I'm really surprised it doesn't let you play as The Covenant through the single-player campaign. I know it wouldn't fit the story but who cares? Make it an alternate... fictional reality.

Are there any cool games out there that let you play as the evil dudes from the get go? I'm not talking about Fallout 3 kinda evil where it's the choices you make that make you evil, I'm thinking more along the lines of Storm Troopers and... well my mind is blank.

Stop adding to consumer hype and get back to what makes this blog special, namely talking about game design and critical thinking about games, something that is sorely lacking. Why are you playing Halo Wars when you could play StarCraft?

Seriously, what are you doing? Why play and write about current games? Especially considering that you can write about games from Mr. Burgun's ten-yea-old (pun unintended, but welcomed) catalogue of games. Stop feeding the hype machine, and start feeding KEITHBURGUN.

Don't sell out. Get with it, Chick. WITH it.

If you notice, there aren't any counter points made by "Poohead"'s comment. But I wanted to clarify - there are thousands of blogs talking up the latest commercial software already. I really like this Tom Chick guy because he tends to write more about games from a critical adult point of view - articles like "5 reasons MMOs are broken" are the ones that attract me to the site. Just voicing my own personal opinion - I think you sort of become more of the background hype noise when you write articles like this one.

Keith, thanks for the feedback, but a couple of quick points: 1) This blog relies on advertising, which relies on traffic, which relies on popular topics, which means current videogames when it comes to our target audience. Unfortunately, it's just the way the media works. That said, my priority is on trying to write *interesting* things. Not all of them will work for work...

But more to the point, 2) this isn't really intended to be a hype article. Although I feel rather middling about Halo Wars, I definitely prefer playing the Covenant and above are the reasons why. I would hope some of these points would be valuable not only to people sitting down to play Halo Wars, but also to people curious about whether to buy Halo Wars. It's a look at the asymmetry between the two factions, colored by my opinion (UNSC sux!).

All that said, now you've got me thinking about revisiting Starcraft. :)

I think Keith's "Superior Intellect" is causing him to miss the point. I dont see any reason why we cant have articles like this plus the Vanity fair quality Keith has his tighty whiteys in a bunch over.
But anyway, I got this game lastnight haven't played it yet. After reading how unbalanced it is i dont know if i want to :(
On topic th

Mike, I like how mentioned my "superior intellect" in quotes like that, implying that I said that or anything like it. Slick.

Tom, thanks for your really patient, mature response - I definitely understand point 1 completely. I suppose I took it as a sort of type of "hype" article because it reminds me of the types of articles Nintendo Power or Game Informer sometimes publishes - *assuming* that you're definitely playing the *Hottest Game* "...when you try your first skirmish or online game of Halo Wars." Don't you mean "if"? Sorry if I came off as a jerk. I just get over-sensitive to what I sometimes perceive as a culture-wide conformity on a commercial product. Anyway, see you on battle.net =]

The 'if' is kind of implied. Note that the article also assumes the reader has already played the previous three Halo games. Tom Chick could start every article with a string of conditionals (IF you own a Xbox 360, and IF you plan to play Halo Wars, and IF you are going to play the skirmish mode, here are ten reasons to play as the Covenant) but it's much simpler to skip the meaningless over-clarification and just hope the audience can figure out they don't need to read articles about games they don't care about.

To Keith's credit, he's just trying to elevate the level of discourse. Frankly, I wish there were more guys like him. Just take a look into the Killzone comments section for the alternative. :)

Mike I find it ironic that you complain about Keiths "intellect" when you just spent $50 on a game that you now dont know if you want to even play? Why did you buy it then?
Also all the points he made had a valid reason,
whats wrong with clear and logical thinking? Is that forbidden in todays society? Strident corporate aggrandizement in the game industry is hurting it the most, you are clearly another victim.

Aggrandizement is a killer word. I gotta fit that into a conversation somehow.

There's nothing "logical" about Keith's first post. There is definitely something touchy about it, though at least he admits to being a bit "over-sensitive". But maybe next time, instead of prematurely accusing someone of directly feeding the hype-machine by writing about a game that isn't a decade old, he could remember that some people actually DO play new releases, and that they aren't necessarily the silly automoton puppets of huge corporations for doing so.

God forbid that somebody writes an article about a game that hasn't made all of it's money yet. By the way, what happens when Tom wants to write and article about Starcraft 2? Is that okay? Will he still have a soul after?

i see were all of u are going with this, but why would they make the game so one sided are u sure there isent more to the human team btw starcraft rocks

The game is a bit one sided but that's because it's fitting into the halo storyline. Remember the covenant is a large empire that shows up and basically decimated UNSC forces in the first part of the war. The UNSC never wins in direct combat. You have to use superior tactics and utilize their guerrilla style hit and run potential.

thanks for the info

1:the game isnt one sided, each unsc unit is slightly stronger than its covenent counter part.
2:that nice little scarab also takes up 20 of your 50 unit limits and can be taken out with just 2 vultures(only costing 12 unit points
3:using professor anders as your leader halves both the cost and the the time it takes to get your researches
4:the unsc unique units as you pointed out are the deployable barracks(equipped with defence turrets) which can deploy odst units(the strongest infantry unit not including covenent leaders, the exoskeleton which can repair vehicles and buildings as well as destroy enemy bases(at least i think they can repair as it would be dumb to give them the repair ability for just 1 mission and not on the skirmish) and the emp tank can stop any enemy vehicle dead in its tracks(including the scarab which i would like to point out makes a tasty target when all it can do is stand there
5:the covenent leaders only get 1 special unit each whereas the unsc get 2speacial units(forge:grizzly upgrade for scorpion tank making it far more powerful, Anders: hawk upgrade for hornets giving it 2 beam weapons, cutter:odst upgrade for marines which not only makes them more powerful but allows the best infantry unit to be trained in a battle via cutters second special unit the elephant/deployable barracks and sent down from orbit via drop pods wherever you want them)
6:each covenent leader only gets 1 special power cant be used out their line of site(while extremely powerful they can easily be stopped by simply killing the leader unit) whereas the unsc leaders gets thei own unique power and a disruption bobm which stops all leader powers from being used in proximity to it(very useful against covenent leaders) not only that but the unsc powers are much stronger when upgraded to their full potential cutter:mac gun(magnetic accelerator cannon for all those who dont know) can send up to 5 superheated titanium slugs at up to 5 different locations, forge: carpet bomb, while not my favorite power you still have to admire its ability to wipe out entire armies of ground units, anders: freeze bomb capable of not only freezing every unit in its radius but causing all air units in its blast to crash and all buildings in its blast to stop functioning(including shield generators)
7:whereas the covenent shield is good it takes up 1 build spot, its only 1 shield around the entire base(which means hitting 1 building drains the entire shield and not just the part covering that building), the shield doesnt cover defense turrets and only its recharge rate can be upgraded and not the shield strength itself(unless you use multiple shield generators) and for the shield to recharge you have to stop the enemy from attacking it for a while
8:the unsc can build unlimited amount of reactors(the price rises for each one though) whereas the covenent can only build 1 temple(these are needed to use the stronger units and upgrades) which means if i take out your temple you lose your access to all but your infantry units

p.s. the unsc also get bonuses for their base
cutter:base is 1 tech level higher than everyone elses
forge: supply pads are built as heavy supply pads and while costing 125 more resources more than normal supply pads that every other leader uses you still save 100 resources
anders:upgrades are half as cheap and take half the time to research(with a few exceptions-supply pad upgrades, turret weapon upgrades, base tech upgrades and reactor upgrades)
also considering i wrote these between 2and 3 am please dont be an ass and point out every tiny flaw

I have spotted a flaw in your... nah just kidding. Since you know that much about the game I assume you have it, so how long is it roughly in hours? These days I need good value for money. Oh and multiplayer doesn't interest me that much in this case (!)

i completed it within a few hours but that was on easy
on legendary i doubt you would get more than 10 hours from the campaign
multiplayer is the only thing going for games these days so expect to spend most your halo time destroying other players(or getting destroyed)

word of adivce
DONT PLAY CO-OP
seriously, while starting units and units found on the campaign maps are split resources arent
me and my cousin got into many mini wars of destroying each others bases and killing each others units(via the self destruct button and the leader powers)

Thank god for Martin. If you want to win online, play as UNSC with your leader as Forge. Grizzlys FTW

Ha ha, excellent post, Martin. Thanks for rendering my "Ten Reasons You Should Play the UNSC" article redundant! :)

@Chijts: If you are looking for a RTS game where you can play the bad guys from the start, you may want to consider Command and Conquer 3.

Thanks Isotek, although I should have been more precise perhaps. I was just wondering how many games are out there that give you the choice to play as the bad guys of whatever game they are bad guys in.

I just thought it would be interesting (and fun) to play as the baddies instead of the goodies for a change. C&C is one such series yea, and I guess Destroy All Humans must be one too, but what others?

No problem Chijts...I don't play too many RTS games but Starcraft is also an excellent game that allows you to play baddies as well as good.

i say anders ftw
due to half price upgrades by the time you have grizzlys RTQUE i could have a fully upgraded vulture pounding your base

also Tom Chick dont stop your "10 reasons tio play as the unsc" on my behalf
im anxious to point out why they are worse than the covenant and i cant do that here

Chij, great question. I'd be curious to hear from others, but a few things off the top of my head: The Aliens vs. Predator games were a great example of letting you play aliens and predators in their own single-player campaign, as well as in multiplayer, of course. The Rise of the Witch King expansion of the Lord of the Rings RTS had a Witch-King campaign, and the recent Lord of the Rings: Conquest shooter lets you play a Sauron campaign that culminates in a Balrog running around in the Shire. In fact, the Lord of the Rings Online MMO lets you play monsters who raid hobbit settlements, and elf and dwarf outposts, stealing their feet, ears, and beards for trophies.

I'm just kind of teasing about the "Ten Reasons to Play UNSC", Martin. I actually do prefer the Covenant for the reasons I listed. But you did a great job of giving the humans their due, so I think we've got all our bases covered. :)

like you i am slightly biased towards one of the races as i prefer the unsc
but as i just got the last skull and now can turn my scarabs weapon into a rainbow full of love i think i wil be playing as them a bit more

I played through the entire campain and as I was doing the missions on the hull of the ship(which were my favorite btw) I was thinking who would win in a fight Spirit of Fire or Galactica they seem about on the same level technologically so I think it's a fair question.

spirit of fire
it isnt falling apart
it has more missile pods
and it has the mac gun

ive been playing halo wars for a while and ive found getting a mate and urself to both play as the covenant and launching an early attack is the way 2 go the unsc is only jus gettin hawks/ grizzlys ready

Just letting you know the more is more thing is only becouse of the fact that unsc units are more powerfull than the covenant ones so that had to make it to were the covenant had a chance to win using larger numbers.

HI THERE COOL COOL HALO AND HALO WARS SOO MUCH FUN I CAN NOT WAIT FOR HALO WARS 2 TOO COME OUT ON THE XBOX 720 MAY BE LOOKY IF X-BOX PUTS IN A VERY FAST SSD SOLID STATE FLASH DRIVE