REVIEW: HALO Interactive Strategy Game

The best-selling video game joins the DVD TV game craze...

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It may be difficult for today’s digital youth to fathom, but I grew up on old fashion board games. Stripped of electronic gimmicks, classics like Clue, Monopoly, Risk and Stratego sold solely on being original and fun. While chance was sometimes a factor in winning the games, using your noggin to outwit your opponent was often the clear path to victory.

Where electronic games such as Stop Thief, Operation, and Dark Tower were the geeky fad of the late ‘70s and ‘80s, DVD TV games have been the new trend since the ‘90s. Combining our addiction to digital media with the nostalgic pastime of paper board games, DVD TV games are often amusing, though rarely thought provoking forms of entertainment.

Genius Products, LLC and B1 Games are the latest companies to immerge on the DVD TV game battlefield. Their entry, the HALO Interactive Strategy Game (ISG), touts the best-selling video game franchise as the first-ever interactive board game. Supporting two players or teams, HALO ISG (as I shall call it for simplicity's sake) promises healthy head-to-head family/friend fun warring as either the heroic United Nations Space Command (UNSC) or evil alien Covenant. It is in stores now priced at a SRP of $49.99.

PACKAGING: Packaging for this beast is huge. HALO ISG and its massive array of contents come stowed in a rectangular cardboard box. The box is like that used with most board games, only much longer and deeper. Size aside, what attracts is the wonderful HALO artwork. If you are a fan of the video games like me, anything with the Master Chief’s mug on it is like luring a moth to a flame - I must have it. While the HALO merchandising machine isn’t of Star Wars caliber YET, the very existence of this Interactive Strategy Game shows it is getting there.

Inside you will find a mind-numbing number of cards, dice, plastic playing pieces (troops and game board components), an instruction booklet, and the “Interactive” in the HALO Interactive Strategy Game: the DVD. All are of good quality, though somewhat lacking in value. Remember, we are talking about a $50 game here. Here’s a brief synopsis of the contents:

TOKENS: With special edition board games like Monopoly and DVD TV games such as Scene-It? offering consumers real metal tokens, the plastic troops offered in HALO ISG just don’t cut the mustard. Unpainted and cast in solid mulit-colored plastic, each soldier ranges in height from the 1 ½” tall Brutes, to the approximately ½” tall Grunts. Characters include: 3 UNSC Marines, 1 Master Chief, 3 Spartan II soldiers, 3 Grunts, 1 Arbiter, 2 Elites and 2 Brutes. Yes, just like the video game, the UNSC is sorely outnumbered. With a little more effort, be it die-cast construction or pre-painted figures (like those offered by WizKids), the tokens would have really added some extra value to the HALO ISG.

3-D MODULAR BOARD: Unlike the varied open worlds of the HALO video games, the HALO ISG rages the war in the cold confines of a Covenant/UNSC/Forerunner/something structure. Included with the game are numerous plastic board pieces of varying length and height. Cast in two shades of industrial gray plastic, each piece is gridded into squares, each square representing a token space.

Amazing architectural design elements seen in the video games are sadly absent on the uninspired modular board pieces. A few sections of chain-link fence and two flags (for Capture the Flag) are included to break up the drab structures, but the only real art is in how you arrange them. Fans can choose to be creative and erect their own structure, or they can opt for one of the many layouts presented in the game. If electing the latter, prepare to heed the illustrations closely and count a lot of squares. Another word of warning: be sure to clear ample table space, the layouts can get pretty big.

Like the tokens, the value just isn’t here in the 3-D modular board. Void of any design resemblance to the HALO video games, the modular sections come across as bland pieces of plastic. Also, I found constructing a stable playing surface challenging. Stacking taller pieces over two base platforms will hold them together, but some layouts have you simply place a platform next to another with no means of bonding. With this as the backbone of the game, I found the omission of a solid locking system puzzling.

CARDS/INSTRUCTION BOOKLET: The variety of cards used in the HALO ISG are nicely designed and richly illustrated; many appear to use actual graphics from the video games. Three different cards are included. These are Weapon Cards, which are what their name implies, HALO Cards that deal out gear in the form of Bubble Shields, grenades and instant Flood death, and Character Cards, which provide a brief bio and stats, such as movement and attack.

Also included is a sheet of punch-out cardboard markers that represent transporters, nukes, generators, etc. A sticker sheet provides art for your flags and numbers to place on your troops so you can tell who is who. A handful of 14 mini-dice labeled with the Covenant plasma sword and UNSC Marine logo are provided for play without the DVD and to see who goes first.

Instructions, for the most part, are rather straight forward. It was a little vague on where/how to place the HALO Cards on the board, but when in doubt, make it up. The instructions include illustrations to help you along and the entire manual is also on the DVD for reference. It took me around a half hour to figure out the basic rules of play, which I will get into now...