Halo Wars progressing; Ensemble on the job

Obviously it is Halo 3 (its Beta, to be specific) that has captured the Xbox 360 imagination these days, but let’s step back and take a look at the bigger Halo picture. While it isn’t much to update with, Ensemble Studios‘ latest small update to the dev process behind the Halo Wars console RTS demonstrates that they are, indeed, on the job.

According to their latest post in their Halo Wars forums, their playtest sessions have moved from the all-critical control scheme experimentation to “making the game as fun as it can possibly be.”

Lately, the post also indicates that they are well into implementing the in-game unit and structure graphics: they speak of “fewer of the… stand-in buildings in the game these days” and the importance of properly scaling unit sizes to each other and compared to other structures. Spartans may be very tall, but there is such a thing as ridiculously tall – especially if they can’t fit in a Warthog.

The fact that it’s undergoing playtesting also means that a lot of the game is down in place. Yet to be bolted down, but in place nonetheless. We’d love to see an update in the future that involves videos. We’d love to see Ensemble’s take on console RTS, especially in contrast to Electronic Arts’ approach.

Obviously it is Halo 3 (its Beta, to be specific) that has captured the Xbox 360 imagination these days, but let’s step back and take a look at the bigger Halo picture. While it isn’t much to update with, Ensemble Studios‘ latest small update to the dev process behind the Halo Wars console RTS demonstrates that they are, indeed, on the job.

According to their latest post in their Halo Wars forums, their playtest sessions have moved from the all-critical control scheme experimentation to “making the game as fun as it can possibly be.”

Lately, the post also indicates that they are well into implementing the in-game unit and structure graphics: they speak of “fewer of the… stand-in buildings in the game these days” and the importance of properly scaling unit sizes to each other and compared to other structures. Spartans may be very tall, but there is such a thing as ridiculously tall – especially if they can’t fit in a Warthog.

The fact that it’s undergoing playtesting also means that a lot of the game is down in place. Yet to be bolted down, but in place nonetheless. We’d love to see an update in the future that involves videos. We’d love to see Ensemble’s take on console RTS, especially in contrast to Electronic Arts’ approach.