Halo Wars ViDoc: Halo Times Ten

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On January 23rd, 2009 the first ViDoc of Halo Wars was released on Xbox LIVE marketplace. It tells how a different perspective can change the gameplay and an announcement of the demo planned for February the 5th. In the video the Spirit of Fire is shown at the Planet Arcadia in the Procyon system, proving that Harvest would not be the only world visited in the game.

Transcript

(The rating for teens are shown and words appear on the left bottom)

Procyon System

Arcadia

February 9th, 2531

(Shows Spirit Of Fire and the ship interior)

Captain Cutter: "Serina! Situation update please."

(A.I. sounds)

Serina: "Getting visuals now Captain."

(Screen shows Omega Team fighting)

(Switches to show Ensemble Studios employees talking)

Graeme: "When we play the original Halo games you know, an explosion takes up the whole screen. So I'm gonna to view a fast moving purple thing, and it will come at me and die."

Graeme: "In Halo Wars it's going to be a view from forty feet up, so it's not going to be one explosion; it's going to be twenty."

(Shows UNSC fighting against the Covenant)

Dave: "One of the things we wanna do with Halo Wars was tell the Halo story. Show the Halo universe in a different way, and actually bring strategy game to the console."

Jerome: "In Halo Wars you get to control...everything."

Lance: "All of the Grunts, and Elites, and Brutes, and Choppers, and Ghost, and Banshees, and all these really cool vehicles plus alot of stuff we added."

(Shows the Covenant army and vehicles, then the UNSC army and vehicles)

(Shows Spartans engaging the Covenant)

Jerome: "You control heroes, you get to control Spartans, you get to control small armies of Spartans."

(Shows a Spartan engaging a Brute Chieftain, then armies of Spartans engaging the Covenant)

Jerome: "Everything is under your control in a real-time strategy."

(Shows a couple of Banshees and a Spartan hijacking one of the Banshees)

Dave: "We wanted something the fans perceive the things that they know and love in a different perspective."

Dave: "Spartan jack-in..ah..it is one of the best things in the game."

(Shows Spartans jacking-in or hijacking a Vampire and a Wraith)

Dave: "They jump on top of the enemy tanks, and they beat the crap out of the tank, they rip off the hatch, they toss out the driver, they hop inside and they take over that vehicle."

Dave: "And people..ah..are use to seeing that from a first-person shooter standpoint, where everything's very large, but we have all that same detail in Halo Wars."

(Showing more gameplay battles including one with the Locusts)

Jerome: "Some of the battles in the game are small, and some of the battles in the game are really big. What's cool about that would be some campaign is.....that's base on how you play."

(Shows Omega Team with a few Warthogs engaging the Covenant base)

Jerome: "If you spent more time going to fight the Covenant, you may be yielding with a larger..force than if you would've gotten there quicker."

Dave: "Using those choices which is the hallmark for a strategy game; how do I want to build my army?"

Dave: "And by the end you've got you know...twelve or fifteen Scorpion tanks roaming across the landscape."

(Shows Scorpion tanks and a army of marines after that, then the starting of Alpha Base)

Dave: "Or you could have forty or fifty marines, it's really kind of your choice."

(Shows Alpha Base again)

Dave: "So the game focuses more about combat which is pretty similar to what Halo fans will expect. Ah..people wanna blow stuff up, myself included."

(Super Scarab exploding)

Dave: "It's a console game, stuff blows up really really well in Halo Wars, but it is also a game where you have to think."

Graeme: "The new part of this game is for a lot of people is actually playing an RTS. In the FPS game you could be using one weapon and then use one single tactic."

(Showing different tactics to beat enemy)

Graeme: "While in our game you have to plan multiple strategies on the screen at the same time."

Lance: "You're the general."

(Carpet bomb is launched by a Swordsword to destroy afew locusts)

Lance: "Training units, and using them as essentials in completing your mission)

(Locusts and afew grunt squads blow up)

Lance: "Commanding your armies or commanding your resource gathering or economy..."