Halo Wars Middle East Launch Coverage

BY Abbas Jaffar Ali | POSTED: 02 March 2009

We cover the Halo Wars midnight launch at the Mall of the Emirates.



Halo Wars was recently launched by Microsoft at Virgin Megastores inside Mall of the Emirates at 12:00AM, Friday the 27th of February. Being ahead of Europe and US gave gamers in Dubai the distinct advantage of being one of the first to buy the game which was released in two versions- the standard Edition and a Collector’s Edition. Pre-registered gamers from MEGamers also had the opportunity to pick up a T-Shirt, Poster or a Cap when buying the game.



Now Microsoft has certainly created a power-house for themselves with the Halo series. However, switching genres of Halo from a highly successful FPS game to an RTS is definitely challenging task. Luckily Microsoft had Ensemble Studios, the creators of Age of Empires series, helping them with the transition.



We were at Mall of the Emirates about half an hour before the launch and could see a line of gamers forming up for the launch. While the enthusiasm wasn’t as keen as the Lich King launch (also in the same mall), you could definitely see excitement on the faces of gamers present there. To greet them, Microsoft had arranged the one and only Master Chief and needless to say, Gamers took the opportunity of clicking pictures with this towering figure.



Microsoft had also setup a console at the entrance of Virgin Megastore running Halo Wars for gamers to get a first-hand feel on the game which certainly added to the excitement. The count down to midnight was done by Aman Sangar, Microsoft’s Product Marketing Manager for the Middle East who was quite hyped up. He said,

“The Halo fan-base in the region has been quite well established and active. So obviously a game such as ‘Halo Wars’ that takes one back to the beginnings of the Halo saga and gives you a completely new perspective of a RTS genre to experience it, is bound to evoke much hype. Halo Wars being their swan song Ensemble have done an amazing job and fans of either Halo as series or RTS as a genre will not be disappointed.”

At launch, we saw most gamers picking up the Collector’s Edition which was expected.We spoke to a few gamers at the launch and the following are the first ones that bought the game.



They said that they have been huge Halo fans and never miss an opportunity to collect anything Halo related. When we asked them what they thought of the game now being an RTS, they were certainly interested in seeing how it translated although they said they prefer FPS over RTS.



Another person we spoke to said that he was an RTS fan and this coming from Ensemble Studios certainly got his attention.

I picked up a Collector’s Edition for myself as well before I left, reminiscing the endless Age of Empires gaming sessions I had with friends over a LAN. Lets hope the game is as good as the expectations are certainly sky-high. Watch out for our review soon at MEGamers.com.