3/5 ★ – MechaniChris's review of Halo Wars 2.

Virtually identical to the first game with a fresh coat of paint. This one gets a slight pass because the bonus content is more fun than the actual mainline game. I don’t know why these ones don’t do it for me. They play perfectly fine, but something about them is just dull. I’m not even against RTS’s. One of my favorite games of all time is Age of Empires II, and I used to spend hours upon hours playing AVP: Extinction, which was pretty close to this. Even still, Halo Wars gets so bogged down in monotony. Every mission is the same. Every task can be completed by making two supply points, two energy generators, a garage, and a air pad. Once you have those 6 buildings, you’re unstoppable. And then there’s the story. I was pretty hard on the first Halo Wars’ story because it seemed out of place in the timeline (and also it wasn’t very good to begin with). This one does some course correction by making it clear that the Spirit of Fire has been drifting through space for 26 years, and so they never could have reported to the UNSC that the Flood were a thing. Fine. Now they go ahead and introduce an entirely new faction of villains that apparently has existed THE WHOLE TIME and yet this is the first we’re hearing if it. Now, I’m a pretty big Halo fan. I don’t mind the Prometheans getting thrown in Halo 4, or the Guardians suddenly being a huge part of Forerunner tech despite not being mentioned in the books. There’s still a lot we don’t know about the forerunners so it’s easy to accept. But insinuating that the Covenant were fighting a civil war with the Banished before the AND during the Great Schism feels pretty damn lazy on this game’s part. Why didn’t the banished choose sides in that conflict? Or more importantly, why not join Jul M’dama’s insurgency during the postwar conflict? How is this the first time this HUGE faction has appeared in a universe that has over 20 novels? In Shadow’s of Reach (written after this game’s release) Master Chief already knows about the Banished and seems to have fought them before. WHEN? Anyway I guess their the villains of the new one? Kind of wish they were isolated to this subpar spin-off game, but whatever. I’m sure Halo: Infinite will be miles ahead of this.