Halo Wars demo now available on the marketplace

360 News | Like we need to tell the millions of Halo fans that are probably already playing it.

Late last night Microsoft released a demo of the highly anticipated Halo Wars on the Xbox Live marketplace. The demo comes in at a hefty 1GB, and requires a Gold account to download.

Sadly, Microsoft hasn't mentioned exactly what the demo features other than an early mission from the final game. Halo Wars is currently scheduled to be released in Australia on February 26th, and will be released in a standard edition pack with a SRP of AUD $99.95, as well as a limited edition pack for AUD $119.95. The limited edition includes a Halo Wars: Genesis novel, three new maps for Halo 3 (which will eventually be released on the marketplace as part of the Mythic Map Pack), an in-game 'Honour Guard' wraith, six 'leader cards' and a 'Spirit of Fire' patch.

Related Halo Wars Content

Historic Battle pack for Halo Wars
14 Jul, 2009 New multiplayer maps.

Halo Wars balancing patch on the way
13 Jul, 2009 It's all a balancing act.

New add-on pack for Halo Wars
22 Apr, 2009 Includes new game modes and achievements.

8 Comments

Zarnoss

1 year ago

Umm im downloading atm btw and i am on silver account for correction.
Whether I am lucky or what..well i dunno, just a heads up.

Very interested to see how this game will shape up.

EDIT:
Yup Silver account worked no probs.

Played the tutorial and the first mission.
Due to spoiler pedantics I will say that this game is alot worse looking than i was expecting and horrid explosions, but from what I played it seems like alot of fun, alot more fast paced than the other RTS games I have played although I guess the demo doesnt really delve too deep into the games possiblities and what other stuff it has in store, the easy use of the control layout and kind of magnetised lock on of units targets is a nice touch though.
Wish I could zoom in a bit more that may have helped a bit with the graphic 'bleh' ness of it but then again it seems due to (i'm guessing) shizloads of units on screen and keeping a steady frame rate which equates to blander unit looks I guess.

shiraj

1 year ago

I am on silver and I cannot download

ObsoletE

1 year ago

after seeing the gameplay trailer earlier in the week, i was almost ready to give up on the game, as there was something just off about the game (further watching showed it was a lack of tracks behind moving units. nothing major, but made things look weird.)

but the demo looked quite decent.

i only had a quick go of the tutorial and the first mission last night before bed, and will give it another, more indepth go over the weekend, but i'm still not sure.

the controls are a little floaty, and tempermental. quite hard to finely select a unit on the fly, but then on the other hand, i imagine in the more frantic levels, having a slow pointer would also be painful, so i think it's a matter of getting used to it.

on the whole, it was mostly positive, and i will probably end up buying it. mission accomplished then.

Sinthesys

1 year ago

^ Play a skirmish battle. I played the first 2 campaign missions and was impressed, but not sold. After playing the skirmish mode, the awesomeness of this game became much more apparent. Hell I could sink hours into playing skirmish on the demo alone.

I think a large part of the attraction for me is that all the unit's sounds, movements, attacks and upgrades (minus the units specifically made for this game) are authentic and really convey the feeling of directing a battle in the Halo universe. For instance, the little grunts will be running around shooting off plasma pistols until you upgrade them with needlers, making little pink blasts out of squads of marines. Also, it is too awesome watching an Honour Guard Elite going to town on a unit of marines with his sword, stabbing them and then twirling them around and flinging them off like he's competing in a hammer toss.

dloiscute

1 year ago

Dam, cant download it because I only have a silver account.

Mr Waffle

1 year ago

Hmm, played pretty good. But micromanagement is too hard... I think a big problem is that the units have special abilities, but if you try to activate them, it activates ALL of that type of unit... so for example you click for a marine to grenade an enemy, every squad will throw grenades, potentially wasting many uses of the ability.

It's tedious on PC to micromanage that sort of thing, but impossible on this- I wish someone would come up with smarter AI for dealing with this sort of thing (eg: if you have 10 units but the target will be destroyed by the abilities of 2, only have 2 fire...).

The lack of micromanaging ability also meant I lost a lot of marines needlessly, which is frankly something I HATE in RTS- I get attached to my units, so throwing them suicidally at the enemy isn't an option in my books. In more than one game I've reloaded saves simply because I could've done better and saved those few extra units...

Ghost of Zeon

1 year ago

I played it for a little while yesterday and so far I'm not really feeling it. I'll keep playing to see if it grows on me, but to be honest it's just another RTS just with a Halo paint job.

Azza

1 year ago

Ghost of Zeon wrote

to be honest it's just another RTS just with a Halo paint job.

AND the Age of Mythology engine. Hells yeah.

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Halo Wars

Pre-order or buy:
PALGN recommends: www.Play-Asia.com

Australian Release Date:
  26/02/2009 (Confirmed)
Standard Retail Price:
  $99.95 AU
Publisher:
  Microsoft
Genre:
  RTS
Year Made:
  2008

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