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...
@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.
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 UA-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
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
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.
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
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
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."
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
"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
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.
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
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
@@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
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
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 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
@@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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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!"
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.”
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.
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.
In my opinion halo wars 1 was a masterpiece. It was incredible to me. I loved every second of it. It's my second favorite halo game under ODST. Well my young impressionable self of course. I still think it's awesome and the story, in my opinion, is on par with halo 3 ODST. But that's my opinion and your free to have yours. It's not as nearly as good as the first one and the atmospheric halo reach as well.
Funny enough, I think the same way. Though ODST is my favorite Halo game. With Wars coming in second. The stories and musics really helped tie each other wonderfully. Since it was early in the War, you get to see all this cool shit that it makes the OG trilogy feel like, "damn, the Covenant are ruthless." At least to me in that regard. As for ODST, just non-Spartan characters doing their best to survive the sudden mission detour without Dare telling them what happened. Really wish we had a mission expansion for ODST. Maybe MCC on PC may change that. Who knows. And I got Halo Wars thanks to the gameplay trailer alone! AvWell that, and I played Aliens Vs Predator Extinction, a console exclusive RTS. A guilty pleasure of mine.
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.
The intro and outro song of Halo Wars feel nothing like what is happening in the game. It sounds like it was entirely devoted to the fate of Ensemble itself. It just feels full of sorrow, sadness, hope that been destroyed in a blink of an eye. Hell, probably didn't help that the outro play while the thank you and goodbye message from Ensemble playing along. The studio that captured my childhood moment is no longer exist anymore. It is a phenomenon that the feeling of the intro and outro still projecting and stay true to the main theme of Halo. Even with lacking support from Bungie, they still respect their property and doing their best to keep the legacy of Halo.
The story of this game was fanominal. This Arbiter was easily my favorite. He made the title of Arbiter fuckin terrifying. RIP Forge Edit: Wow. ill never look at that intro the same again
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.
I like halo wars marines but why does their cutscene counterparts look COMPLETELY different from their ingame ones everything else is pretty close to the their cutscene counterparts
Halo wars 1 is better than halo wars 2. Halo wars 2 has no concept for strategy. Even the maps were designed with poor laziness unlike halo wars 1 with each one being unique.
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
I'm surprised you didn't talk about the score at all. It's one of favorites from the franchise because it's so unique. Stephen Rippy did a phenomenal job preserving the tones, colors, and sounds of the Halo music while adding a weird funky spice to it; kinda like ODST being jazzy and moody but undeniably Halo. Just listen to Insignificantia, sounds like a Halo disco track
Halo Wars was the first Halo game my parents let me buy because it was rated T. Of course I played 3 and Reach at my friend's house, but Wars will always have a place in my heart for being *my* first Halo game.
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.
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*
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
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 UA-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
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
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.
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
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. 😂
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
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
"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
"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.
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
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).”
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
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
"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
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.)
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
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
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 😭
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
*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’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.
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
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.
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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!
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
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!
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
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.
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
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
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.
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
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.
*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.
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.
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
11:58 When you hear that THE TRANSPORT SHIPS HAVE BEEN DESTOYED
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
Bungie had Jason Jones
Ensemble had Jerome Jones
Murphy's Law strikes again
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.
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
"This is Spartan Group Omega. If they want a war, we'll give em a war." *nut*
Gotta be the underrated line
"ThE DrOP ZoNe Is CLeaRed" "I rEpEaT, tHe DrOpZoNe Is ClEaReD"
The way ensemble disintegrated is honestly so tragic. The way publishers always harm the development and gaming industry as a whole is so sad
I don't know what it is but that Spirit Of Fire tune sends shivers down my spine, it's just that fucking brilliant
33:25
Bro I'm straight up not having a good time
ActMan why do you do this to us, your loyal soldiers?
Fede98k I’m not complaining man, idk why, but I’m not mad. 🤷🏻♂️
In my opinion halo wars 1 was a masterpiece. It was incredible to me. I loved every second of it. It's my second favorite halo game under ODST. Well my young impressionable self of course. I still think it's awesome and the story, in my opinion, is on par with halo 3 ODST. But that's my opinion and your free to have yours. It's not as nearly as good as the first one and the atmospheric halo reach as well.
Funny enough, I think the same way. Though ODST is my favorite Halo game. With Wars coming in second. The stories and musics really helped tie each other wonderfully. Since it was early in the War, you get to see all this cool shit that it makes the OG trilogy feel like, "damn, the Covenant are ruthless." At least to me in that regard. As for ODST, just non-Spartan characters doing their best to survive the sudden mission detour without Dare telling them what happened. Really wish we had a mission expansion for ODST. Maybe MCC on PC may change that. Who knows.
And I got Halo Wars thanks to the gameplay trailer alone! AvWell that, and I played Aliens Vs Predator Extinction, a console exclusive RTS. A guilty pleasure of mine.
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.
The intro and outro song of Halo Wars feel nothing like what is happening in the game. It sounds like it was entirely devoted to the fate of Ensemble itself. It just feels full of sorrow, sadness, hope that been destroyed in a blink of an eye. Hell, probably didn't help that the outro play while the thank you and goodbye message from Ensemble playing along. The studio that captured my childhood moment is no longer exist anymore. It is a phenomenon that the feeling of the intro and outro still projecting and stay true to the main theme of Halo. Even with lacking support from Bungie, they still respect their property and doing their best to keep the legacy of Halo.
Damn :'(
We grew up playing age of empires 2 and halo.
The story of this game was fanominal. This Arbiter was easily my favorite. He made the title of Arbiter fuckin terrifying. RIP Forge
Edit: Wow. ill never look at that intro the same again
Yes ripa moramee was indeed a cool arbiter,also he is one of the biggest elites ,but his pride and ego were his doom.
Rip sargent forge ,so good red team returned in hw2.
@BingoBangoBongo lmao how did I miss that
@BingoBangoBongo I'm impressed I've never seen someone fuck it up that bad lmaoooo
@@TheOzarkWizard I love how you didn't change if after being corrected. Way to own it my dude.
That scarab mission on normal was hell for any mortal man if anyone beats that one on legendary in one run they have my eternal respect
Ngl there when the main menu music started, it kinda made me cry, it’s just touching
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.
I fricken love the marine design in halo wars 2
Bonzai Gaming same they look badass af
I like halo wars marines but why does their cutscene counterparts look COMPLETELY different from their ingame ones everything else is pretty close to the their cutscene counterparts
Hey at least halo wars is better than halo 5
Love the snowy one look badass
Halo wars 1 is better than halo wars 2. Halo wars 2 has no concept for strategy. Even the maps were designed with poor laziness unlike halo wars 1 with each one being unique.
Ensemble did an excellent job of honouring the halo art style and making the atmosphere of the early war years
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.
Definitely one of those games you stay up late playing for the first week but don’t touch for a number of years.
I haven’t played halo wars but I want to one day because of this vid and the ending music. Just love that muthafuckin piano.
Why is it when Act Man uploads a video, I always get super happy? Even if it's about a game or franchise that I don't play.
Because you're the best type of fan 😘
The Act Man that’s gay
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
You have 37:19 to tell me why you think HW1 is bad
AND AWESOME! Don't forget that ;)
What’s up The Act Man, this everyone here and today I’m gonna review your video today.
this basterd called actman made me play halo for the first time now im addicted freak u man freak you
Totally Not Famous, How could you forget that he also said it was awesome as well.
@@TheActMan You don't have to convince me of that Acting Male, I already know
One breakthrough this game did were the Blurr cutscenes. I mean, COME ON! This set a high bar for the rest of the series
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
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
I never realized how similar that starting into to Halo Wars is to the real life circumstances of Ensemble Studios. 10:56
Halo Infinite: releases
The Act Man: takes between 2 months or 2 years to release a review on it
Me: patiently waits
I'm surprised you didn't talk about the score at all. It's one of favorites from the franchise because it's so unique. Stephen Rippy did a phenomenal job preserving the tones, colors, and sounds of the Halo music while adding a weird funky spice to it; kinda like ODST being jazzy and moody but undeniably Halo. Just listen to Insignificantia, sounds like a Halo disco track
"we all make it sooner or later"
Jorge.... Oh how we miss you.....
wow yes they mentioned Admiral Cole, the legendary admiral who outsmarts covenant fleets with a little bit of effort
If only the covenant got damn tactics other than just oH iLl JuSt SwArM
“Not a very ORIGINAL plan...”
Fucking lol. Nice job using that line.
I can't believe Halo Wars and ODST are a decade old. Holy shit the existential crisis is barreling me over.
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.
Halo Wars was the first Halo game my parents let me buy because it was rated T. Of course I played 3 and Reach at my friend's house, but Wars will always have a place in my heart for being *my* first Halo game.
Bro, your timeline is off, Halo Wars came out before ODST
Well I figured I'd throw it in there. But you're right
I remember when I kept playing Halo Wars after discovering Act Man. I noticed the announcer sounded like Act Man if he was serious.
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.
25:57 - "well that was a pretty lame way to die". Reminds me of another death.. Maybe... Arya and the Night King?
And Daenarys. ..
You know a game is old when you can barely discern a pixel from an npc
Just one single pixel
Justin Y. Oh it’s the real one
Justin Y. This fucking loser again. Go outside.
Bro You watch the Act man? Noice.
Wtf, it's like finding Waldo with u, it's actually low key exciting
You forgot to mention “Halo Reach: the prequel”
When Halo Wars came out, Reach hadn't been released it
@@TheActMan the joke was that HW comes before reach in the time line anyway
Halo Wars is an absolute gem of a gem. I still find myself playing it all these years later