If Blogs Could Gather Dust....

Alas, its a new term, which means I am back to blogging. Its kinda hard to pick this back up... I can't seem to think of any ideas to write about, I've been staring at these two lines or so for the past twenty minutes...

Well, today is a new day, hopefully I'll find something to write about, instead of writing about how I can't think of anything to write about, which is what I'm doing again. Since the last time I blogged, a lot has happened in the world that I could talk about, I'll try and start with something easy and talk about the release of a kickass new video game: Halo Wars.

Halo Wars is a Real-Time-Strategy (RTS) game developed by Ensemble Studios, the same people who made the classic RTS series, Age of Empires. I am a HUGE fan of RTS games, the were the first that I ever played, way back when, all of the old school Command and Conquer games like Red Alert 2, Yuri's revenge, etc. Ever since then, strategy games have been really hit and miss. Sometimes it feels like I'm just playing an older game with new skins e.g., all the Star Wars RTS's that are out there. But every now and then, there is an RTS that totally blows everything else out of the water, and they remain on top until the next installment, easily bucking away anything in its path. But so far, all of these games were all for PC.

When I initially heard that Halo Wars was going to be exclusive to the XBOX 360, I was completely dumbfounded. The sheer suggestion of making an RTS for a console was completely unheard of. How can you even do something like that? How can you manage massive armies using a controller? How the HELL can you micromanage different units within said army using only a couple of buttons and an analog stick? For a long time, I boycotted this game, hoping that it never cross my path. But, after watching all of the trailers that were made for this game, and watching one of my friends play the demo, I started realizing that it wasn't that bad. The controls are better than terrible, they still aren't what I'd like them to be (keyboard and mouse), but they are very well playable. The graphics though, were nothing short of perfect, as was the audio. What else could you expect from a Halo title?

The game itself looks like every other Halo game, the main screen, the pregame screens, everything, which made it seem a lot easier to play, because at first I was a little tentative to play a Halo game not produced by Bungie. Whenever any awesome, classic game is handed over from the original makers to someone else, it generally doesn't connect (Spyro the Dragon anyone? I have never seen a more gruesome slaughtering of such a magnificent game than what I saw with the Spyro series). But Halo Wars felt almost as good as the original. The reason I say almost is because it lacks one thing I think: that intangible, essence that the Halo series has, the feeling that you're playing arguably the single greatest video game OF ALL TIME, that feeling wasn't so profound when playing Halo Wars. But its still a great RTS game nonetheless, keeping in mind that its on a console.


Watch this video and make your decision. Pay attention though, to how similar it looks to the other Halos, and how smoothly it runs and plays, even though its on a console. This isn't my video though, which can explain why the guy who's playing it sucks.