Genius Products Halo Interactive Strategy Game

by Genius Products

Product Features

• Game for two players or teams
• 3D modular board for limitless game-play experience
• Interactive battle sequences on the DVD
• Interactive Halo DVD can be used
• Players can select characters for strategic battles

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 10 x 3.2 x 21 inches ; 3.5 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• Shipping Advisory: This item must be shipped separately from other items in your order. Additional shipping charges will not apply.
• ASIN: B001DDY6XA
• Item model number: 81462
• Manufacturer recommended age: 10 years and up
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #11,443 in Toys & Games (See Top 100 in Toys & Games)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Halo Interactive Strategy Game captures the edge of your seat action and storyline of the video game as it gives players the chance to control UNSC marine and covenant forces in strategic battles for power. Featuring the same premise and characters as the video game including master chief, A.I. and covenant the Halo Interactive Strategy Game offers a modular board that can be re configured to create a virtually limitless game play experience. By recreating the video games signature three dimension graphic design, the game pulls fan favorite elements from Halo 1, 2, and 3 along with music from the video game's award winning soundtrack and features unseen exclusive DVD content to enhance game play. In the game players command armies of three dimensional collectible character pieces for two different levels of play Heroic for faster casual game play and Legendary for more strategic advanced gamers. Fans follow storylines that expand the Halo experience in campaign mode or go head to head in interactive battle sequences with slayer or capture the flag modes. The battle options are endless with future additions of new adventures, vehicles, characters and weapons to expand the experience. The Halo Interactive Strategy Game is suitable for people above the age ten.

Product Description

Let the battle for supremacy begin as gamers can play the first-ever board game based on the grim, gritty, and battle-ravaged world of Microsoft and Bungie's best-selling entertainment property - Halo! Halo: The Interactive Strategy Game captures the edge-of-your-seat action and storyline of the video game as it allows players to control UNSC Marine and Covenant forces in strategic battles for power. Featuring the same premise and characters as the video game - including Master Chief, A.I., and The Covenant - Halo: The Interactive Strategy Game offers a modular board that can be re-configured to create a virtually limitless game play experience, complete with highly detailed, sculpted character pieces. In recreating the video game's signature three-dimensional graphic design, the game pulls fan-favorite elements from Halo 1, 2, and 3 along with music from the video game's award-winning soundtrack and features unseen exclusive DVD content to enhance game play.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great game even if it looks like a cash-in, Highly Recommended!, November 30, 2008

By 

Alex Morales - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Genius Products Halo Interactive Strategy Game (Toy)

It may seem like just a cash-in on a popular franchise but it is still a great board game. The board can be set-up in many different ways,along with different rules and modes to keep things fresh every time you play. Combat is extremely fun and balanced on both sides the way the game is set up is so that 2 players control thier own squad and try to eliminate each other or complete objectives. the rules seem complex in the beginning but if you actually read them they make sense. Almost anybody can pick up this board game with a friend and play and I was able to change the rules to the point where 4 people could join in and have an equal chance at playing, without much effort. The DVD isn't necessary but it is a great way to change things up which is still nice. The voice-overs are ok even if they dont capture the personality of your favorite characters, and it uses in-game footage which is good too.

If you love strategy board games and want something unique and fresh than this game is most definitely for you even if you have never heard of or played halo. If your a halo fan and enjoy a occasional board game than i highly recommend it.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Decent Rendition of Halo in Board Game Format, January 7, 2009

By 

Gradient Vector Field (MA, USA) - See all my reviews

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:1.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Genius Products Halo Interactive Strategy Game (Toy)

I'm a fan of gaming in almost any medium and board games are always a classic form. After purchasing board games like Doom and Starcraft I quickly realized that video games do manage to translate quite well to this format. While this wasn't developed by the amazing Fantasy Flight Company, Genius Products managed to give us a decent game to play with a very interesting game board.

The Halo board game seems to be heavily driven off the multiplayer death match kind of maps you find outside of the campaign setting of the game. That being said the game sequence isn't as engrossing as the video games story line. You can create some neat missions or campaigns to play yourself and there are already a couple pre-made missions for you to play through. One we played through was the Jericho campaign where the marines had to place the nuke in the Covenant staging area and then run back to your location and detonate the bomb. The game was fun and fast paced, but the way its designed feels like you are limited to only engaging in two player games. You can have more than two players, but you will have to have team games in the sense that there are only two sides; Covenant or Marines. I found this limitation somewhat disappointing because I think on the board game format you should easily be able to include other figures. Unfortunately this is precisely why I think the Haloclix system and game is way more fun and a better representative of the intensity found in Halo. The only downfall for some people with Haloclix is the fact that it's a collectible miniatures game, meaning you don't get all the pieces in a single box like you will with this Halo board game. You get enough pieces to play a game, but Haloclix requires you to collect more if you want to have truly epic level games.

That all being said... the Halo board game was pretty easy to learn and it has some interesting options. The board itself isn't one giant hard surface like most board games; instead it is all plastic and cut in different pieces. This is simply great, in my opinion, because it allows you to create an unlimited amount of different boards for your characters to fight on. They're of varying sizes and you can even create bridges and so forth in connecting them, this was truly one of the most impressive aspects of this product. Reading through the rules you'll find that you can either use dice or use the interactive DVD. I'm a bit more akin to rolling dice over using the DVD, but we tried playing through the Jericho mission with the DVD. It gives the introductory parts a great atmosphere for starting the campaign, but after that it feels less interactive to me. Whenever you land on key parts where you get the option to change the weapons or get an item the DVD will randomly choose what's going on for you based on your character. This was okay, but I prefer physically doing it myself. One of the better parts was whenever combat was taking place, with the DVD you choose your character, your weapon, who your opponent is and then the DVD goes through an animation from the game, essentially "rolls" behind the scene and tells you an outcome.

There are different ways to play through the missions in the sense that you have different difficulty levels. Playing on the easiest to learn setting it makes your characters quite weak and you wind up playing through the missions quite quickly. Essentially at the resolution of combat, if your character wins then the opponent's character dies or vice versa. The one shot one kill scenario is fast, but it feels kind of anti climactic and seems to remove some of the challenge for me. Now if you choose to play on the "legendary" setting, you can utilize a characters shields, like you have on the Spartans or Elites, and this will make the game much more challenging and more realistic to actual video game play.

In the end the game is pretty decent. The high light was the board game format because I thought that was interesting. When it comes to overall game play I just think it's going to be dwarfed by Wizkid's Haloclix system, which was far more challenging and basically allows you to generate the same kind of scenario concepts like in the board game. I might have thought this game was a lot more fun if Haloclix didn't exist, so it's not like Doom, where it's my only exposure to a board game system. If you're a die hard Halo fan and can't resist owning this novelty item, like me, then I would recommend it. It is a decent time passer if you want to play some Halo. If, however, you've never heard of the Wizkid's Clix system, then I would recommend you take a look at that as well, because I think that captures the challenge of the game a little better. If you're feeling quite inventive you can just buy this for the board game pieces and use those with your clix so you can enjoy the modular terrain! You can even combine the clix into the DVD missions as well.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Game!!! Better than Heroscape, October 31, 2008

By 

Jay Stone "Jay" (Florida) - See all my reviews

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:3.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Genius Products Halo Interactive Strategy Game (Toy)

What I find great about this game is the numerous combination's of game play, great strategy, cool pieces to create maps, I can play with friends, bottom line - its FUN!!! What's not so great is that it is in Limited Stock! I had to wait to get it from Amazon because it is already sold out at some stores!

I am a Halo Fanatic and when I read about it online I thought geez... what next from Halo -- but of course I had to have it. Boy was I was surprised! This is a fantastic game! I bought about a week ago and me an my friends can't stop playing (Shout to Rich and Adrian). Lots of interchangeable 'lego' like pieces to create different maps, numerous combination of game play, nice alternative to mix things up a bit. My friend bought a copy yesterday (after searching around for it) and we were able to put the two games together and make one HUGE game board - awesome. We want to try three games together. When my buddy went to get the game at another store it was the last one they had. This one will sell out fast! Get it -- you won't be disappointed"