Category Archives: Game Logs

Halo Fest 2020 – Halo Wars 2

I was both surprised and more than a little pessimistic when I heard that Halo Wars 2 was in development for the Xbox One. It seems that neither my observations about the first game’s questionable intended audience or its odd, semi-forgotten place in the Halo series necessarily correlated with low sales numbers. Still, I’m curious about what inspired them to make Halo Wars 2 beyond 343 Industries’ continued efforts to grow and diversify the franchise, particularly with Ensemble out of the picture. Speaking of, Halo Wars 2 would be developed by another studio with some serious strategy game credentials, Creative Assembly, best known for their Total War series. Likely pretty exciting for fans of the first game, though, like I mentioned in my Halo 5 post, I was out of the loop on all things Xbox for much of that generation.

Capt. Cutter and Jerome-092 are back, along with a new friend.
“Capt. Cutter and Jerome-092 are back, along with a new friend.”

Immediately upon loading the game up I was struck by its presentation, as extremely close-up shots of units in combat cycle in the background showcasing a change in both art direction and graphical fidelity; the further you zoom in the more the individual units start to look cartoonishly stylized, almost appearing like figurines from a tabletop wargame. Then we have the pre-rendered cutscenes. Oh my! Blur is back and their work here is top-tier, even more impressive than in the original Halo Wars.

Hopping into my first mission I was struck by how much better the effects, animations, and particularly the environments looked than in the first game. As for the units, Halo Wars 2 sticks with designs much closer to those of the original Halo trilogy than 343’s later revisions. Whether this was an attempt to appease older fans or simply justified for the in-universe reason that the Spirit of Fire and her crew had been drifting since before Halo: CE (and without any fancy nanomachine upgrades) I don’t know, but I appreciate it in any case. About my only complaint is that, unlike in the original Halo Wars, your units are all colored with the multiplayer forest green color rather than the typical olive green we associate with the Master Chief. A total nitpick, I admit.

The Flood aren't the only ones who can field ridiculous numbers of the same unit.
“The Flood aren’t the only ones who can field ridiculous numbers of the same unit.”

The UI has been totally overhauled, and while many of the controller bindings and interface concepts are the same as in the first game, they’ve definitely been improved and expanded upon, particularly when it comes to unit selection. In the end, I still relied mostly on the basic controls of selecting every unit, all units on the screen, or units of a particular type rather than grouping them more strategically as I might in a PC RTS. As such, there were points at which I returned to the cheesy strategy of massing a single type of unit, most notably fully upgraded Banshees when playing the last few missions of the Awakening the Nightmare expansion.

As with the first game, I opted to lower my difficulty level down to “Normal” in the interest of keeping my playthrough from being too laborious, but while there were definitely still a few difficult spots where I found myself caught in a bit of a grind against unit attrition and/or base defense versus exploration or aggressively seeking out objectives, overall it felt a little less challenging, at least until I got to the DLC content. I still find the unit constraints and other limitations many campaign missions force on you to be pretty annoying, but this is typical of single player campaigns in RTS games, and I at least found some of these scenarios, particularly the mission “Hold the Line” (a straight-up tower defense ripoff) to be pretty fun.

A huge UNSC combined force claiming a Forerunner structure.
“A huge UNSC combined force claiming a Forerunner structure.”

Now let’s talk about the story. As this is a side story without too much relation to the main series, I’ll go ahead and recap the plot of Halo War 2’s campaign and its two DLC expansions. I try to be somewhat vague in these plot summaries but they absolutely do still contain spoilers, so skip the three paragraphs if you don’t want the plot to be spoiled!

The Story: After drifting for 28 years the Spirit of Fire’s crew awakens to find themselves orbiting an enormous Forerunner installation in uncharted space. Spartan Red Team and a small recon squad are soon dispatched to the surface to investigate the source of an encrypted UNSC transmission. There they find the battle-scarred ruins of a small UNSC science outpost and its still-active AI, Isabel. Isabel tells Captain Cutter and his officers about the installation they’re on, the Ark, and the Banished, a powerful mercenary army made up of Covenant remnants and led by the Brute warlord Atriox, who have occupied it. Determined to stay and fight, Cutter begins deploying forces planetside, successfully executing a series of strikes against Banished bases. Enraged by these losses, the Banished send their flagship, Enduring Conviction, to engage the Spirit of Fire directly. With the Spirit of Fire only temporarily able to fend off the Enduring Conviction, Isabel enacts a cunning plan to gain access to the flagship’s systems and attack the Ark, causing the installation’s Sentinel drones to attack the ship en masse, quickly crippling it. Meanwhile, Professor Anders comes up with her own cunning plan to regain contact with the UNSC. Launching a reserve Halo ring from the Ark’s Foundry, Anders plans to plant a beacon in its control room before it jumps to the site of the destroyed Installation 04, hopefully close enough to UNSC space to be detected. After repelling a Banished assault on the newly launched ring, Anders, while successful, is unable to escape the ring’s control room before it jumps. Sometime later while Cutter and Atriox plan their next moves in the war for control of the Ark, the ring drops out of slipspace. Investigating, Anders comes face to face with a Guardian.

Set one month later, Operation SPEARBREAKER follows a squad of ODST as they lead an operation to stop the now stranded Banished from activating a Forerunner fighter and using it to destroy the Spirit of Fire. Caught between UNSC forces and the Ark’s own considerable Sentinel defenses, the Banished plan is ultimately foiled.

Set several months later still, Awakening the Nightmare shows the war from the perspective of the Banished. With the loss of the Enduring Conviction, Banished forces must scour the Ark for supplies and other resources to keep up their war against the Spirit of Fire. During such a mission, two of Atriox’s lieutenants, brothers Voridus and Pavium, violate direct orders and penetrate the crashed High Charity’s defenses, unwittingly unleashing the previously quarantined Flood. The Flood rapidly spread across the Ark, infecting Banished and UNSC troops alike, with every plan the brothers concoct to halt their advance being decisively defeated. Soon the existence of a Proto-Gravemind is discovered and, running out of options, the brothers make a concentrated effort to destroy it. Thanks to this massive coordinated strike, Voridus and Pavium succeed, and at Atriox’s order, turn to cleaning up the remaining Flood.

Atriox, Warmaster of the Banished, throwing off the Covenant's yoke.
“Atriox, Warmaster of the Banished, throwing off the Covenant’s yoke.”

First, I have to say that I liked Halo Wars 2’s story a hell of a lot more than some other recent entries in the franchise. It feels more original than that of the first Halo Wars while also being grounded enough to not require you to be a scholar of expanded lore to appreciate (looking at you, Halo 4.) To that end, you’re never left scratching your head about who the antagonists are either. In fact, Atriox and his Banished are introduced with a detailed backstory right up front, and the awesome cutscene in question should be required viewing for anyone playing Halo Infinite. I also love that the Spartans of Red Team now have a lot more personality so we can like them for more than just being ridiculously effective, and despite me just saying that, they don’t feel like invincible superheroes either, with one of them getting messed up bad during the very first encounter with the Banished. Between that and Isabel’s almost palpable fear of Atriox when you first meet her, I felt like I was set on my back foot from the start. My only real disappointment is the end of the campaign, which never fully resolves the conflict at the core of the story, even with the addition of two DLC campaigns that extend the timeline. To be continued, I suppose, and likely in a book or a comic rather than another game. *sigh*

Hellbringers roasting some garrisoned Brutes.
“Hellbringers roasting some garrisoned Brutes.”

To wrap up, Halo Wars 2 feels like a good sequel, retaining the feel of the first game with expected iterative refinements to gameplay, technology, and practically everything, really, along with the level of polished presentation you’d expect from a Halo game. It honestly blows my mind that the first Halo Wars managed to be good, but for Halo Wars 2 to come out 8 years later with a completely different dev team at the helm and also be good? Kind of amazing. So, it goes without saying that if you were a fan of Halo Wars, you shouldn’t hesitate to give Halo Wars 2 a spin. If you tried Halo Wars and didn’t like it, on the other hand, there’s probably nothing compelling for you here outside of a quick watch of the cutscenes.

Oh hey, it’s bonus live-action media time again! While Halo Wars 2 did have the usual barrage of promotional and marketing content from 343, the only real live-action content were these two ads which, while having very little to do with efforts to make a Halo movie or television series, did at least get a chuckle out of me. More of this, please!

Allied Races

With the recent reveal of World of Warcraft: Dragonflight I started thinking about how much I missed WoW. As many MMOs as I’ve played, I still love the high standard of polish that, until relatively recently, I associated with Blizzard games, I still love how buttery smooth the game feels, and most of all, I still love the core lore of the Warcraft franchise.

Raining hell with Gallywix's G.M.O.D.
“Raining hell with Gallywix’s G.M.O.D.”

Against my better judgment, I hopped back into “retail” restarting an unfortunate cycle that I’ve been stuck on for quite a few years now. That is, when a new expansion is announced I get hyped up for it, reactivate my account, and try to catch up on the previous expansion’s content until I get burnt out again, usually just before (or just after) the new expansion actually launches. Case in point, I logged in to discover my “main” still where I left him when I got burnt out at the end of the Battle for Azeroth Alliance campaign, and my new Horde “alt” that I created when Shadowlands was announced that I had created to familiarize myself with the changes to the game before diving back in with my main, left in the middle of a zone less than half way through the Battle for Azeroth Horde campaign. Doh.

This time would be different though. This time I had a goal: allied races. Allied races are a feature that was added to the game with the Battle for Azeroth expansion. Essentially, Blizzard added what would eventually become 5 new races per faction. Most of these new races were more or less reskins of existing races, but alas, as someone who likes to stand out in my online games, I was very interested. Unfortunately these races needed to be individually unlocked through achievements which almost all included lengthy quest lines and/or reputation grinds. Still, I figured I could focus on a few of the ones I was most interested in. That never happened.

With Shadowlands, the reputation grinds were removed and the option was added to simply skip quests that required dungeon content. Nice! I decided I would make it my goal with this return to Azeroth to not unlock one, but all of the allied races.

I wish I had kept a more detailed journal of my progress, as it occurs to me now that this could actually be pretty helpful to a lot of people. I can at least recount the journey in general. First, one small tip. The addon BtWQuests can be extremely useful for keeping track of the multiple questlines required to unlock each races. Even using it, things still got a little confusing for certain quest lines and achievements, so I can’t recommend it enough. You’ll need both the Battle for Azeroth and Legion versions. Anyway, here’s how it went…

All allied races unlocked! A Mag’har Shaman on display.
“All allied races unlocked! A Mag’har Shaman on display.”

First I returned to my main Horde alt. I picked a Hunter for this class specifically because of how easy yet capable they are to play, so this character was the logical selection for getting re-reacquainted with the game without rolling yet another new character. First, I realized that I was already eligible to unlock the Highmountain Tauren due to questing in that zone in Legion with my main. Next I finished off my questing in Nazmir and then headed to Vuldun and more or less finished off the base Horde campaign. The Vulpera were unlocked from that alone. Then I finished the base Horde war campaign plus some of the later war campaigns to complete Tides of Vengeance, and then completed the final Zuldazar quests, unlocking the Zandalari Trolls. I’d already completed Ready for War on my main, and finishing it off for my Horde character meant I also unlocked the Mag’har Orcs.

Finally, the most grueling part of this was heading back to the Broken Isles from Legion to unlock the Nightborne. I had never played through Suramar back when Legion was current, nor had this character ever set foot in the Broken Isles, so I had to essentially start from the beginning and go through innumerable quests with sometimes little to no “breadcrumbing” to follow. I did encounter one reputation gate, which was with the quest “Uniting the Isles” which requires you to get to friendly with all of the major factions of the Legion campaign. Luckily with flying unlocked, it was quite quick to head to each zone and grind quests for just long enough to hit friendly, with only Stormheim giving me any issues. Despite how much effort the “Insurrection” achievement took, I actually really enjoyed the lore behind the Suramar questlines, never mind the unique city itself.

Victorious, I headed back to my old main and went with a similar strategy. I’d go ahead and finish off the base Alliance campaign by completing the last little bits of Stormsong Valley. I’d already earned Ready for War on this character, so the Dark Iron Dwarves were available without any real work. I then finished off the war campaign and portions of the later war campaigns for Tides of Vengeance, then completed the final Tiragarde Sound quest lines to at last unlock the Kul Tiran Humans. Next I learned I needed to play through a good part of Nazjatar in order to unlock the quest to get me to Mechagon Island. I’d never seen either of these zones when originally playing Battle for Azeroth so this was an interesting diversion and I’m tempted to return to finish both zone’s quests, but it didn’t take too long before I had Mechagnomes unlocked.

The Kul Tiran druid forms are some of the coolest.
“The Kul Tiran druid forms are some of the coolest.”

As with the Nightborne, I now had to head back to Dalaran to start the Legion Argus quest lines. At least this time between having played much of Legion previously on this character and having just completed some related quests on my Horde alt, I was able to head to Argus without too much effort. I hadn’t been to Argus before now, and always being intrigued by the Draenei, the Naaru, and the Light in general, I was looking forward to this, but found myself rushing to grind through these quests without too much investment in the story, unfortunately. Finally, completing most of this story granted the You Are Now Prepared! Achievement, unlocking both the Lightforged Draenei and the Void Elves.

Once you meet the requirements to unlock an allied race, you still need to do a questline associated with each one kicked off in the embassy in the capital cities of each faction. In some cases these are quite quick, while in some others they’re fairly involved, but none are difficult. Some, like the Vulpera’s for example, were quite fun, while others will be essential for lore nerds. Once completed you’ll unlock the race, their associated achievement, and be given their race specific mount. With that…

Success! So, what will I actually do with my new found power? Well, more alts of course! I actually had vague plans to play through some old campaigns a second time with some variety of Mag’har Orc, and a Lightforged or Dark Iron Paladin could be fun, but my immediate plans were for a Kul Tiran Druid and a Mechagnome Monk. In fact, I already started my Kul Tiran Druid and headed into the Legion campaign so I could jump right into the Druid class hall, which I’ve been enjoying immensely so far. When it comes to my Monk, I’ll likely bring him through the classic Catalyst zones since that particular ridiculous race and class combination seems hilariously incongruous there.

One thing is for sure, over a year and a half later and I still haven’t even stepped foot into Shadowlands yet. Maybe I’ll keep up with tradition and wait until just before Dragonflight is released. *shrug*

Halo Fest 2020 – The Fall of Reach

Released as a bonus for pack-in for the limited edition of Halo 5: Guardians and later on disc and streaming services, Halo: The Fall of Reach is a three act animated movie based on Eric Nylund’s novel of the same name. Personally, having not followed the release of Halo 5, I had no idea this was even a thing until I started my research for Halo Fest 2020, but it seemed significant enough for me to cover here, and, surprisingly, I’m actually glad I did.

John and his friends having some teenage fun.
“John and his friends having some teenage fun.”

Halo: The Fall of Reach is reasonably faithful to the book its based on while also taking elements from the 2012 Marvel Comics adaptation with a handful of other changes along the way. Oddly, this new adaptation only covers the first half or so of the book, leaving out the titular, you know, falling of Reach part. Actually, it seems pretty clear to me that a lot of these changes were intended to focus more on the members of Blue Team as featured in Halo 5 itself, allowing the movie to serve as their introduction and contextualizing their relationship with Master Chief for players who hadn’t read the novels. For me, it also helps explain why so many fans of the novel were disappointed with the otherwise excellent Halo: Reach.

Since we’re already on the subject, and this is backstory told out of chronological order anyway, let’s get into the plot synopsis. While this is fairly vague, it absolutely contains spoilers. Skip the next paragraph if you want to avoid that sort of thing.

The Story: Dr. Catherine Halsey is searching colonies for child candidates for the SPARTAN-II program, a secret initiative to create super soldiers that could turn the tide against an ongoing insurrectionist movement. On Eridanus II she meets a child named John and quickly recognizes his potential. ONI agents abduct John and 74 other children, replacing them with barely functional “flash clones” to cover their kidnappings. At a UNSC academy on the colony planet Reach, the children are run through exhaustive training covering military theory, tactics, and history, along with physical and team building exercises. John, designated John-117, stands out from his peers and is soon promoted to squad leader. Years later, the SPARTAN-II cadets undergo a series of physical augmentations and chemical treatments to improve their senses, reflexes, musculature, and physical growth. A staggering 36% of the cadets do not survive the process. Later, John and four of his classmates are sent on a clandestine mission to kidnap an insurrectionist leader, with their success serving to help justify the existence of the program. Not long after, first contact is made with a hostile alien force known as the Covenant who seem intent on wiping out humanity. Dr. Halsey and the Spartans are transported to Chi Ceti IV aboard the UNSC Commonwealth when the ship is intercepted by a Covenant vessel. With the Commonwealth barely fending it off, the Spartans make it to the surface where the new Mjolnir power armor is tested on them for the first time. A success, the Spartans are assigned their armor and begin training with it. With the Covenant ship returning to face the Commonwealth a second time, John-117 concocts a plan to get behind the ship’s shields, board it, and detonate a nuclear warhead from within. The team fights its way inside and successfully plants the warhead, though one of its members, Sam-034, sustains heavy damage to his armor and volunteers to stay behind to buy his teammates time to exfiltrate. Flashing forward a number of years, the members of John’s original fireteam meet at the site of the academy on Reach, now in ruins after the planet was “glassed” by the Covenant, in memorial to their fallen teammate.

Dr. Halsey reaping what she's sown.
“Dr. Halsey reaping what she’s sown.”

Having never read the novel, I knew a lot of the generalities of what was covered here but not many of the details. Actually seeing the child abductions, training and augmentation deaths, and even the gruesome way that Mjolnir armor testing was depicted was much more effective than I would have expected. It was also interesting to see the (somewhat) original way Dr. Halsey was depicted versus how she was presented in Halo: Reach, Halo 4, and Halo 5: Guardians. You also have the remember that the original novel was very much written to be the backstory for Halo: Combat Evolved, so it’s chock-full of a lot of the context that is, well, frankly just missing entirely from the game: who Master Chief is and why he’s so exceptional, both as an individual, and as a Spartan, and where humanity is at this point in its war with the Covenant, for instance. As a long time Halo fan, it’s pretty cool to go back and geek out over this stuff all these years later.

As for this particular production, it’s… eh, decent. Visually, I think I could describe it best as looking a lot like a motion comic that has been upgraded to have an actual animation budget. This isn’t too surprising given that the studio who made it, Sequence, also helped make most of the motion comic-like cutscenes in other Halo games, like those from the terminals in Halo: CE Anniversary and Halo 4, as well as the cutscenes in the Spartan Assault and Spartan Strike games. This doesn’t sound like the strongest praise, and it definitely isn’t, but it’s better than it sounds and I think it works well enough for me. On the audio front, Steve Downs plays older Master Chief and Jen Taylor plays Dr. Halsey, giving the whole thing a much needed direct connection to the games. We also have Tom Salta returning from his work on Spartan Assault and Spartan Strike to compose the soundtrack. Not bad all around.

SCPO. Mendez sits the kids down for story time.
“SCPO. Mendez sits the kids down for story time.”

As a whole, I was surprised with just how much I enjoyed Halo: The Fall of Reach and turned around and bought a copy of the audiobook almost immediately after finishing it. While I’m sure I’ll end up enjoying the book much more, I’m going to have to rank this one up with Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn as an actual half-way decent attempt at a Halo movie. Interestingly, a lot of Halo fans seem to think this is the story to make a big budget adaption of, so even if the new Halo series seems to have veered off in an entirely different direction, it seems possible we may return to the Fall of Reach again at some point in the future.

Next up, as we finally near the end of this series, we return to the UNSC Spirit of Fire with Halo Wars 2. I’m looking forward to it!