Fast paced and easy to get started. Blitz is full of fun – “Halo War 2”

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Fortenyearsago,whowouldsaythattheRTStype of game is already yesterday’s yellow flower, and most people with an Internet cafe will rush to teach you what is called “real-time strategy”. Nowadays, in the face of the big environment of “Bearing Pioneer” and “League of Legends”, even if the old players do not want to admit it, they can’t stop the RTS from falling down in the historical wave

Yes, although the current RTS games are still emerging in new and old IP works, but the high threshold is not enough to compete against the various lightweight, fast-food games. Even the famous series such as “Sweeping the Thousand Army” and “Total War” series are just a feast for some hardcore gamers. It is really a sigh of sighs to compare the popularity of the MOBA games. To be more extreme, the RTS world is currently the most. Ordinary people. I’m afraid that I’m only left with StarCraft II in the professional e-sports competition

However, in such a big environment, Microsoft once again took the host RTS, a long-forgotten branch, to create a new development direction for the RTS industry with a new lightweight game. The “Halo War 2”, which was personally manipulated by Creative Assembly, a series of developers of “All Wars” series, is the last effort of the host RTS or the new dawn of the phoenix nirvana?

The old pit has been filled, and the new pit is again.

Speaking of the “Halo” series, the most attractive is not the refreshing sudden burst, but the magnificent cosmic war born around the Spartan super warriors. It can be said that the plot is always a vital part of the “Halo” series. At present, Microsoft has expanded the commercialization of the Halo series into a huge industrial chain covering games, novels, comics, movies, TV series and toys. The world view has also expanded to a level comparable to that of Star Wars.The story of the “Aura of War” series is an indispensable part of it. Although it tells the story outside the main battlefield, it plays an important role in linking up and down. This is why Microsoft did not abandon this after dissolving Ensemble Studio. One of the reasons for IP

The first episode of “Aura of War” occurred in “Aura: Combat Evolution” and the follow-up works. Fire and Sparta Red Team struggled to escape from the shield world under the attack of Zerg and Star Alliance, but lost The transition engine can only drift in space. Microsoft’s digging of the plot pit has not been filled for a long time after the dissolution of Ensemble Studio, the fire and the red team’s life and death has always been the concern of the halo fans. However, with the introduction of the “Deterioration” comics around the “Halo” series last year, the story of the Fire Spirit was once again placed on the table, but the one that sneaked through the end of the sixth episode buried the story. Bad shadows

However, the player can’t see the impact of this foreshadowing in “Halo War 2”. Is it necessary to stay in “Halo War 3”? Not also! In fact, before the game went on the market, Microsoft hurriedly pushed a comic book with a pretty “beautiful” style – “Halo: The Legend of Fault Space” to solve this foreshadowing, and also gave a decent face to the artificial intelligence Serena, whose life has reached the madness. Farewell…

In the Halo War 2, the plot took place 28 years after the first generation. Captain Carter and the crew on the UNSC Fire Spirit received a distress signal from the Ark (the Halo 3) and started a new adventure. This time, this technology is backward, lack of supply, tactical AI and the old ship that half of the crew has been killed, facing a ghost face warlord Atriox that even the Star Alliance can not defeat

The return of the Fire Spirit has undoubtedly made fans ecstatic, and the diversified plot design is also very exciting, but compared to the original generation of the protagonist Weineng Bridge, the performance of the Hollywood blockbuster can be seen as a scene. The narrative, the content of the 12 chapters is also a little short, the whole story CG adds up to only about 27 minutes. The plot quickly confessed to the player the current situation of the Fire Spirit, and immediately led to a huge hostile force, not to mention the seemingly connected story of “Halo 5: Guardian”, but actually dug a bigger pit The ending. It can be said that the plot status of this work is the same as that of “Halo 5”, which belongs to the trilogy. It is inevitably stopped at the climax, so that the newcomers can’t figure it out, and the old powder feels unfinished

Compared to the narrative, the plot mode of this work is still largely like a “multi-person mode teaching”, telling you the relationship between the units and the effectiveness of the new combat units through a step-by-step level

It is worthy of praise that the audio-visual effect of this work has been greatly improved. Whether it is the environmental details of the surface or the unit modeling of both the enemy and the enemy, the fineness has reached a very eye-catching point. The unit voice is much richer than the original one, and the combat sound is mixed with voice, just like the real battlefield. The most satisfying aspect of this visual effect is the stable number of frames. At the beginning of the B-test, the crazy stagnation has been so fascinating. Now, even in the official version, even if the plot is over 100 groups, the number of frames is not there. Too much fluctuation

RTS on the handle. Movements.

Thanks to Microsoft’s Xbox PlayAnywhere cross-platform project, we can finally play “Halo War 2” on the PC (and of course the original remastered version), but after all, this is an RTS game for the host, cross PC The platform has not been designed with a complete set of control methods. Most of the unit control and tactical UI are designed based on the host, and the control is unspeakable. Therefore, it is probably not easy for RTS to use the mouse and keyboard to command a war art. To play the most beautiful battlefield, the handle is undoubtedly the best choice

What? Play RTS with the handle, ARE YOUKIDDING ME? It sounds a bit magical now, but in fact there have been a lot of RTS games that have been used on the host, not only the purely transplanted StarCraft, but also the unique work of the Green Magic Book for the host. However, whether it is transplant or custom, these games have not broken the shackles of the handle control, until Ensemble Studio launched “Halo War”, the host RTS finally has a model that can be called the industry standard

Narrow down the scale of the map, streamline the operation process, simplify the unit control, the main base, and so on. All the functions and settings are optimized for the host RTS, especially the disc-shaped building UI is a must– – Concentrating all construction projects on the main base and presenting them through an intuitive disc UI, greatly reducing the operation and time spent on management construction, and perfectly solving the problem between the handle and RTS. Divide. “Halo War 2” is really easy to use but not too simple, and shows us how broad the world of Halo is outside FPS

So, Creative Assembly did not make changes to the mature system of the first generation in Halo War 2. Although the operation has not changed, this game has undoubtedly a small upgrade in strategy. First of all, the performance form that was originally limited by the XBOX 360 functions has been greatly enhanced, and the battlefield unit has also been raised from 50 to 100. In the past, it was necessary to carefully calculate the team combination. The complex situation no longer exists, and it really evolved into “learning the operation of the brother, and the rest is A.” In addition, strategic resources have also added new power resources based on the original single resources. One more resource and one more strategy makes the power resource points on the map an element that must be included in the strategic considerations

In addition, the upgraded arsenal of both sides. Far away from humans, the Stars and the exiles of the Star Alliance’s main battlefield, there is a lot of DIY elements in the armaments. In particular, the Fire Spirit has always relied on the engineers of the ship and the various types of non-standard equipment designed by the artificial intelligence. This time, the newly added logistics AI Isabel and the Fire Spirit engineers used the resources on the Ark to develop more exotic non-standard equipment. Even the three Spartan fighters upgraded themselves by picking up the Thor hammer MK2. Old Thor hammer MK4

Compared with the first-generation camps, the performance of the two camps is the same as that of the combat units. In the Halo War 2, as many as 50 types of arms and vehicles have their own unique charm. Coupled with unique battlefield commander skills, the strategy on the battlefield becomes complex

Fast-paced and lightweight “blitzkrieg”.

Honestly speaking, the above content is completely new enough to support a new work. The new game mode “Blitz” that really makes Halo War 2 stands in the big environment – this new model combines the popular MOBA and card elements, in a sense, the RTS version of “Royal War” the taste of

The biggest feature of Blitz is to completely abandon the RTS general process of building “base-build-fighting”. Players do not have to take into account the cumbersome steps of operation, construction, upgrade, etc., and concentrate all battlefield strategies on “cards.” “On this element. Diversified cards enrich the player’s tactical choices, and it’s the real-time strategy to make trade-offs between battle units and tactical effects.The

In Blitz, players need to acquire cards, resources, tactical effects (like spells), etc., in the form of card packs before the war, and combine them into a fixed number of combinations for battle. In combat, the player will use his or her deck to play against other players. You only need to play the card to summon the corresponding team or other special effects on the map. However, in line with Hearthstone, the royal family, etc., playing cards also has the requirement of resources, and these resources will gradually grow naturally. They can also be obtained by controlling the specific areas of the map or sending troops to collect airborne materials. In this way, the originally simplified system has once again weakened the need for many micro-operations such as acquisition and production in RTS. On the one hand, it makes the handles more friendly, on the other hand, it allows the players to focus more on the macroscopic situation. An unexpected “lightweight” attempt in reason

In addition to the lightweight feature, Blitz has a feature as its name, which is fast paced. The card-based battle allows both the enemy and the enemy to enter the engagement state at the first moment of the connection, without the need to build, the force and tactical effects that can be placed on the click to make the battlefield change rapidly, and the victory or defeat is often between the thoughts. An average of 10 minutes of battle is even faster in the rhythm than the popular MOBA games. Simple and easy to use, fast and deep, blitz is a major innovation in the development of RTS

But the idea is good, but the principle of its card opening is bound to have defects. It is true that there are dozens of arms and several commanders in the game to try together, but the main source of these cards is based on card opening. And many strategic cards are affiliated with certain commanders. If the luck is not the card of your routine, it will inevitably have an impact on the operation. At the same time, the fighting power of many combat units is not completely balanced. It’s easy to use, but there are dozens of them. Whether you can drive to the popular card package has no small impact on the game experience. In particular, some of the same units with special skills, the availability is completely different, such as the Spitfire with self-explosive skills, the impact on the enemy formation is extraordinary, but if there is no self-explosion, then the availability Slightly reluctant. Fortunately, the current source of card packs is still quite rich, as long as a lot of participation in the battle can get a certain number of card packs

Still classic multiplayer battle

“halo War 2” provides players with a fast-paced and lightweight game experience in the blitzkrieg. At the same time, the essence of its RTS remains unchanged. The multiplayer battle mode of deathmatch, point of interest, and fortress is the technology. The high-stakers have a battlefield to kill, experience a complete process from collection, production to battle, or eliminate operations, experience pure tactical killing, players can always find a suitable model. Even rookies can get the same fun and growth through human-machine (AI) battles

Conclusion: Host RTS. ‘s new dawn.

The real-time strategy RTS game has evolved from a popular type to a situation where only a few players are left. The high threshold is the most important reason. The gap between ordinary people and veterans is almost the same as that of fighting games, which allows only a small percentage of players to enjoy the unique experience of RTS. As a real-time strategy game with PvP gene in natural blood, how to introduce fresh blood into the circle of increasingly lost users is the key to future development

And the attempt of “Halo War 2” card, fast pace, and lightweight is undoubtedly a new direction of RTS. On the one hand, it caters to the fast-paced era of distraction, and on the other hand, the simpler difficulty of getting started is more considerate and considerate. At the same time, each game mode including Blitz can bring a unique experience to the players. No matter the new generation players are RTS veterans, they can find their own fun and challenges in Halo War 2

Of course, “Halo War 2” also encountered the embarrassing problem of “Halo 5: Guardian” – many people are fun, but the story supporting the theme is too big, leaving too much white. Therefore, the author recognizes the innovation of “Halo War 2”, but it is difficult to say perfect. I hope that in the future “Halo 6” and “Halo War 3”, 343 can give the player a satisfactory reply in the plot