February 5th 2009 8:47 am PT

It’s not there for me yet

Yeah… the DL doesn’t work yet….

It’s not on Live yet. And although listed on the Xbox.com Marketplace, it CANNOT be added to the queue yet. Trying to do so shows a ‘this page is unavailable’ error.

Sweet!
TYVM

Yeah, it’s been showing on dash for an hour or so… doesn’t work on there either.

Lets hope it’s good

Well I got it to work! Thank god Halo was orignial slated to be an RTS so it just feels natural that they did this. But feel sorry for people working at ensemble studios out of a job. They did so outstanding pc games Aka “Age of Empires”

On marketplace it gives “Cant retrieve information from xbox live”

RAGE! Make it work Major make it work!

It’s working now… from dashboard anyway….

Where is the Race Pro Demo?! of course MS own stuff gets released on time. Race Pro is still “coming very soon” i guess. bah worthless. oh well Killzone 2 demo later today FTW.

1GB!!! Jeez.

seems like we’ll be waiting another few hours

OK, It’s working now!!

Still not there for me!!

1.4GB, this is gonna take a while.

Me neither =(

Yesss!!

Still not working for me. Le sigh.

O…..M…..G!

It won’t retrieve from Xbox LIVE.

Nooooooooooooo

Why are we waiting???
And why is it in US Marketplace only ATM??

I can haz Halo Wars?

I can’t download

Browse the “All Games” section of the games marketplace, find Halo Wars and you can find the demo listed under “All Downloads”.

If you’ve clicked the link and it ‘failed’, go look in your download history on your 360. It should be there and you’ll be able to ‘redownload’ it.

Its not there. I have to go to work and i wanted it downloaded for when i got home. Im out on the west coast and its 3:27 local time.

Yay! Been waiting for this demo! =D

Playing right now

Still not working. The status code given is 80004005. Any help or info on when it will become available?

still not working yet

Would be playing it if my xbox 360 didn’t 3 red ring of death for the 10th time! Ive honestly had my wits end with the xbox 360 blowing up and the warranty expires in April so i will have to buy a new one more money I have to shell out -.-

Can´t download either.

No luck so far…

Downloading now!

Are you frickin kidding me? If the the demo isn´t uploaded yet, why are you telling us, that it is there?

Added to my queue no problem on xbox.com

This appears to be a Gold-exclusive, for the time being at least… not happy.

Downloading now! I guess we had to wait ’till 1.00 pm

The Halo Wars demo was for me consisted of Error Code 80003005. I played it 4 or 5 times before I realized that I just don’t have what it takes. Now I’ll cancel my pre-order.

The demo shows up on Xbox Live under New Arrivals for Demoes, but I get an error message when trying to download it. The message is something like this:
“Can’t retreive information from Xbox Live.
Status Code: 80004005″

Demo shows up for me thanks Major.

@RedIon1992

Just so you know, all new demos are Gold exclusive for the first 7 days.

Also, for the rest of you moaners and whiners. Have a little patience. When Larry posts about content its not always propagated to all of the Live regions. Unless otherwise stated the content is normally up at somepoint that day.

Chillax

Download worked for me through xbox.com, but not through the dashboard. Try that.

I’m downloading it right now.

Worked fine for me the first time.

79%… Come ooooon!!!

…no Halo love for the Austrian marketplace???

Thank You!

Superb! I’ve looking forward to this demo.

downloading now, jsut have to wait until 5pm then killzone 2 demo!

Just played the first mission….. AWESOME!

I’ve having no problems downloading both copies!! I have two to dl here in Canada, one is Halo Wars Demo and the other is Halo Wars – Demo. So I’m dl both.

And they are two different sizes, Halo Wars Demo is 1.4 GB and Halo Wars – Demo is 1.5 GB.

Servers must be getting hammered. It will be interesting to see if first day downloads will top 2 million.

MS really needs to label which is ENGLISH and which is FRENCH in all Canadian Marketplace downloads.

It’s Epic. Thanks for the link, Major.
Jeez its a hot night in Sydney!

Downloading now

I like the giant Major Nelson banner that we get with the link.

Got it in the UK

@ Matu Flp Krawfe, I seen that too. Can you say job security

What is the difference between the two versions?

My shot conclusion after playing the demo for several hours:
Gameplay: Very good, very intuitive, easy but lots of potential for serious gamers.
Graphics: Disappointing… I expected much more. Detail level is low and the zoom feature is pretty much useless. Explosions are ok, but not as spectuacular as I hoped.
Difficulty: Even on heroic it’s easy to win, hopefully legendary will be a bit more challanging. But Skirmish is just a training for multiplayer, so that’s ok.
Long term motivation: Good, I guess. Will definitly buy the LE! Lokking forward for some nice online battles!

Cheers,
Chris

Ah, and some additional information for german users: If you dl the demo from the German Marketplace you one get to play the demo in German, no English available. Gotta dl it from the US Marketplace to play it in English. Hopefully the final retail games includes several languages, not like Halo 3.

Lookin fwd to it!

Set up to download now…can’t wait!

It’s a very good demo, even though I’m not a huge RTS fan. I sort of agree the graphics and detail level aren’t “great” but it does look just like Halo. As Bungie has stated, they weren’t going to change Halo’s art style to work with better hardware. It’s just sort of a plain style. I think the cutscenes are pretty top-notch though, that stuff was downright impressive. The controls are definitely tight, but I’m still not convinced an RTS on a console can be more fun than frustrating at the end of the day.

The demo was pretty awesome, they did a great job on the game and proves that RTS games work on consoles.

The music in the game is really great. Unfortunately, that’s the only great part of the game. Gameplay is fairly good, but is canceled out by the terrible graphics and even worse voice acting. I knew the game wouldn’t look as good as Halo 3 because they need to show so much more at once, but the graphics in this game are almost laughably bad. A lot different from the previous “gameplay” footage that they previously released. Maybe if you play on a SD tv it would be ok. What have they been doing over there for all these years?

Still say it belongs on the PC but what are you gonna do. Demo wasn’t bad, might buy this. Still thinking. It seems like I pretty much saw everything in the demo maybe a few units here and there missing but other than that I don’t see any more surprises, but will definitely play for the story.

Wow the demo was awesome. I need to buy this game at the end of the month.

Describing my experience thus far with the demo as a complete failure would be a understatement. First at 12 o’clock I attempt to download the demo only to be returned with error messages. Giving up I left returning at half past 3. This time the demo started to download but was the most painfully slow download imaginable. So here I am six hours later and at 80% download complete. When will you realise that maybe more than a couple people might want to download a demo that you hyped the hell out of? Hopefully I will be able to play the game this week.

I love Ensemble Studios but hate playing these games on consoles.

I’ll still give it the good old fashion try. I hope they can make this game work. Is it true that this is their last game? I heard the company fell apart. I hope not because I love the Age of Empires series.

@Arman Tamzarian or they could just leave the French out….would be a lot better…

I will try it later tonight. Not a bid fan of RTS games but want to give it a fair try..

Love RTS’s but not on consoles.
Will give it a try and hopefully it has good controls.

Never played an RTS before, but I love Halo….

I’ve got this in my queue for tonight. Not much of an RTS fan but I’ll give it a shot. Thanks.

On a side note to Litheon, is there a chance that Anon comments will be shut off permanently (since it’s already looking that way)? I’ve noticed how much more civil the comments have been since all the Anon cowards have been cut off!

As an old school RTS fan I sure hope this holds up to some of Ensemble’s classics like AoE and AoM! They haven’t let me down yet!!!

I was lucky enough to get the demo pretty much as soon as it hit after playing the C&C demo the night before to brush up my RTS skillz.
To those who say the graphics are crap – It’s a demo, and compared to C&C they are noticeably better. They are never going to be as good as PC but as long as the gameplay is fun – who cares? (It works for Nintendo)
Soundtrack is good, the menu layout is remarkably Halo-esque and the after mission stats add good value.
I think they’ve done a great job and personally, I’ll be dishing out the extra $$’s for the LE in three weeks time.

Really…. this is rated TEEN… I am eighTEEN and it says I can’t download? Dick… I will just have to throw on my buddies account on my hard drive then I guess O.o

@MACPH1ST0,

I have no intention of turning them back on. [:)]

@ThisKory9. Dude, owned by your parents using the Family settings much?

cool demo, tons of fun but im not sure if i would pay $59.99 for it. But once this sucker goes on sale im going to pick it up. I did like the controls on this RTS, i didn’t think they would pull it off since im used to RTS games on the pc but it works great on the xbox.

@SeeUInTheFuture…

Well, I hate Halo but LOVE RTS. I think Halo is such a boring game but I love RTS and Ensemble Studios so I have to give this a try. It’s been downloading for 3 hours now…man my internet either sucks lately or Live is really tanking.

Memories of Dune 2!!! Just played the demo and this game rocks! A must have for any Halo/RTS fan!

This is so insanely slow to download. Why don’t our membership fees go to pay for faster service? I’m not the only one with this problem either, many people are reporting 3-5 hours to download. I’m at 20% and have been downloading for 40 minutes.

My check list: Graphics good, controls good, combat bad, is it fun? For a while… The thing is we have so many games like this on pc and even the characters don’t look that good. I’m not sayig it’s no fun, but they could have made something different. I really like the controls, also the voice acting is bad.

I LOVE IT

I miss the keyboard and mouse I used back in my Age of Empires days, but I’d say the controls are about as good as you can get with a controller. I thought the graphics were fine — the cut scenes were amazing! all those out of work Ensemble guys should put out a Halo movie in their free time — but I agree the zoom was disappointing. I would have liked to zoom in a bit closer.

As for download speed, perhaps you guys should talk to your ISPs. I nabbed the demo in something like 30-45 minutes.

awesome game ! ! !!!! !!! !!!!! !!!

this looks like its the first RTS that will work on the 360 properly.

Played both factions and had LOTS of fun. Wasn’t sure how it would turn out but with all the multiplayer options that are going to be available, and the fun I had by myself today, I will be buying this for sure… have to check on the LE tho, what comes with that? Just bonus DVD or something? I need another metal case like the Gears2 case

Not impressed with this, I found it very dull and simplistic. I think this is just for the HALO fanboys.

Well like every other RTS its not fun for me simply because I just can’t get use to a darn controller. (sigh). At least let their be mouse and keyboard support JUST for RTS’S. If not your making companies lose alot of money that make RTS games.

lovely

@ FINKnATOR: The Limited Edition includes the following:

* Three New “Halo 3” Multiplayer Maps – Be one of the first to experience the Mythic Map Pack* which includes three new maps, “Assembly,” “Orbital” and “Sandbox”.
* Halo Wars: Genesis – a beautiful graphic novel by Phil Noto chronicling the first military campaign against the Covenant. The novel centers around the Spirit of Fire on a mission to discover why the Covenant are so interested in the world of Harvest.
* Unique In-game Vehicle – “Honor Guard” Wraith
* Six Leader Cards – Leaders possess elite skills which can turn the tides of battle.
* Spirit of Fire Patch – Start the journey as an official Spirit of Fire crew member.

If you pre-order with GameStop, you get a code to download a special in-game Warthog vehicle with flame decals, and also a GameStop Exclusive Prima Hint Book.

WHERE THE HELL IS THE RACE PRO DEMOOOOOO?! DAMNIT SHIT

awesome work on the game, RIP Ensemble. ;-(

Where is the announced Race Pro Demo, Major???

Some stores are offering unlockables if you preorder Halo Wars

This will be a fun little game.

*Pours a 40 on the curb for Ensemble*

Yeah everything seems to slot into place fairly well. I mean it’s not a shining beacon of brilliance but it’s good, would play again.

@Big Guino tom clancys end war was the first decent rts on a console, this is mediocre but a step in the right direction but still not the best rts for a console.

omg this game is great

@Big Guino – I thought EndWar was rubbish, personally…

Oops, by @Big Guino I meant @skyfire420.

well imo it was good, the only reason this game will do good is cause of the fanboy support for halo, even if this game is rubbish fanboy will over hype it and make it to be better then it is.

Thanks for the demo, I think I’ll wait for the mythic maps..

Your order has been successfully canceled. For your reference, here’s a summary of your order:
You just canceled order #105-XXXXXXX-6784241 placed on January 15, 2009.
Status: CANCELED
_____________________________________________________________________

1 of Halo Wars Limited

THERE IS THE NEW CONTENT FOR BURNOUT 800 POINTS UNFORTUNATELY, BUT THE NEW FEATURES LOOK GOOD

Better then RA3 but RTSs are still not there. The HALO theme is what makes it enjoyable, but that will wear out quick. Might be OK on a PC but we will never be able to know.

Excellent, IMO. Greatest RTS on a console yet. Definitely worth the LE pre order I have at GameStop.

@ HitTheBids:

Rome wasn’t built in a day. Even Halo 1 was not “there” yet. It revolutionized the control scheme for the console, but it still was much better on the PC. As time went on, it got even better. Unfortunately, Halo Wars 2 will probably not get the same treatment because MS closed down Ensemble. The second will be better, just not as good a jump in controls as the one from Halo 1 to Halo 2.

I hate Micro$oft I’ve been a proud supporter of Ensemble since the days of AoE1 and have bought all their games since. The way I see it they closed them down for doing their job “TOO” well or something I don’t know I really hate you guys sometimes but I’ll continue buying your stuff Because 360 is the only console with more than 5 good games and gaming on a Mac haha yeah right…*sigh*

Litheon

I agree with anon comments being turned off, but is it possible for people without a gamertag to register and post on this site? (I registered long ago so I don’t remember). I know somebody can make a gamertag on xbox.com, but it seems stupid to make people have to register for 2 sites in order to post here.

@MACPH1ST0
Thanks for the LE info. I will have to stop by Gamestop one of these days

@Computerdude103
If someone does not own an xbox… why would they want to comment here, on an xbox website?
All the people posting anonymous were either haters or saying stupid things that they didnt want their name associated with.

wow! just played the demo again in skirmish mode after playing the campaign yesterday! its amazing! just pre ordered the LCE version from HMV UK i dont think they are giving away the warthog with preorders tho? can anyone find out? :S im still gonna buy it from HMV tho cos its £10 cheaper than anywhere else with £5 off (plus student discount!! ) making it a lush £40.49 for the limited edition version hehe! bargain…kinda…

@Arman
“MS really needs to label which is ENGLISH and which is FRENCH in all Canadian Marketplace downloads.”

I downloaded the french version first when I used the link from a gaming site not noticing it was french. I have to redownload the game a second time for English. Would have made it easier if they stuck Halo Wars – English Version in its title. No matter though, caught up on some DVR shows while it downloaded.

Oh My GOD. The game is so ‘easy’ to play. The controls are perfect. this was my only major concern when Halo Wars was first announced. Looks like I was worried for nothing.

Halo Wars is now on my ‘Must Buy’ List.

After reading several of these posts from people who don’t like the game I thought I needed to voice my opinion. I had a lot of fun with this Demo. Sure the graphics aren’t the best we’ve seen on the Xbox 360 by a long shot but the game is put simply , fun! If you play the 1×1 skirmish you’ll get to play around with quite a few of the other units as long as you don’t roll the opposition right out of the gate. Let the covenant build up a bit then mess with them, it gives you time to build out your tech tree.

The base lasers are a lot of fun and add an element like the old nukes from Red Alert, those were always fun to use in a pinch. I like how they handled unit selection although I do miss being able to build squads (unless there is a way to do this). The cut scenes were very enjoyable and for a video game, I don’t think the voice acting was that bad at all.

I spent about 2 hours with this demo which for me, was well worth it. I will buy this on day one and thank Ensemble and Microsoft for putting this fun and engaging demo out. 5 stars from me!

@Nibbles37

They weren’t shut down for being “too good” they were shut down for being ridiculously expensive to keep running, and the fact they haven’t developed any games for a very long time didn’t help either. Even if Halo Wars sells millions, it wouldn’t cover the expense of keeping them going. It’s sad, but you can’t really blame them for doing it.

Personally, I enjoyed the game a lot more than I thought I would. It *is* the first RTS to really work well on consoles, it plays perfectly and it’s very enjoyable. Nothing revolutionary or ground breaking, but a very fun game. The lack of factions is the biggest problem, I think.

This game is fun and the controls are easy,which is really what matters.ive been palying RTS since the 90′s and this is a good start for Halo in RTS. I hope theres a legendary difficulty,because the hardest on the demo was slightly challenging,not throw my controller at the wall challenging.

Halo LOL.

@WinterSnowblind

It just seems like something could have been done to prevent this. It really sucks knowing I’ll never get to play another AoE game.

Seems like a very weak cookie cutter RTS that will only sell due to the name attached to it.

@SirSchmoopy01
I didn’t mean that Halo Wars is not there yet. I meant that RTSs as a whole don’t play well on a console. HW is the best i’ve seen so far on a console and if you are not used to playing RTSs on a PC then you will enjoy it. The controls are easy to use. But the fun of the old time RTS games are the micro-mgt of the game. AoE games were the best at this. I wanted to love this game, i really did, but i only like it. I’ll get my Halo fix from H3.

This game is great. I have been addicted to the Skirmish mode. I like to beat it on Heroic with only infantry. Its easy for me now. ODST troops f sh*t up

Hmmm, I finally played the demo Feb 7 and the first (simple) tutorial was so short and easy, I was like “StarCraft, StarCraft”. I then completed the advanced tutorial which took a little longer as I am used to being able to use the mini map (ala Warcraft 2) to move around in sections. I was still happy and pleased with it. I’m not sure if it is my 20/20 vision and my SDHD Tv or what, but the graphics look awesome. No spectacular, not brilliant, but good enough for me to enjoy the game. Oh, I must say I’m not a huge Halo fan, but an RTS with sci-fi action reels me in. Though I did not care for the Command and Conquer demo on Xbox360 a while back, this demo is an awesome lead into something GREAT. I am not sure about buying it on release date (SF4LE 100% paid off, RE5 reserved) , but I’m going to have to get myself a copy when I can. (grumbling – If I knew Fable II was going to freeze up on me so much, I would have saved for this one instead as it is addicting.)

Ensemble – great work guys!! Great work with simplified controls (loving it), awesome explosions and the EASIEST to learn tutorial. Ensemble = Legendary.

For those that mentioned not being able to zoom in very close… I COULD be wrong, but I think I saw an option in the settings for the game to allow a closer zoom. Haven’t found a need for it myself, but I could see wanting to be in close to watch the battles. Hope I’m not confusing that option for another game…

I was pleasantly surprised with the demo. I am not an RTS fan, but I might give this one a spin at some point.