, try keep the Covenant at bay while his crew was escaping through lifeboats as well as, trying to warn the local super soldier and Intelligent AI to stay away from the Flood while his mind was getting ripped apart? Btw these questions aren't sarcasm I just don't have the best memory. Sorry if it seemed like it was sarcasm I don't mean to sound like a jerk.
@@halperbot1961 those are fair points but for the wrong argument. Sure, Keys doesn’t HAVE to help the good guys out but he chooses to help them out to maybe have them all get off the ring. Cutter is tasked with a planetary wide defense, where he has to not only command troops on the ground but protect the plants space from potential enemy reinforcements. Again, as I said in my comment, Keys at this point was no longer in charge of a ship, based off what we see in game, he may be a fighter and a good commander but he has no real idea what he’s doing when it comes to the fighting on the ring . He made some bad decisions such as not having the marines retreat when the flood showed up, and honestly, being there with the initial force was kind of a bad idea, just because he’s in charge of the entire force there. I don’t think it’s established on who’s next in command should he die. In fact the entire point of that one level was to get him back so they HAD some sort of chain of command. Anyway the point is, the way Acty compared them is unfair comparisons because they are in two completely different situations.
Cutter came across to me as someone whos been through enough shit, he doesn't dare let his guard down for the sake of the people he has to protect. There was no room for joking with Cutter, I liked that about his character
The real casualty was Ensemble studios They got shut down for no reason all their games made profit Now people who made such amazing like Age of empires series and halo wars are making mobile games scraping for their life Such is the huge corporation life bs
como latino que soy, escuchar la historia detrás de halo wars me parte el corazón porque se nota que solo alguien que sabe apreciar esa esencia de halo como es el "explorar y el miedo de lo que vas a descubrir pero quieres mas¡"... soy un "nerd" sobre halo y halo wars creo que es una joya
1:15 i think one of the reason Halo works so well as a shooter was that it started as a RTS. The need to create distinctive and recognizable units at a distance with only a glance. Something that carried over into the FPS part of the game.
My time spent in this game was astounding...1,300+ hours. My buddy almost had 2k. Mad underated, the gameplay was smooth and intuitive. A lot of rts snobs said the game was too simple...and to an extent, yes it was. For many this was their first taste of an RTS. It was welcoming, forgiving, fun. Just all around a solid CONSOLE rts
The level of nostalgia you are able to give us is a blessing. Honestly get choked up watching some of these videos. The way you take us back in time and accurately depict what things fealt like is really beautiful. Thank you.
Halo wars basically proved that you could make an RTS on console. I would argue it isn't near as good as Company of Heroes or Total War, but it's still pretty damned dope.
Halo Wars was the first Halo game I bought personally with my own money when I was 13, even though I had played and loved all the previous Halos, Halo Wars was something special too me.
I'll give Cutter some lax. He is, for me, older than Keyes was, and Harvest was the begining of the war, it wasn't yet a fight for survival in their eyes at the moment. Then I'm talking about what I know/remember from other media, so as a standalone and in comparaison to the main 3 games, yeah not great. Still pass.
Also I'm pretty sure Keyes lost his ship but Cutter still has his ship. So its important for him to stay on it since he is the Captain. Keyes lost his so he might as well fight.
Personally, I loved the original voice actor for cutter. Despite the lack of context and some questionable dialogue which seemed misplaced. He did fulfill the role of a strict grandfather figure very well. We see this side of him throughout the game, even when it came to being sucked into the planet, he did everything he could to bring his people to the ship rather then be lost across a hostile planet. Sure he had criticized almost every person on board his ship, but judging from his facial expressions and tones of his voice. He seems to do it in more of a joking manner, such as the scene with sanders when she took his observation deck. We also see the care he has for those he is sending into danger, such as again with Anders and Sergeant Forge. Even refusing to shoot his own crew member when seen as a significant threat if successfully interrogated, which was a near instant rejection after letting them finish speaking. This grandfather figure was certainly carried over from the original to a lesser extent, showing a more emotional side to him with the loss of Serena. However, the new Cutter to me seems slightly eccentric. Breaking his calm and composed demeanor to one that is fairly loud, energetic, and seemingly 15-20 years younger which calls the “Grandfather” role into question. Sure the original could have been dull to some people but it also reminds you of a parent, or grandparents. Especially when he scolds you for failing a mission, which at some points is clearly annoyed and disappointed. The new Cutter also seems a bit more bold and daring then the original which was a little cautious and calculating. Such as his emphasis on protecting Anders, or sending forage immediate support when told they found “something in the ice”. Which was basically the “true” beginning of the game. While in contrast, the “true” start to Halo Wars Two was the Spartans being forced to retreat by a overwhelming enemy with missiles launched from the ship being dangerously close to hitting them if something went wrong. Sure it looks great, but seems to be a bit to daring for the personality of Cutter I grew fond with.
Campaign wise I agree. But multiplayer (while fun) didn't really feel like an RTS. There's really only 3 viable strategies in the multiplayer that are consistently reliable.
Halo Wars is literally one of favorite game of all time If they tracked how many hours K had on this game it would over 60days easily. I haven’t played it recently but the soundtrack brings back so many amazing memories
You mention it briefly towards the end, but I think it should be emphasized that as generic as Halo Wars's story is, it's LEAGUES ahead of the jumbled crapfest that is Halo 5's campaign...
You are so right, my man! Halo Wars didnt mess anything up. And you know, at the end of the day, it was a fun ride. So I got respect for it and Ensemble
I love Halo Wars 1. Actually the little glowing things in the "Relic" are stars and locations of Human settlements that could be glassed. Those Forerunner ships would have given the Covenant the ability to Blitzkrieg Humanity faster than they already had.
There’s a neat trick you can do on the mission with the oversized stationary scarab. If you put a marine squad in the sniper tower in the center of the map, sometimes the scarab will fixate entirely on that one spot for the majority of the mission. This gives you more freedom to grab assets and destroy generators in tandem with setting up your cobras and rhinos on each side of the scarab. Also, I was one of the people who signed the online petition demanding a Halo Wars Sequel.
@@thearnorianruby4681 If you’re referring to the trick I mentioned, I just explained it in my comment. You put a marine squad in the sniper nest at the center of the map and the stationary scarab will fixate on that spot but will not be able to destroy it.
The Covenant would attack all 3 equally, but will of course attack just one ship when there's only one left. But it's not big deal if you spend your whole time building and prepare to protect just one, not all 3, failing then protecting two, then failing and protecting one, then failing. Just protecting one from the start and you'll win.
@@dominicscreativefilms I was about to say it isn't near me but I just found out after looking it up that there's a place with it about 20 minutes away. I know what I'm doing this weekend now.
Halo Wars was huge when it came out. It seemed like everyone had Halo Wars. I think every single person on my friends list had it. I remember this 1 kid from my school, I went on his profile to compare achievements (yes, I am 1 of them people) and the only games he had was FIFA 06-FIFA 10, Alien VS Predator and Halo Wars. When I seen he had Halo Wars I liked him a bit more.
This game was actually my introduction to real time strategy games, and I played it co-op online with a roommate on the multiplayer. SUUUUPER fun multiplayer when you're doing 2 v 2. Less fun for 1 v 1, but still good :)
I remmeber when I heard Spartans in Arcadia City and I was like, oh yeah we get Spartans for the hardest mission, and realized I couldn’t control them so I just ended up losing all 3 carriers
Truely they deserve respect for making such a nice game under all that pressure and knowing that they would be shut down after that. I have great respect for old Bungie for developing almost the entire Halo franchise, but no one should forget this small but excellent contribution to the franchise that Ensemble studios brought.
If u use cutter, u lol know this... “Hell jumper... O... O... ODST... Helljumper... Helljumper... ODST.. Helljumpers in the tube.” And “Mac Ma Ma Mac blast on the target.”
God I remember playing this on my Xbox 360 with two of my friends. We always played on the map with the two energy barriers in the middle. We dropped Elephants there and held out for as long as we could against the AI. Fun times. Real fun times. This was the last game I ever played with them before time took its toll and now I’m the only one left…
The original halo wars was a game I greatly enjoyed and I played it enough to reach max rank online before they reduced the xp you needed to get there. Its unfortunate to hear about the development, but it really shows the dedication to remaining faithful despite all of the restrictions that were placed on them. I still have fond memories of railing the primary base of the enemy team with teleported exploder grunts.
That connection you made between the opening scene and the production process got me thinking and I noticed another similarity. You pointed out how Captain Cutter quickly looses interest in Harvest and practically shrugs off the importance of it that we got from the intro. Wouldn't that also symbolize (in a way) how the production crew had to change mindsets on this game they were working on? They were putting so much effort into this baby of theirs and all the sudden, make it halo. Cutter was putting so much effort into Harvest and then all the sudden, go check out this planet. I'm sure the confusion and disappointment they felt from having their preconceptions of what the game might become being shut down is similar to how you and I feel about not getting to continue the fight on Harvest from start to finish. Just a thought I found interesting.
27:23 OKAY SO IT WASNT JUST ME!! I managed to beat the campaign on "Normal" difficulty (mind you I suck ASS at RTS games). I played Skirmish against the Cpu's (Heroic mostly) and spent more time in that. My dad would get annoyed when I spammed in ODST's when he was doing online classes on the computer 😂 " ODS...ODS....ODS...ODST away!"
I loved Halo Wars. I remember my cousin and I playing daily as Cutter and the prophet. We would start the match by the typical resource and territorial grabs, then intentionally let the opponents take everything but our lone bases. We would station Cobras and wolverines and a few flamethrowers, mixed with a LOT of engineers and a few hunters and vampires and play would we call, "hold the line". We had matches that actually went on for 5+ hours and watched as the opponents, that had everything, couldn't take down our last bases. Then after my 3 spartan cobras were maxed and we were done toying with the enemy, we retook the entire map. Great times!
I adored Halo Wars. Simple, fun, and well made IMO. Didnt know I liked strategy game until I played it, now some of my favorite games are strategy games. Also that music was great
5 years. 5 long years... that's how long it took for Act Man to review all the Halo games.
At first it was going well, but then Halo 4 and Halo 5 came out...
Hey, I just noticed that 7 (supposedly bungie's favorite number) cubed (7^3) is equal to 343. Kinda neat
ooooh shit here we go again
The Act Man I’m literally the only one playing on Xboxone today..
xMoon Bangerx
Who wanna play lol
I hope 343 brings back classic Halo!
Minesweep Raised to the fourth power it’s 2401, which was the name of the monitor for Halo 2.
Why is Halo Wars 1 so AWESOME!?
Me: well because-
and BAD!?
Me: *Careful Arbiter, what you say is herecy*
HERESY* YOU DUMB HEATHEN. 😂
*charges plasma pistol at the sheer incompetence of spelling*
A Piece Of Wet Cardboard is it? Act Man, what is Halo Wars’ purpose?
Is it?
@@TheActMan of course it is.
I already called the Ordo Hereticus of the Inquisition.........
ups, wait,.......wrong universe. :-)
"Why was Halo wars 1 so AWESOME?!"
Hell yeah!
"And Bad?!"
*Record scratching noises*
LOL! Hope most people ain't too triggered by that
Impossible
Yeah thats me, you're probably wondering how I got here
Lol I was..i made it to General and played it almost every day before......ps4
*Finish the Fight stops*
Y’know, this Arbiter’s death was kinda fitting. He acted incredibly annoyed or angered, and as an Arbiter probably expected to go out in a blaze of glory. Only he didn’t.
Love this
Yes, this. He was an asshole, so he died like an asshole.
from what i've read in the lore, rega moramee was a criminal before become an arbiter, prophet of regret specifically chose him after looking at his feats
It took until this video for me to realise that the Arbiter in Halo Wars wasn't the same Elite in the other games.
@@cancercentral9997 how? He dies in halo wars. 😂
Wow, I didn't realize how Ensemble were victims of Microsofts decisions and Bungies temper tantrums. Feel so bad for them. I hope those people we saw in the trailers moved on to fulfill their dreams.
One of the developers of Halo Wars, Sandy Petersen who was also an important Developer of Doom, Doom 2, Quake and moved on to form his own game company after being with Ensemble since 1997. He also has a TH-cam channel where he talks a lot about game design and his history making specific games he worked on.
@@SirNarax oh cool I didnt know Sandy worked on HW1, thats awesome
@@SirNarax yeah but he's never made another videogame. One mobile title, and now he makes board games. Bungie and Microsoft screwed him so hard he left the industry.
Definitely never giving Bungie money again.
@@bigdaddychemster1201 He didn't leave the game industry because he was fed up he never considered the video game industry and board games as separate entities he just like making games He is happy how it worked out now because where it put him today.
I wouldn't call them "Temper tantrums" makes bungie sound slightly immature. They had every right to be annoyed, especially with microsoft, just not with ensemble
Considering everything Ensemble had to deal with, Halo Wars turned out fantastic.
@vzdorr b Remember Rare
Honestly in my fav games today.
@Fozzerino Still had some of the best fight cutscenes in the franchise. Red Team vs the OG Arbiter's elite death squad. Holly hell that was amazing. And thats not even getting to the fact that Ensemble studios managed to get even deleted stuff from the past halos into Halo Wars. Such as making the flood somehow even scarier.
@@pugrider2002 I remember Alan Wake, still hurts that the only sequel we had was a fucking dlc.
Yep
It's sad they were murdered by moneysoft
For me is pretty good game, the only thing that fans don't like was because it was in a era where everyone wants FPS because of the hype of Halo 3
I at first was nervous about halo wars since it was an rts. But after gold starring every mission on legendary I can say it is a true halo game that is definitely deserving of praise. What a great, refreshing take on the franchise
@@ninja1man4u yup one of the best genre changes I've ever seen. It comes in and transitions from fps to rts very well. It's not the most advanced rst out there and could definitely steal a bunch of mechanics from other games as well, but for an uncertain foray into new territory for the series it was a good start.
Edit: really hope this one and halo wars 2 gets ported to pc.
I liked the game, but the multiplayer was awful. Only thing I didn't like.
@@joenuts8312 I actually only played multiplayer with my brother. Never the online so I don't know what is going on over there
Edited before the grammar Nazis arrive
@@dbkwk9 Its some really cancerous stuff, like mass producing a single cheap unit so you can have a massive army in no time
It's really great to hear that Marty helped to do soundtrack for the game, while rest of the Bungie seemed to not care alot.
Proves once again that Marty is an amazing guy. After watching interviews with him it's just the feeling I get "Wow I wanna be as passionate and nice as this guy"
Its kind of disheartening really. Assemble were forced to make a Halo rts. Instead of Bungie of helping them make the transition easier they kind... did barely much to help. And seeing Marty being the few peeps that were kind enough really shows how... troubling is working at Bungie even before Activision.
@@Deliveredmean42 yeah honestly Bungie was acting kind of immature blaming Ensemble for stuff out of their control
@@ntfoperative9432 you’d think that sort of bs would give ensemble employees cause to sue bungie
Stephen Rippy made the halo wars ost great. Don’t give Marty all the credit
Man what Bungie did is just .. Damn I had no idea this is what was happening. Here is a team that is trying their hardest not to upset anyone and trying to keep lights on in their office only to be hated upon.
Yeah, screw Bungie.
@@captainkirk265Honestly yeah, I love the OG Halo games, but all the Bungie dick riders forget that company wasn't all that great.
@@Thorfinn_Son_Of_Thorsyeah lot of them seem to not know that bungees were total Dick's to the guys making Halo Wars
ensamble do great halo my 1 fav game with what they have, now look a t halo infinite, clearly its eaise to defile this IP than recreate it, nothing good ever last
still better than 343
Old master chiefs voice sounds like the announcer in pvp without any coffee
T H E D R O P Z O N E I S C L E A R
Random Guy - lol I was literally thinking the same thing except replace the coffee with the announcer just getting his nuts squeezed
You should have talked about the soundtrack more. Easily the most underappreciated part of the game.
Do you know the song in the intro of the video?
Radio, he's so uncivilized
Ah, General Kenobi
@@Thenewkid691 spirit of fire
It's honestly one of the best sound tracks in any game
Ensemble: “Hey Microsoft! We’ve got this great and unique project named Phoenix we want your approval on!” Microsoft: “Were it so easy”
More like the response of Truth to Thel in Halo 2.
Ensemble: “[what you said in your comment]”
Microsoft: “No! You will not (have our approval).”
Ya know, I just realized. If Ensemble hadn't done halo wars, We would haven gotten 2, which means no banished.
If the og Halo wars never happened, what would Halo infinite look like?
Considering the Banished are an original concept completely divorced from the first Halo Wars and that 343 still could've created them at any time and used them in any way they wanted, probably not much different
@@nagger8216 yeah but it was made in halo wars 2. if the first one wasnt made the second one has zero to no chance of being mafe. so it would be differnt
@@banaminatigaming Reading comprehension isn't your strong suit huh?
@@tiddybagel Chill lol
@@tiddybagel (you sound quite aggressive, so calm down.)
Sometimes.... I lay awake at night, plagued by that horrible, terrible sound. I beg for it to end but I can never stop hearing it, and I cry myself to sleep as all through the night and in my nightmares I hear, "The transport ships have been destroyed. We need to restart this operation."
LOL! So relatable!
For me, it is the sound you hear after you get shot by a Jackal sniper 0.01 seconds after he spots you in Halo 2, legendary.
I still find it funny how Bungie left Microsoft because of bed buisness practices and then went to Activision.
This is not just ironic, this is stupid.
It's both
And then they accepted money from NetEase... It just keeps happening
Its bungie, what you expectet.
I know right? They wanted to go independent but didn't have the massive amounts of money required to make Destiny. Of all publishers they went to Activision though, I suppose it's better than EA. Actually I'm not sure what publisher would have both liked destiny and been good. At least they're independent now.
Bungie does sounds like a bit of a bunch of idiots.
While I love Halo wars now. I remember seeing the trailer for it and being so excited to play another halo game. I downloaded the Demo when it came out and I was like..... What the hell is this? This isn't Halo. Why am I seeing this assault rifle crosshair birds eye view. I can't shoot anything. And immediately deleted the demo because I didn't know what an RTS was and I just knew it wasn't a shooter, so I wasn't interested until a friend had me play Starcraft with him and then told me Halo wars was the same thing
As starcraft fan getting into early halo fps games, and when halo wars was announced and tried demo at release, my impression was:
"WTF is this? this is like, BABY-EASY mode starcraft lol" But i still bought the game following weeks later cause i love aesthetics and halo lore.
I did the exact same thing but i bought the game instead of downloading the demo 🤦♂️
Funny how I played RTS games long before I started playing FPS shooters
@@k.ridersodatsu8121 why is it baby easy because the game takes more than 2 minutes
Hey, a fellow person that knew RTS games because of Starcraft! Except CoH helped me more on that.
This video brought me a lot of good and also sad nostalgia.
I come from a broken family- I lived with my mom, who was a drug addict, and I never saw my dad because my mom would always try to kill him (He was the best man I have ever known in my life).
My dad was old school- he loved fishing, playing guitar, wearing flannels and keeping his hair long (heh, I followed his footsteps now that I'm an adult). He knew I loved Halo, and one of the times he was able come see me without my mom being crazy, he gave me a copy of Halo Wars that he bought at a Game X Change, a store I know he wouldn't ever go to- but he went there just to get me this game. I have a ton of great memories of playing this on my old tube tv for hours.
Rest in Peace, dad. He passed last year, 2 years I was able to reunite with him after becoming an adult. A great man.
Beautiful. I’m sorry for your loss
That moment you realize Halo Wars' opening cut scene is meta af. 😵
Ikr
Exactly like wtf that’s so crazy
Was really fucking cool, i've never heard of devs doing anything like that before. Just makes you hate microsoft even more.
Halo Wars was what actually introduced me to Halo so yeah this is one of my favorite Halos of all time
That's hella cool, man! Glad you discovered this awesome franchise through Halo Wars!
NCR Veteran Ranger Meléndez Chronologically it’s before the rest of the franchise so that’s actually pretty good to start off with.
Act Man needs to make a video on New Vegas
@@imswanronson3558 yes
It didn't introduce me, but is was the first I bought and played.
One thing you forgot about Keyes is that Cortana writes a program to land the Autumn on Halo but he actually pilots it manually. He manually landed the Pillar of Autumn on Halo, that's pretty badass.
Crash landed
Cutter is more badass
@@ScumRat42 yeah this video seems to forget that keyes doesnt have a ship and barely has any crew left and is waging essentially guriella warfare on the covenant upon the ring meanwhile cutter is asking questions and thinking tactically it doesnt put to light the completely different situations both captains are under one still very much conneted to the UNSC for most of the story and hast to think tactically about his resources the other is surrounded by a covenant fleet and is lucky to survive as far as he did because the covenant wouldnt glass the ring
2 Points I feel need to be stated in the defense of Cutter:
1) In regards to the fact that Keyes is deemed "more badass" than Cutter, something to keep in mind: Keyes *ran* from Reach. He didn't do what he was supposed to do, dude took off in a random direction and accidentally discovered Halo and left himself open to the six or so Covenant capital ships that gave chase to him. I was going to originally point he also lost his ship which is a *huge* deal in most military situations, he at least went down with it and eventually gave his life so it kinda worked out, but I just felt like Cutter has his moments where Keyes also fucks up pretty hard.
2) Cutter doesn't treat the covenant as a serious threat. From what I understand of the battle for Harvest: It started off as a suprirse attack by the covenant, a then-at-the-time unknown enemy for which the UNSC had no real idea how big it was going to be. Couple that with the fact that Cutter literally explained in the opening that the only reason they didn't have Harvest for sure yet is because Murphy's Law hit them like a speeding bus. It makes sense that he'd consider them a minor inconvenience because up to that point that's all they had been, the war hadn't broken out in full force yet so all he was dealing with was a small sub-sect of a much larger problem that he wouldn't ever become aware of due to events that occur in the game.
I'm a huge Halo Wars fangirl, so my opinions are probably pretty biased, but I try to be as unbiased as possible when making critical comments like this and it feels like you're being a bit tough on Cutter here.
I feel like his criticism of the other characters is like this too. Like a lot of the characters do fit into the same archetypes that the original trilogy had but I think that's the point - it's meant to be homage and be familiar with people. Thing is while the characters do fit the same archetypes they're in different styles. Serina is a sarcastic AI like Cortana but her humor and style comes off more in the British style of sarcasm rather than Cortana's. Forge is a cocky badass like Johnson but is more direct and focused compared to Johnson's colorful enumerations. Douglas is a walking 10 foot machine like Chief but he comes off much more as a leader rather than a lone warrior. etc etc.
What could Keyes realistically do during the Fall of Reach though? He had one ship, two spartans on board (one which was in critical condition) and a very powerful AI made by Halsey that absolute shouldn't fall into enemy hands. Keyes even relays how important it is that Cortana does not fall into enemy hands because of the data regarding human defenses she holds
Keys didn't run like some coward, he got the fuck out of dodge because staying would place humanity in an even worse circumstance, with both Chief dead and Cortana picked apart for information regarding Earth
Also while under the flood's control, he did not give a single bit of info to them. All he kept doing was reciting his name, rank and service number despite the agony he was placed in. He went down with his ship and was not afraid to get his hands dirty in a fight
Keyes remains one of the best of the UNSC because he did not falter under extreme stress and gave the flood little information to work with in consuming mankind. Which is an agonizing and horrific way to go
His actions, even during the fall of reach saved humanity just as much as Chief and Cortana has, because without him and his decision to leave a planet that was doomed from the start the both of them would be dead and the Halo Array wouldn't have been discovered and it's truth remaining secret until it's too late
The fleet that destroyed Reach was too much for the Pillar of Autumn to realistically win a battle against. To stay would be suicidal and lead to certain death, much like with the case for Noble 6
The covenant was just too damn powerful here for Keyes to do anything. Running was the ONLY option and picking a random direction tends to throw the enemy off, but the covenant had better slipspace travel so they were pretty much there before the Pillar of Autumn came out of slipspace. If cutters situation can be subject to Murphy's law than so can Captain Keyes as everything went wrong for him
I don't think Cutter would have the same resilience if such a similar situation were to occur to him. But he stands as a shining example of the UNSC on his own, but he can't hold a candle to the heroics Captain Keyes displayed in the face of everything. He also didn't have a whole team of Spartans. Just one, with the other wounded in cryo
Read the book, it's pretty good. A lot of it got retconned, but basically it wasn't actually a random jump and Keyes got orders from up on high to keep Cortana away from the Covenant at any cost
Cutter was alright I'l say that
The pillar of autumn was acting under something called the "Cole protocol" human ships under threat from the covenant were to jump at random to avoid drawing them to human worlds, and in the event of capture fry every computer and ai on board to prevent data from falling to enemy hands.
Keys is a badass cause he felt the full force of the grave mind attempting to pick his brain to find earth and didn't give any information.
Every Halo Wars fan when hearing criticism: This is Spartan Team Omega, if they want war, we'll give um war.
I love Halo Wars. It was one of my first Xbox 360 games. I never played a RTS game before.
And when they're done: and for the record, I would have kicked your ass the first time if the lady hadn't stopped me
Halo Wars was good for its time, if you're playing in 2020, you will probably need to download 500 mods to satisfy your want for a cool game.
I 100 percent do not find that true the online community of this game is still alive and well every unit has a use. amazing strategy’s fantastic map design and hugely competitive the graphics are fine I play it to this day and it’s one of my all time favourite
@@RYZE_Reborn do people still play it online? I just started to play HW2 bc i thought the online from the 1st would be dead by now. I was good at the first. But havent played it in years so i most be a little rusty
THE TRANSPORT SHIPS HAVE BEEN DESTROYED will haunt my dreams for eternity
I couldn't beat that part back in the day and never finished Halo Wars. Convinced my copy had a glitch with it because I followed fucking guides verbatim
I fucking hated that level
I remember coming home and playing that mission until my mom said to sleep everyday after school for like a week before I beat it.
SHUT THE FUCK UP, CUTTER. I GET IT! I FAILED!!!
THE TRANSPORT HAVE BEEN DESTROYED...again.
It does make me sad that the great Ensamble Studios were shut down after Halo Wars, Ensamble were the legends that gave us RTS memories, they made the greatest RTS games, may the Forgotten continue Age of Empires series for us
Love the comment❤, but no like sorry... has to stay on 69 lol
How could anybody complain about the story of Halo Wars? I’ve never even had a slight issue with it. For a team that was not Bungie to make a halo game at the time in a totally different genre, they did amazing. Loved the characters (besides Anders).
I thought it was damn near perfect imo.
100th like here. Storywise, I would put Halo wars in the top 3 of the series. Having a prophet and an Arbiter helped connect the events to the mainline story, and killing the Arbiter tied up the loose ends. They properly kept brutes and elites separate, just as Bungie did. I specifically love how the ship is constantly a part of the game, not just in cutscenes, whether it's destroying the tethers, using its weapons, fighting on its surface, or opening a huge door on the map for it to fit through. The story and level design are perfectly blended the entire time.
@@theneoreformationist idk how but this is the first time im hearing of halo wars even though i played from halo ce to halo 4
@@theneoreformationist Absolutely agree. Up until Halo Wars I didn’t even know that humanity had ships as enormous as the Spirit of Fire. It made much more sense to me that they would be able to wage war from a ship that big as opposed to in Halo CE when the pillar of autumn took on overwhelming odds.
That’s one part of the story I felt like they nailed.
It fits perfectly within the story of Halo and gives us an interesting glimpse at the early Covenant war. The aesthetics are great. The Elites look fantastic, and the Marines are some of the best in the entire franchise.
I'd love to have more Halo games like this, but as FPS.
Finally!, I found out why Ensemble studios shut down. I wondered to myself, why are they not making the next age of Empires? Then this explanation cleared my questions about them
RIP Age of Empires. 😭
The devs are still around in the gaming world though, to some extent some remain in a new studio robot entertainment (orcs must die etc) at microsoft others went on to make mobile games as Zynga that studio bought up a few other new developer companies made out of former Ensemble studio workers essentially gathering many under one roof, some are around in other developers aswell under various publisher. But while some are spread around they still make games for various plattforms for different companies.
@@Dermetsu Well definitive edition is a thing...
Aoe4 bro :D
The multiplayer 3v3 with the bois will always have a place in my all time favorite memories. They map with the gates makes it a game of 1v1 at the beginning where one person on each team was the rusher and HAD to control those gates while the other two saved and built the end game units. Such a solid and fun gameplay loop
The absolute best map
The moment you see what true game dev's are : When nearly all of them, despite the inevitable comming, fought on and completet ONE OF THE BEST Shooter to RTS transition games EVER.
"I survived Legendary Arcadia City" needs to be on a T-shirt
YES
This!
That was the one mission I never beat on ledgendary....
Am I the only one that only struggled on the Scarab head mission? Even on Normal it took me dozen of tries, and on Legendary, I think I still haven't actually finished it. All other missions were easy enough.
@@RoadRager1904 I found it quite easy if you mass produce warthogs and harass down everything with them. Infantry - run them over with the ability, armor - bump into them with your armada of angry warthogs. Once the generators were taken care off I just focused on the Scarab and basically got it down before it had even done a pass with its head.
TheActMan on arbiters death: "well that was a pretty lame way to die"
343 industries with jul 'mdama battle on halo 5: "hold my beer"
I didn't know joe mama was in Halo 5
Especially since Jul has a great backstory and is a super interesting character in the books. I was more invested in him than I ever was the (not thel vadam) Arbiter.
I actually thought it was a great way for Forge to defeat Ripa Moramee. There was no way Forge stood a chance at defeating Ripa head on. So he used his overconfidence against him. Anticlimactic... maybe. But clever and a well earned victory. Especially since you already get the intense action in the form of Spartan II destroying a group of Honor Guards.
At least Jul try to put up a fight the arbiter was basically gloating and got overconfident
In ensemble and 343's defense, bungie seems to have a lot of trouple recapturing the magic it used to have if Destiny is anything to go buy
If I had to choose between 343's Halo or Bungie keeping it and turning it into what Destiny is, I'd choose 343.
I don't think 343 haters realise the bullet we dodged.
@@ShadicRothZz1998 I ain't a 343 hater, but Activision kinda forced bungie to do shit like that.
@@s0n4r89for D1 and year 1-2 of D2? Yeah you can use that explaination, but what about now?
@@Spartan-sz7km That comment was before they split from Activision. Yeah, they suck now.
@@s0n4r89 Ur comment was 6 months ago. They spilt like almost 2 years ago in 2019 my dude
The way ensemble disintegrated is honestly so tragic. The way publishers always harm the development and gaming industry as a whole is so sad
"Warthogs are perhaps the most iconic vehicles from the Halo games. Everyone knows what a Warthog sounds like, looks like, feels like, drives like. So getting that right is really important."
These poor guys who were adapting a franchise they didn't want to tried harder than a group who enthusiastically adopted it. 343 changed everything about the 'hog that this man said. It sounds, looks, feels, and drives different.
That is partially incorrect considering they were minor changes made a by company that wanted to give their artistic hand a series instead confirming to the needs of a bunch of man children who couldn't accept change
@Autismo I have a feeling it's been a few years since you've seen either a Lego or the new warthog if that's how you describe
@Nagger The Warthog in no Halo game has ever looked like a plastic toy (except maybe Combat Evolved only due to graphical limitations of the time.) That's an exaggeration at its finest and is literally a prime example of people who can't accept change nitpicking for the sake of nitpicking (and not any of the actual valid criticisms of the 343i Halo games.)
Jason Antonucci Here I opened your soy drink for you, pal. You’re totally right, just consume media and don’t complain about it. Spend your money, peon.
@@thebigyes8482 ooooo sometimes salty Because I'm defending 343. Sorry they didn't make carbon copies of halo 3 like y'all apparently want. Didn't realize defending just the warthogs design made me a mindless consumer. But you do you
Halo wars is what got me into the RTS genre.
Same
Same here
same after halo war's I got the master piece that is the supreme commander series.
Starcraft/age of empires is what introduced me into it, so I was excited when halo wars came out
It's heartbreaking what Microsoft did to this company. They truly loved their game, and Microsoft never gave them a chance. They barely knew anything about Halo and still made a game worthy of an Act Man awesome review. Wow.
3:00 the “select all units” joke was under-appreciated
Local units
@@dmoreoboe Turret complete.
@@Void_Wars Turret upgraded
@@dmoreoboe a BaSe Is UnDeR aTtAcK
Od ooooo oooo ooodddsst
Someone on enemy team in multiplayer: Gets ODST drop ability
Me: We found something under the ice *Pulls out Scarab*
np, *gets a 13 star scorpian*
@@The-Omega-Blade Oh what is this I've got a second Scarab.
@@insaincaldo i can get 3 13 star tanks y'know.
*and that's only a fraction of my army* look over there _points to 15 cobra wall_
@Fozzy W *lemme just spawn an entire army and rocket yours for a sec*
@Fozzy W hahahahahahahaahahahahahahahaha no people were to fucking lazy to counter
*Patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for The Act Man to make a "Why Fallout New Vegas Was So Awesome"*
Welcome back, trooper.
somehow i knew you would comment that
Degenerates like you belong on a cross.
Ave, true to Caesar.
Please spam this on every new video. New Vegas is a gem
Fallout 4-3-new Vegas are all amazing fucking games fight me
I feel this game was hugely underrated. I remember playing the crap out of this when it came out, taking my X360 to my friends house every week to play through co-op.
Just started playing this again on PC and really enjoying it
Ngl there when the main menu music started, it kinda made me cry, it’s just touching
Wow, Bungie were real jerks.
Seems like Ensemble really tried to stay faithful to the Halo franchise, and Bungie was like: "Nah, this IP is exclusively ours, stop whoring it out"
They were mad at Microsoft..
@@SeFu2006 - Even if Bungie was mad at Microsoft, it still didn't give them the right to act like dicks towards Ensemble.
@@BullworthGraduate I think it's more about the fact they were pissed that another studio was not only using their IP, but they didn't get to say no to it. also this is all hindsight. Bungie employees could have been under the impression that ensemble wanted to use the halo wars IP
@@59hawks they're grownass men working on a billion dollar IP under a mega corporation and they were acting like 5 year old playground bullies
@@aniki6575 When you build something unique and pour 7 years of your life into it, I think you'd be annoyed to that the thing you created falls out of your control
I’m glad I’m not the only one who felt that Arcadia City was significantly harder than the other missions.
Doing it twice (on 360 then PC) hurt my soul 💀
It was my last mission to beat on Legendary. And it was absolute HELL. I had as many good skulls on as possible and even then, it was so stressful.
@@Bo0Mgameplaya After all these years and I still haven't beaten Arcadia on legendary, and not for lack of trying. I sware the transports are at full health and I turn away for ten seconds to make more troops and suddenly I lose.
Every other level is completed on legendary with gold except Arcadia.
god that mission made me quit playing during my first playthrough(and ive only went back to it and beat it last year)
@@frankficcle7081 the way I managed was making sure I kept that gauss warthog alive at all costs, used it for hit and run operations (against locusts and banshees) and then have it return for base defense, then sent warthogs to surround the transport ships, I completely ignored the first one that blows up anyways and just killed the wraith. So much guarding and managing 💀. Ohh and in the last few minutes a group of banshees fly in so I send the gauss warthog to defend the transports.
The cutscenes still are some of the most beautiful I’ve seen. Up there with the beginning of Diablo 3 in terms of realism for the era.
"we all make it sooner or later"
Jorge.... Oh how we miss you.....
went in cyrosleep and came out with different voice actors
Cutter is also 28 years older.
@@thehalfdutchman-dutch1211 not really
Puberty.
All the character in HW1 were CGI with voice actors while all the characters in HW2 had live actors as their models and voices.
Hate it when that happens
My favorite part is all the little details. Like the units voice lines and the fact that units could actually miss and the cool executions of melee units, honestly i really missed those in halo wars 2
and detail and uniqueness of the maps
completely agree
And especially how when you used pelican transport it actually does show a little warthog, tank whatever you used it on. Its was beautiful
Halo Wars is an absolute gem of a gem. I still find myself playing it all these years later
I love HW. It was my childhood game. Now after hearing about its rough development, I love it even more. I'm glad it survived.
So bungie threw shade at ensemble for creating a game they were forced to create? Tf kinda shit is that that's like getting mad the pizza delivery man because the cook made it wrong.
No that's like getting upset when someone takes something you specifically crafted and then a big corporation comes in and says that someone else gets to do something that you don't approve of with it. They have every right to be upset, go make a multi-million dollar franchise and then have corporate tell you that it's not yours anymore.
@@CloneLoli then get mad at Microsoft, WTF did ensemble do to deserve bungies shit?
@@madmonkeys88 true true
@@CloneLoli it was never ensemble's fault, microsoft was was the one who made the call.
@@CloneLoli Yeah, Ensemble were just as annoyed because Pheonix was going to be THEIR own UNIQUE IP. But they were FORCED to turn it into a Halo game.
arcadia city. literally halo 2 on legendary. pure hell.
3 hours of failure.
i did not feel accomplishment beating it.
What difficulty?
I remember before stupid cloud deleted my old save file, I had gotten the golden medal on every mission besides the second one and I didn't know why.
It wouldn't be as bad if they actually let you BUILD A DAMN BASE from the get go rather than pissing around, waiting to be told to. And by then the battlefield is swamped by Covenant.
Dome of Light
Normal difficulty
1hr in: finally managed to get out of the base
2hrs in: Finally Rhino in place then...
One of the others get destroyed
Mission failed
The worst 2hrs of my life I spent on a single mission
😭😭😭
Trying to get the achievement for destroying the covenant base on it 😭
The music in Halo Wars is actually some of my favorite in the franchise.
"It's fun just watching your units fight each other." You got that right, my friend and I spent hours in 1v1 just seeing how different units matched up to each other. We had 2 Scarabs vs full marines just to see who would win and TBH I don't remember.
Probably the scarab. They liquidize infantry with a single beam shot
@@heededshadow509 The two Scarabs would win, but a Scarab would be lost in the process. A full pop of Marine's focusing RPG's on a single Scarab can do some SERIOUS damage.
Oh this game brings back so many memories such as my entire team of Captain Cutters using our combined Mac Blasts to take down a three star Scarab that was wrecking our team... Good times.
"whoring out the franchise". I find this line ironic, given how they basically did exactly that when they gave up the license for good.
And the fustercluck regarding D2 on launch
@@Enclavefakesoldier Well, to be fair, the Bungie we know is love is long gone. The Bungie creating Destiny isn't the same team. Joseph Staten is gone, they kicked Marty out, and only a scant few of the original team remain.
They sure did. And they basically did the same with Destiny by whoring it out to Activision
@@Omega4Productions Yeah I've swallowed that bitter Pill. I hope they can gain some of their former glory back now that they've broken ties with Activision.
Enclavefakesoldier They have stated that they can now explore what they want for Shadowkeep and future stuff now that they broke their ties with Activision so I have hope for them
As far as the story goes, I felt it was great. The characters were not meant to be these spectacular saviours of humanity, they're just a cog in the war machine.
The comparison between Keys and Cutter isn’t exactly fair: Keys wasn’t in charge of a ship at that point, Cutter has to protect an entire planet
It doesn't seem like matters though, he was talking about how good the characters are, how depth filled they are and how much emotion they show, maybe I'm wrong but I thought he was comparing characters, and not the settings they were in.
Also, didn't Keyes have to (SPOILERS FOR HALO CE(maybe)) help stop the Covenant from getting whatever they want from the Halo Ring, try keep the Covenant at bay while his crew was escaping through lifeboats as well as, trying to warn the local super soldier and Intelligent AI to stay away from the Flood while his mind was getting ripped apart?
Btw these questions aren't sarcasm I just don't have the best memory. Sorry if it seemed like it was sarcasm I don't mean to sound like a jerk.
@@halperbot1961 those are fair points but for the wrong argument. Sure, Keys doesn’t HAVE to help the good guys out but he chooses to help them out to maybe have them all get off the ring. Cutter is tasked with a planetary wide defense, where he has to not only command troops on the ground but protect the plants space from potential enemy reinforcements.
Again, as I said in my comment, Keys at this point was no longer in charge of a ship, based off what we see in game, he may be a fighter and a good commander but he has no real idea what he’s doing when it comes to the fighting on the ring . He made some bad decisions such as not having the marines retreat when the flood showed up, and honestly, being there with the initial force was kind of a bad idea, just because he’s in charge of the entire force there. I don’t think it’s established on who’s next in command should he die. In fact the entire point of that one level was to get him back so they HAD some sort of chain of command.
Anyway the point is, the way Acty compared them is unfair comparisons because they are in two completely different situations.
@@varsityreviews707 Ohhhh ok. I'm Sorry, I read your comment wrong.
@@halperbot1961 no it’s all good
Cutter came across to me as someone whos been through enough shit, he doesn't dare let his guard down for the sake of the people he has to protect. There was no room for joking with Cutter, I liked that about his character
The real casualty was Ensemble studios
They got shut down for no reason all their games made profit
Now people who made such amazing like Age of empires series and halo wars are making mobile games scraping for their life
Such is the huge corporation life bs
One of the best parts of halo wars is that it made the marines look like total badasses
yeah even them
I liked their armor but I thought it was a little weird how different it looks from all the other games
I personally see a halo 1 helmet with a color changing visor with halo 3 / 2 armor
como latino que soy, escuchar la historia detrás de halo wars me parte el corazón porque se nota que solo alguien que sabe apreciar esa esencia de halo como es el "explorar y el miedo de lo que vas a descubrir pero quieres mas¡"... soy un "nerd" sobre halo y halo wars creo que es una joya
1:15 i think one of the reason Halo works so well as a shooter was that it started as a RTS. The need to create distinctive and recognizable units at a distance with only a glance. Something that carried over into the FPS part of the game.
I love Halo Wars. I put so many hours into it. I have all the achievements except beat the campaign on Legendary.
Its very hard to even beat it on legendary u die almost quick
I did, but only with easy skulls
You absolute mad lad
The Act Man plus the amazing music in Wars. Such an amazing game.
halo wars in legendary is hard af
A company that got neglected while trying to be respectful to the original content.
Make me wish they took over the Halo series after Bungie left. 😅
"Bungie"
@FXII Beaver yeah, bungie
My time spent in this game was astounding...1,300+ hours. My buddy almost had 2k. Mad underated, the gameplay was smooth and intuitive. A lot of rts snobs said the game was too simple...and to an extent, yes it was. For many this was their first taste of an RTS. It was welcoming, forgiving, fun. Just all around a solid CONSOLE rts
The level of nostalgia you are able to give us is a blessing. Honestly get choked up watching some of these videos. The way you take us back in time and accurately depict what things fealt like is really beautiful.
Thank you.
The mega bloks from the original halo wars was what turned me into halo fan. The very first spartan and elite figures were beautiful.
I still collect those itty bitty things. I just find the so adorable ^-^
Have you seen the new stuff?? Absolutely amazing. They are doing tons of Bungie stuff now
Man if only i had all of my old sets. Long gone now but i still collect. The new figs are great.
I still have a bunch of mega bloks mk 4 spartans. I miss the days of creating epic battles with them.
i haven't touched mine in years, but I loved collecting an army of spartans growing up lol
Halo wars basically proved that you could make an RTS on console.
I would argue it isn't near as good as Company of Heroes or Total War, but it's still pretty damned dope.
Ikr, i love this game, one of my favorite halos
Halo Wars was the first Halo game I bought personally with my own money when I was 13, even though I had played and loved all the previous Halos, Halo Wars was something special too me.
I'll give Cutter some lax. He is, for me, older than Keyes was, and Harvest was the begining of the war, it wasn't yet a fight for survival in their eyes at the moment.
Then I'm talking about what I know/remember from other media, so as a standalone and in comparaison to the main 3 games, yeah not great. Still pass.
Also I'm pretty sure Keyes lost his ship but Cutter still has his ship. So its important for him to stay on it since he is the Captain. Keyes lost his so he might as well fight.
Personally, I loved the original voice actor for cutter. Despite the lack of context and some questionable dialogue which seemed misplaced.
He did fulfill the role of a strict grandfather figure very well. We see this side of him throughout the game, even when it came to being sucked into the planet, he did everything he could to bring his people to the ship rather then be lost across a hostile planet. Sure he had criticized almost every person on board his ship, but judging from his facial expressions and tones of his voice. He seems to do it in more of a joking manner, such as the scene with sanders when she took his observation deck. We also see the care he has for those he is sending into danger, such as again with Anders and Sergeant Forge.
Even refusing to shoot his own crew member when seen as a significant threat if successfully interrogated, which was a near instant rejection after letting them finish speaking.
This grandfather figure was certainly carried over from the original to a lesser extent, showing a more emotional side to him with the loss of Serena. However, the new Cutter to me seems slightly eccentric. Breaking his calm and composed demeanor to one that is fairly loud, energetic, and seemingly 15-20 years younger which calls the “Grandfather” role into question. Sure the original could have been dull to some people but it also reminds you of a parent, or grandparents. Especially when he scolds you for failing a mission, which at some points is clearly annoyed and disappointed. The new Cutter also seems a bit more bold and daring then the original which was a little cautious and calculating.
Such as his emphasis on protecting Anders, or sending forage immediate support when told they found “something in the ice”. Which was basically the “true” beginning of the game. While in contrast, the “true” start to Halo Wars Two was the Spartans being forced to retreat by a overwhelming enemy with missiles launched from the ship being dangerously close to hitting them if something went wrong. Sure it looks great, but seems to be a bit to daring for the personality of Cutter I grew fond with.
Halo Wars was a fantastic game and a great RTS.(in my opinion) That and Endwar on the 360 were my favorite games.
Mate End War was amazing
@@Halcyon_games Yeahh! I still remember the rifleman rush strat,
@@SaltyRocksPew oh hell yes, can't lie either the infantry look awesome when you charge 4 units of them up that like hill map
Campaign wise I agree. But multiplayer (while fun) didn't really feel like an RTS. There's really only 3 viable strategies in the multiplayer that are consistently reliable.
YOOOO!! Endwar was awesome!
33:50
Yeah that rock paper scissors design.
Where infantry beat air. Air beats buildings. And Scorpions beat everything.
Wait what?
mosdeadly98 what about hunters
John Camp halo wars the scorpions were op, the hunters who were designed to be a counter to, lacked mobility and would just get kited down
Tank beats everything
Tank beats Hunters.
Tank beats Ghosts!
Tank beats EVERYTHING!!
I fielded Vultures. Get about six of them flying around with upgraded missile barrage and just sit back.
Halo Wars is literally one of favorite game of all time If they tracked how many hours K had on this game it would over 60days easily. I haven’t played it recently but the soundtrack brings back so many amazing memories
I can only imagine the gratitude the former Ensemble team has for you for giving them the recognition they deserve.
You mention it briefly towards the end, but I think it should be emphasized that as generic as Halo Wars's story is, it's LEAGUES ahead of the jumbled crapfest that is Halo 5's campaign...
@343Films Wait, Halo 5 existed? I forgot it even happened...
That is undoubtedly true
You are so right, my man! Halo Wars didnt mess anything up. And you know, at the end of the day, it was a fun ride. So I got respect for it and Ensemble
I love Halo Wars 1. Actually the little glowing things in the "Relic" are stars and locations of Human settlements that could be glassed. Those Forerunner ships would have given the Covenant the ability to Blitzkrieg Humanity faster than they already had.
Spirit of Fire made it possible for the war to drag out for 21 more years and gave them time to win
"So if you hate urself play that" me with the legendary achievment in this game, and yeah Arcida city hard mission.
There’s a neat trick you can do on the mission with the oversized stationary scarab. If you put a marine squad in the sniper tower in the center of the map, sometimes the scarab will fixate entirely on that one spot for the majority of the mission. This gives you more freedom to grab assets and destroy generators in tandem with setting up your cobras and rhinos on each side of the scarab.
Also, I was one of the people who signed the online petition demanding a Halo Wars Sequel.
Nice, I had that happen too with the tower on the right and won with a handful of units.
How do I do this?
@@thearnorianruby4681 If you’re referring to the trick I mentioned, I just explained it in my comment. You put a marine squad in the sniper nest at the center of the map and the stationary scarab will fixate on that spot but will not be able to destroy it.
@@LordHayabusa85 infinite health?
@@thearnorianruby4681 No, the scarab just can’t destroy the sniper nest.
In Arcadia City, just protect one ship with everything you have, rather than trying to save all 3.
I think that was the problem; they would strike that one ship hard with everything they've got...
The Covenant would attack all 3 equally, but will of course attack just one ship when there's only one left.
But it's not big deal if you spend your whole time building and prepare to protect just one, not all 3, failing then protecting two, then failing and protecting one, then failing.
Just protecting one from the start and you'll win.
Number 3 is scripted to die anyways. It could be in no danger but the same cutscene plays where it crashes.
"I'm about to check off the last Halo game."
Spartan Assault/Strike cry in a corner
Phone games don't count to me, baybee
@@TheActMan because mobile gamers suck
@@TheActMan That's fair. I at least played it on PC but I still wasn't that fond of it lol
Halo Fireteam Raven: "Am I a joke to you?"
@@dominicscreativefilms I was about to say it isn't near me but I just found out after looking it up that there's a place with it about 20 minutes away. I know what I'm doing this weekend now.
Halo Wars was huge when it came out. It seemed like everyone had Halo Wars. I think every single person on my friends list had it.
I remember this 1 kid from my school, I went on his profile to compare achievements (yes, I am 1 of them people) and the only games he had was FIFA 06-FIFA 10, Alien VS Predator and Halo Wars. When I seen he had Halo Wars I liked him a bit more.
This game was actually my introduction to real time strategy games, and I played it co-op online with a roommate on the multiplayer. SUUUUPER fun multiplayer when you're doing 2 v 2. Less fun for 1 v 1, but still good :)
Bungie had Jason Jones
Ensemble had Jerome Jones
Murphy's Law strikes again
This guy deserves more views and subscribers
You say this like you aren't a subscriber hahaha! Thanks man! I appreciate it so much
No fucking way, you actually replied, thank you, keep up the great videos
I remmeber when I heard Spartans in Arcadia City and I was like, oh yeah we get Spartans for the hardest mission, and realized I couldn’t control them so I just ended up losing all 3 carriers
When she's callin' you at 3am and you're selecting LOCAL UNITS.
*tips hat for old Ensemble Studios
maker of my childhood, bringer of wololo... the unyielding developer of Halo Wars
Truely they deserve respect for making such a nice game under all that pressure and knowing that they would be shut down after that. I have great respect for old Bungie for developing almost the entire Halo franchise, but no one should forget this small but excellent contribution to the franchise that Ensemble studios brought.
If u use cutter, u lol know this...
“Hell jumper... O... O... ODST... Helljumper... Helljumper... ODST.. Helljumpers in the tube.”
And
“Mac Ma Ma Mac blast on the target.”
lmao i remember
Cutter is my main and this is perfectly accurate
ah the memories .
God loves the infantry.
Sounds like that final desperate push on the last base lol
Man, I never really thought about how much of a Badass Captain Keyes is. He could be expanded on so much more too.
You'd like the Fall of Reach and the Cole Protocol then if you haven't read them already
God I remember playing this on my Xbox 360 with two of my friends. We always played on the map with the two energy barriers in the middle. We dropped Elephants there and held out for as long as we could against the AI. Fun times. Real fun times. This was the last game I ever played with them before time took its toll and now I’m the only one left…
"This is Spartan Group Omega. If they want a war, we'll give em a war." *nut*
Gotta be the underrated line
Definitely one of those games you stay up late playing for the first week but don’t touch for a number of years.
The original halo wars was a game I greatly enjoyed and I played it enough to reach max rank online before they reduced the xp you needed to get there. Its unfortunate to hear about the development, but it really shows the dedication to remaining faithful despite all of the restrictions that were placed on them. I still have fond memories of railing the primary base of the enemy team with teleported exploder grunts.
"Whobrought the arbiters mentally challenged cousin into battle" that had me dying
That connection you made between the opening scene and the production process got me thinking and I noticed another similarity. You pointed out how Captain Cutter quickly looses interest in Harvest and practically shrugs off the importance of it that we got from the intro. Wouldn't that also symbolize (in a way) how the production crew had to change mindsets on this game they were working on? They were putting so much effort into this baby of theirs and all the sudden, make it halo. Cutter was putting so much effort into Harvest and then all the sudden, go check out this planet. I'm sure the confusion and disappointment they felt from having their preconceptions of what the game might become being shut down is similar to how you and I feel about not getting to continue the fight on Harvest from start to finish.
Just a thought I found interesting.
Also the ending with the spirit of fire shutting down is similar to ensembles end
This is some Hideo Kojima PT shit right here.
27:23 OKAY SO IT WASNT JUST ME!! I managed to beat the campaign on "Normal" difficulty (mind you I suck ASS at RTS games). I played Skirmish against the Cpu's (Heroic mostly) and spent more time in that. My dad would get annoyed when I spammed in ODST's when he was doing online classes on the computer 😂 " ODS...ODS....ODS...ODST away!"
Lmao!
11 years later and still one of my favorite games
the multiplayer alone was incredible, i had a match last 3 hours one time, it was glorious!
Did anyone else just select all the units and target one single enemy to attack?
*I taste casual*
@@darkswatm1890 Yeah I was like 8 or 9 when I played it. I never got past the forcefield mission
@@darkswatm1890 You just don't have a high enough IQ to understand the brilliance of that strategy.
Yeah. I enjoyed doing that sometimes.
All out attack. I know the feeling.
I don't know what it is but that Spirit Of Fire tune sends shivers down my spine, it's just that fucking brilliant
I loved Halo Wars. I remember my cousin and I playing daily as Cutter and the prophet. We would start the match by the typical resource and territorial grabs, then intentionally let the opponents take everything but our lone bases. We would station Cobras and wolverines and a few flamethrowers, mixed with a LOT of engineers and a few hunters and vampires and play would we call, "hold the line". We had matches that actually went on for 5+ hours and watched as the opponents, that had everything, couldn't take down our last bases. Then after my 3 spartan cobras were maxed and we were done toying with the enemy, we retook the entire map. Great times!
I adored Halo Wars. Simple, fun, and well made IMO. Didnt know I liked strategy game until I played it, now some of my favorite games are strategy games. Also that music was great