If it feels more haunting and sad than the mainline games, it’s because like in Reach and ODST, we were fighting a losing war in Halo Wars. Humanity has always been losing, losing HARD, and the mainline games don’t feel as desperate because the Master Chief always wins. But the Halo Wars opening cinematic tells the tale of the campaign of Harvest, which should’ve been a quick and decisive win but turned into « five years of hell »
3:20 "Captain's report: February 4th, 2531. Five years - five long years. That's how long it took us to get Harvest back. At first it was going well. Then setback after setback... Loss after loss... Made what was going to be a quick and decisive win... Into five years of hell. Of course, that's all Harvest really is today... It's Hell down there, but now it's ours again.
I can’t speak for hw2, but I’d say halo wars was very much a successful spinoff. it kept the feel of halo while telling its own story with its own characters and managed to carry that into its soundtrack. a great little console rts for those of us who liked that genre.
I bought Halo Wars 2 for PC. It would not load, and when it finally was fixed it was half a year later and I was too annoyed with it. I had 3 other friends 1 of them the same issue and we all gave up because of it.
I have a similar problem on Xbox to this day, if it’s installed on the internal ssd it’s fine but if it’s installed on external strorage it gets stuck on pregame loading screens forever
@@nathanoliva2484It was decent and brought back a lot of good things like the good halo art style we all know and love but in terms of sales, reception of gameplay mechanics, microtransactions, and the new Blitz mode, it was considered a loss. It was the least selling of any halo game by far and even with gamepass it struggled to maintain a population they wanted to see. Gameplay was considered by many a step down from halo wars 1 despite the mostly good balance changes. Honestly if it wasn’t for the popularity spike from awakening the nightmare, they would’ve abandoned it sooner. Overall as a huge halo fan, it was a solid halo title held back by generic gameplay and microtransaction greed and the huge spike in popularity from awakening the nightmare shows that, at the very least, the story and campaign was somewhat successful
I love how the Halo Wars soundtrack clearly connects to the mainline games', but still has a unique feel that sets it apart. This easily makes it feel like a new story in the same universe.
14:45 "Sir, it's already overheating. I'll have to separate the core and align them manually when they need to blow." "Son, I've a feeling before this is over, we'll need every last Spartan in the fight. I can do this. Report back to the ship." "Good luck, sir. It's been an honor."
Time stamps: 0:20 - Spirit of Fire / Main Theme of Halo Wars 3:18 - Five Long Years 7:13 - Put the Lady Down 9:36 - Part of the Problem 12:42 - We’re Burning Sunshine 15:37 - Fingerprints are Broken 19:28 - Insignificantia (All Sloppy/No Joe)
The reason some of the tracks are called that way are because they’re inside jokes by the developers at Ensumble studios (the developers who made Halo Wars) RIP to them, this was their last game before they got killed off by Microsoft
Yeah I'm pretty sure that the drvs quickly put together a side company so they could get the mp servers up in time as well as make sure the game got the support it needed for launch since Microsoft killed ensemble before halo wars was even officially launched
May not be Marty O'Donnell, but it still feels like Halo, don't know how they nailed that opening theme so well I love all the classic FPS Halo games, but Halo Wars (1&2) has a special place in my hard drive and I always end up playing it again.
12:40 Burning sunshine is a colloquialism meaning to waste time. Most people get things done during the day & have to stop when the sun goes down so if you waste time your burning through the amount of sunshine you have to do things. It plays during a cutscene where they’re setting up a reactor to blow & opens with Sgt. Forge saying "Gentlemen, we're burning sunshine here!" He’s basically telling them to hurry up.
To piggyback off that, they're rigging the ftl drive from their ship to start a chain reaction that will destroy an artificial sun, they are literally going to burn the sun(shine)
@@Kepler3-b I think it's a pun on Sloppy Joes, a lot of Ensemble Studios music track titles were inside jokes from the studio The main theme for Age of Mythology is literally called "A Cat named Mittens"
It’s a halo game about a tacticians POV of the worst situation they could find themselves in, completely alone and outnumbered on a newly discovered mega structure so far away from home you see the Milky way galaxy in the sky
Absolutely incredible soundtrack by Stephen Rippy. He was the composer to Age of Empires and Age of Mythology, hence the incredible variety of music. Halo Wars is one of my fav Halo games, and the cutscenes were incredible. Glad you choose this
Stephen Rippy is an amazing composer! Love his work, and he did a fantastic job with Halo Wars - he truly had some massive shoes to fill, but he always delivers
Halo wars always reminded me of halo 2 soundtrack wise, where there is that "groovy" element very strongly up front. Halo wars mixes it with traditional orchestra, where halo 2 goes in a more rockish direction.
Stephen Rippy IMO is the only composer/arranger that has been able to compose his own music that sounds like Halo even without using any motifs composed by Marty and Michael. He uses some motifs in a few arrangements, and in those cases it's still better than what I've heard from other composers and quite original. Definitely a composer who respected the style and is able to be flexible to fit in. I think the composers in newer Halo games don't care to fit in or it wasn't in their style range.
I would highly suggest watching one of the Halo Wars "movies" on RUclips where it is all the cinimatics stitched together. The music hits so much harder eith the visuals. Probably my absolute favorite parts are the opening and the emergence of the Spirit into the interior of the shield world. Gives me goosebumps just about every time.
Spirit of Fire is my favorite of the tracks. So Halo Wars takes place 5 years after the start of the Human Covenant War and 20 years before the main trilogy. They start at the the first human planet that was invaded searching for something the Covenant have found. Five Long Years plays before Spirit of Fire and plays over a starting monologue from the captain of the UNSC Spirit of Fire talking about their 5 year battle to get the planet Harvest back from the Covenant before finally regaining control of the planet. The Covenant leave Harvest and the Spirit of Fire chaises them down to another human colony under attack. They aid in the defense of the planet. Put the Lady Down plays when the Covenant kidnaps the human scientist on a human colony that is under attack and the captain needs to make the decision to chaise them down to save her. They arrive at an ancient Forerunner planet. We're Burning Sunshine plays when the crew of the Spirit of Fire rigs their slip space drive to blow up a planet to prevent the Covenant from using an ancient forerunner ship fleet. Insignificantia plays for the credits. The Spirit of Fire lost its slip space drive and they are now stranded in space far from any human planet with no way back. The UNSC unable to track them down designates the ship as "Lost with all hands" believing the ship was destroyed not knowing that it was actually adrift in space.
Stephen Rippy also composed music for Age of Empires and Age of Mythology as they were also done by Ensemble Studios. You can definely here lot of familiar elements from Age of Empires III soundtrack in Halo Wars, often its line mix of of that soundtrack and Halo.
Stephen Rippy's work with the halo wars soundtrack is incredible. How he managed to maintain the spirit, tone, and sound of Halo while also creating some really interesting, almost poppy, melodies like on Insignifcanta, is awesome. Insignificanta Action Figure Hands Flollo Bad Here Day are my favorites. He made some great themes and also some really compelling chill music to have on while you're figuring out your strategy (or watching your supply depots be built) As a die hard Halo fan, Ensemble's work on Halo Wars was spectacular and far more faithful to the spirit of Halo than any of the 343 games.
Fun fact: Halo was originally designed to be an RTS(Real Time Strategy) before being turned into Halo 1, so this is kinda almost a full circle for the series lol Also btw for Halo 4, it’s the first one by 343, but although having a very different ost from previous games it still has a bunch of decent tracks, definitely very underrated imo
The halo wars series has some great music that sets it apart from the mainline games. While they may not be as iconic as the others since it isn't as story driven, I still get chills and nostalgia when listening to spirit of fire (the main menu music)
Five Long Years plays in the opening cutscene, which is series of beautiful visuals and concise expository narration explaining the 5-year long campaign fighting the Covenant on the planet Harvest. That's why it's in sections.
Spirit of Fire always made me feel sad. As a kid I couldn't really explain the feeling, but it was simultaneously uncomfortable and captivating. I couldn't help but sit in the main menu letting the entire song play out. As an adult, now, I still get this feeling, but now with a mix of nostalgia
The story of this games development is very interesting, The devs really went through hell to get this game done. TheActMan does a good job of explaining it.
In Halo, you are an unstoppable super soldier tasked with being humanities savior, taking on scores of foes that run at the mere sight of you, while discovering ancient ancestry long passed. In Halo Wars, you play in the eyes of a grizzled tactician, pressed into making rash decisions and constantly planning against unrelenting onslaughts of technologically superior aliens, mystical machinery, and horrid space parasites while far from home, all for the greater good, and ensuring as many of your forces see the light of tomorrow. If anything, Stephen Rippy was the perfect choice for this tone of a game.
You should see a set of cinematic long plays of these games (not just the cutscenes/cinematics, but where someone plays through with an eye for telling the story through the capture). You'll love it, and a number of the halo songs you've heard might bring you to tears knowing the story behind them.
6:04 The choppiness is actually from gameplay themes. Modern game soundtracks can actually be reactive to player actions and the halo franchise pioneered that. What you heard as a single short theme is a sample of a modular soundscape that can be shuffled and stitched together to make something indefinitely long that can fit the feeling of that stage of the story/setting. You heard what, a minute of song? In game the player might have that last 5-10 min if they're taking their time, or have the music blend from the previous theme through a few seconds of the current one and on to the next seamlessly if they're speeding through faster than intended.
Finger prints are broken probably refers to the fact that only humans can interact with forerunner tech through our unique fingerprints that the covenant species can't, since this game was made before humans being the forerunners was retconned
Insignificantia is the game's end credits track. You wouldn't have heard it during gameplay or in the background of a cutscene. That's why it sounded out of place relative to the other tracks. It's there for you to listen to while you process all of the emotions whirling around inside of you right after you've finished the game. Some other tracks from this game that I think are really good but didn't make it into this video are Action Figure Hands, Flip and Sizzle, Bad Here Day, and Money or Meteors. For a first try with a property they were completely new to and with no assistance from anyone at Bungie, Ensemble and Stephen Rippy did a heck of a job. It's a shame what happened to them after the game's release. They deserved better.
The Halo Wars OST just embodies ambience. It's one of those OSTs that I might pick a couple tracks out to listen to, but usually I flip it on in its entirety. Remove a couple tracks and it's a fantastic sleep playlist, too. Since the cutscenes were done by Blur and not in-house, I assume they were scored after production and that's why Steven Rippy made a lot of the tracks exactly as long as they needed to be for the scene and not longer pieces that can be shortened or lengthened as-needed like some of Marty & Mike's tracks. Halo Wars is such a unique example of a spinoff, because the gameplay couldn't be farther from the source material yet it has a perfect feel that matches Halo 1. The characters don't have a massive amount of dimension to them, but they really don't need to. They're memorable, were very well played, and fit exactly where they needed to in the story. It's one of my absolute favorites If you want a franchise that will surprise you with its music just as much as Halo, I strongly recommend looking at Ace Combat. For being an arcade flight sim about pulling off superhuman feats of aerial combat, the music SLAPS
The Halo franchise in general is predominately first person shooting with a strong emphasis on environmental storytelling. The main character generally has a direction or a waypoint they need to head towards, and they encounter various setpieces along the way as they blast their way through aliens to get to the next pivotal story point. The character is a super lethal, but small part of the overall war effort. Halo has cutscenes, but they take a back seat to a game design that tries to emphasize putting the player into the unfolding action. Most cutscenes are short in the main franchise, or happen sparingly in favor of storytelling that leaves the player in control of the camera/movement. Halo Wars by contrast is a strategy game. You take an eagle-eyed perspective of the battlefield and direct armies towards big picture objectives. Most of the storytelling comes from named characters having dialogue over the various objectives the game presents you. The player is basically a commander, and the emphasis is on telling the story through plot macguffins and cutscenes. Halo Wars is a massive divergence from the original genre, but a very faithful adaptation of the source material and a quality rendition of the franchises' world building. It manages to feel like Halo, without putting the camera in the player's helmet, so to speak. There is a heavy reliance on using full cutscenes before and after the missions. For this soundtrack, the pieces that had abrupt pauses and starts were almost universally cutscenes, and sometimes very separated sections of cutscenes. All the tracks that had repeats (typically one refrain) were looped mission tracks which got reused in various ways. The 'groovier' tracks would play out as you were in the game in control of your army and base. The more dramatic tracks that were broken up might be something like "Cutscene A, Cutscene B, Cutscene C" in a given mission. They rely on repeating the same motifs in different ways to tell a story of rising and falling action throughout the arc of a given gameplay segment, and break up the action so the player can immerse more in the story. Your instincts on this were pretty accurate all things considered, which is a testament to how well Stephen Rippy and the orchestra captured Marty's original charms.
Halo Wars is different, but still feels Halo to me. The soundtrack is a good new take in the series and I really enjoy it. It is no 'Finale' or 'Keep What You Steal' but it is really good. Time for some video suggestions. I already talked about the Endless series so now lets recommend FROSTPUNK: Frostpunk is a city builder set in a dystopian 1800s where the world entered a new ice age. Humanity now lives on small cities around huge ass coal generators that provide heat and energy. You are the captain, you must rule the city as it grows, ensuring it has coal, food, hosing and order so it doesnt collapse to the cold or to anarchy. It makes you take some pretty tough decisions, you can try being a good leader but sometimes an iron fist is better to keep order amist the chaos. There are many moral and technichal decisions to make, but no matter how you approach it, you must remember: THE CITY MUST SURVIVE! And the soundtrack perfectly reflects that vibe. Its epic and mellow and terrifying sometimes. Playing as an ice storm ravages your buildings and gives your people frostbite. Slowly getting more desperate as your resources dwindle and your people lose hope.
I'm actually kind of surprised to hear that hw1 music is controversial, I consider HW1 OST to be just as Halo and Nostalgic as any other Marty piece, anything after this though is another story. I also hope people don't dislike it JUST because it wasn't made by Marty. edit: anything after HW1 OTHER than infinite, I think Infinite's music was pretty good all things considered.
Definitely like it, Before I was A huge Halo Fan I was a Huge Age of Empires/Mythology Fan so Halo Wars was a match made in heaven. Unfortunately this was the last game Ensemble studios ever made as they were shut down after it released but it was a great send off to an amazing studio.
With We're Burning Sunshine, Forge and Red Team are deploying the ship's FTL drive to the summit to detonate the sun and collapse the shield world. In the midst of all this they are set upon by the Arbiter and his honour guards. Red Team take care of the guards while Forge goes hand to hand with the Arbiter and defeats him. Its one of THE BEST cutscenes in gaming period in my opinion.
Halo Wars 1 has a beautiful track list in my opinion that Spirit of Fire track is just perfect. I'd leave my game in the main menu and listen to it endelessly
Have to comment again @17:30 “Piano, piano do the same thing that the vocals just did!” Love it! It’s exactly how I react to hearing an awesome part of a new song. I can just on my own, out loud, say “come on I want it with that instrument as well! please you gotta give it to me. You can’t make something so great and then lack the brilliancy of doing it with those earlier instrume… YES YES YES I HAVE TO REWIND TO LISTEN PROPERLY!”
Part of the Problemplays at the start of the match before you start fighting each other. The melo of it reminds me of when I'm setting up my base and planning my strategy at the start, so I work towards it. 10:03
As a diehard Halo fan and a huge enjoyer of the trilogy OSTs, Halo Wars had amazing composition. It was different enough as to not copy Marty's music, but it seamlessly fit into the Halo universe's tone. It was also nice to see Halo come full circle and be developed as an RTS game, as originally intended by Bungie back in their Mac days.
Introduced my bro to the campaign and we co oped it. I made sure he stayed during the credits just because the music was so good. Pretty sure it’s it’s insignificantia
The same guy who did the Halo Wars soundtracks, Stephen Rippy, also did all the Age of Empires games. And Age of Mythology. I LOVE his style and his level music is fantastic. I listen to this soundtrack all the time while I study.
Bad Here Day is usually my go to track from this OST, next to action figure hands. the stage music is always nice to listen to when forging maps in other Halo games, but all very ambient and atmospheric.
IIRC Spirit of Fire, Burning Daylight, Five Long Years and Put The Lady Down are from cutscenes, and the rest are just loopable background music from game play.
For me at least, Halo Wars has a very unique musical identity that creates an atmosphere that I love. It’s my favorite halo game to just open a private game in and just chill, kinda therapeutic in a way. Some of my favorite ambient tracks that weren’t included here are “Bad Here Day”, “Work Burns and Runaway Grunts”, “Flip and Sizzle”, “and Just Ad Nausem” if you felt like listening to any of the others
I cant say if i liked Halo wars more then the mainline Halo games, them being very different genres makes it like comparing apples and oranges, but i did really enjoy it.
This game had me in its grips in my teenage years, i remember how far ahead the cutscenese were to anything i had ever seen in a video game like that before, music was very unique yet had many homages to the original trilogy
12:41 if this is genuine, burning sunshine is an America saying that essentially means to waste valuable time, especially at the being or end of the day when you need the sunlight to do something. It’s also a pretty messed up joke about the ending of the game
The piano is solidly anytime the ship "Spirit of Fire" shows up. You were correct about the cutscenes and why it sounded seperated. This game was made without permission and saw Microsoft aquiring Ensemble Studios. Still a favorite of mine to this day. Held a base for 5 hours in a 1v2 situation as Cutter Deathmatch. Best RTS next to Dawn of War.
The Halo Wars soundtrack is, imo, the most underrated soundtrack in the entire series. It catches so much of the scale that you hear in the rest of Marty's work as well as the style while maintaining its own identity.
Here to let you know, old timey RTS games had great music, since that's how you were to fill the time as RTS games can tend to be longer. Great examples -> Rise of Nations, Command and Conquer, Starcraft, etc. You should definitely check out these games' OSTs.
the thing i love about halo wars is it makes the war with the covenant more real and desperate because its just humans with one out of date ship against them not a super soldier with plot armor
Strange request: Can you check out the Banana Kong 2 Soundtrack? I absolutely love the music! And it's by the same composer who did the Sonic Mania OST (Tee Lopes).
Honestly all the games have some great Soundtracks even Halo 4 and 5 especially Halo Infinte. Even if the community may not like it you should definitely react to them to compare them. Halo Wars definetly is liked so you also should do Halo Wars 2.
So, fun fact, only 2/7 tracks here are sort of “ambient” tracks (ie, those that play during gameplay, on the map. 3/7 are cutscene tracks like you predicted, and that is why they’re a bit choppier and more variable. The last track is the credits music, and the first plays during the main menu. The second track is the intro cutscene, and while it doesn’t actually pause, it accompanies narration over a similarly choppy recounting of the past five years to that point. As for burning sunshine, not only is it an idiom representing wasting time (ie, burning the hours of sunshine we have left) but in this case, they are preparing a nuclear reactor to explode inside the heart of an artificial sun, so…double meaning? And the four descending notes you state sound like the end of “We’re burning sunshine” are also in “Five long years”, and are the motif of the main villain. So what you’re hearing is him making an entrance into the cutscene
Yeah, I find the gameplay mechanics of Halo Wars 2 a step up, but it suffers dramatically in terms of things like story. There's very little that actually happens in the game by comparison, but the Banished campaign expansion was great.
We're burning sunshine is a way of saying were wasting or running out of time, also not only was there a different composer but this was also a different game company making it which got shut down by Microsoft after development was completed even though Microsoft requested the game from them
I think the reason why you couldn't really tell where songs might be placed in the context of the game is because it's a real time strategy game instead of a first person shooter. The songs are meant to be a bit of ambiance while you're taking time building up your army and securing forward operating bases. A lot of the climactic events happen during cutscenes before or after missions, but sometimes there are very long, intense musical sequences that play during large scale battles. I absolutely loved Halo Wars when it released (I was 11), and the music is still as good today as it was back then. They kept the feel of the original games alive while putting their own, sort of techno sort of not, spin on it.
Nice video! Also last vid I made a comment, I don't know if you seen it so am going to copy and paste it here lol. Hi, I'm new to your channel and I love your reactions! I don't know if you read suggestions, but you should listen to the OST of the game Piggy, here are the best themes: -Scary Shanty* -Kraxicorde theme -Crystalized* -Duality* -Twisted Twins -Kona* -Uneasy Urgency -Her Encounter -Let Go* -Washed Clean By The River* -Travelling Time -The Lonesome Sailor* -The Wretched Wolf* I put a little star * to the one you MUST listen to.
As you play these songs, the cutscenes just play in my head. You are absolutely right about the cutscenes by the way 😁 As you said yourself, there's the differences between each track, ones that are clearly used in cutscenes and ones that are used as music for multiplayer games, like "fingerprints are broken" is one of those multiplayer tracks and "5 years" is used in a cutscene.
To add extra context to the last track insignificantia it's played during the end credits where the developers (ensemble studios) also say their goodbye as halo wars was a game that they didnt want to make but were forced to by microsoft whilst recieving no help from bungie as they were against the idea due to seeing it as microsoft "whoring out the franchise" and not only that microsoft informed them part way through making the game that they would be getting shut down after the games launch making it their last ever game. In my opinion it was a great game and so was the sequel halo wars 2 with them being two of my favourite halo games.
If it feels more haunting and sad than the mainline games, it’s because like in Reach and ODST, we were fighting a losing war in Halo Wars. Humanity has always been losing, losing HARD, and the mainline games don’t feel as desperate because the Master Chief always wins.
But the Halo Wars opening cinematic tells the tale of the campaign of Harvest, which should’ve been a quick and decisive win but turned into « five years of hell »
Hall Reach says otherwise
@@mmancuso1231 It doesn't
@@mmancuso1231 "like in Reach and ODST"
3:20
"Captain's report: February 4th, 2531. Five years - five long years. That's how long it took us to get Harvest back.
At first it was going well.
Then setback after setback...
Loss after loss...
Made what was going to be a quick and decisive win...
Into five years of hell.
Of course, that's all Harvest really is today... It's Hell down there, but now it's ours again.
"And for the record; I would've kicked your ass the _first_ time if the lady hadn't stopped me!"
I can’t speak for hw2, but I’d say halo wars was very much a successful spinoff. it kept the feel of halo while telling its own story with its own characters and managed to carry that into its soundtrack. a great little console rts for those of us who liked that genre.
Fans of both Age of Empires & Halo were eating good in 2009
Hw2 was successful for a good while and rightfully so, but the devs eventually abandoned it completely
I bought Halo Wars 2 for PC. It would not load, and when it finally was fixed it was half a year later and I was too annoyed with it. I had 3 other friends 1 of them the same issue and we all gave up because of it.
I have a similar problem on Xbox to this day, if it’s installed on the internal ssd it’s fine but if it’s installed on external strorage it gets stuck on pregame loading screens forever
@@nathanoliva2484It was decent and brought back a lot of good things like the good halo art style we all know and love but in terms of sales, reception of gameplay mechanics, microtransactions, and the new Blitz mode, it was considered a loss. It was the least selling of any halo game by far and even with gamepass it struggled to maintain a population they wanted to see. Gameplay was considered by many a step down from halo wars 1 despite the mostly good balance changes. Honestly if it wasn’t for the popularity spike from awakening the nightmare, they would’ve abandoned it sooner. Overall as a huge halo fan, it was a solid halo title held back by generic gameplay and microtransaction greed and the huge spike in popularity from awakening the nightmare shows that, at the very least, the story and campaign was somewhat successful
I love how the Halo Wars soundtrack clearly connects to the mainline games', but still has a unique feel that sets it apart. This easily makes it feel like a new story in the same universe.
7:15
"Why don't we put the lady down and talk about this, man to freak?”
"As you wish."
“And for the record, I would’ve whooped your ass the first time, if the lady hadn’t stopped me”
14:45
"Sir, it's already overheating. I'll have to separate the core and align them manually when they need to blow."
"Son, I've a feeling before this is over, we'll need every last Spartan in the fight. I can do this. Report back to the ship."
"Good luck, sir. It's been an honor."
Forge……..
Time stamps:
0:20 - Spirit of Fire / Main Theme of Halo Wars
3:18 - Five Long Years
7:13 - Put the Lady Down
9:36 - Part of the Problem
12:42 - We’re Burning Sunshine
15:37 - Fingerprints are Broken
19:28 - Insignificantia (All Sloppy/No Joe)
The reason some of the tracks are called that way are because they’re inside jokes by the developers at Ensumble studios (the developers who made Halo Wars)
RIP to them, this was their last game before they got killed off by Microsoft
Yeah I'm pretty sure that the drvs quickly put together a side company so they could get the mp servers up in time as well as make sure the game got the support it needed for launch since Microsoft killed ensemble before halo wars was even officially launched
May not be Marty O'Donnell, but it still feels like Halo, don't know how they nailed that opening theme so well
I love all the classic FPS Halo games, but Halo Wars (1&2) has a special place in my hard drive and I always end up playing it again.
Would have liked to seen Action Figure Hands in here.
same, underrated track. It's one of my favorites in the entire franchise.
I agree. Was waiting for it the entire video. One of my all time favourite halo tracks.
12:40
Burning sunshine is a colloquialism meaning to waste time.
Most people get things done during the day & have to stop when the sun goes down so if you waste time your burning through the amount of sunshine you have to do things.
It plays during a cutscene where they’re setting up a reactor to blow & opens with Sgt. Forge saying "Gentlemen, we're burning sunshine here!"
He’s basically telling them to hurry up.
To piggyback off that, they're rigging the ftl drive from their ship to start a chain reaction that will destroy an artificial sun, they are literally going to burn the sun(shine)
I always heard it as "we're burning daylight" but it's the same idea
Insignificantia (All Sloppy/No Joe) plays during the credits
It also plays during gameplay sometimes
It also plays in downtown on most maps
All sleepy 🤑
@@Kepler3-b I think it's a pun on Sloppy Joes, a lot of Ensemble Studios music track titles were inside jokes from the studio
The main theme for Age of Mythology is literally called "A Cat named Mittens"
It’s a halo game about a tacticians POV of the worst situation they could find themselves in, completely alone and outnumbered on a newly discovered mega structure so far away from home you see the Milky way galaxy in the sky
the installation in this game is a shield world in the galaxy. Youre referring to the Ark, which was lost to time until late 2552
Absolutely incredible soundtrack by Stephen Rippy. He was the composer to Age of Empires and Age of Mythology, hence the incredible variety of music. Halo Wars is one of my fav Halo games, and the cutscenes were incredible. Glad you choose this
Stephen Rippy is an amazing composer! Love his work, and he did a fantastic job with Halo Wars - he truly had some massive shoes to fill, but he always delivers
Halo wars always reminded me of halo 2 soundtrack wise, where there is that "groovy" element very strongly up front. Halo wars mixes it with traditional orchestra, where halo 2 goes in a more rockish direction.
Stephen Rippy IMO is the only composer/arranger that has been able to compose his own music that sounds like Halo even without using any motifs composed by Marty and Michael. He uses some motifs in a few arrangements, and in those cases it's still better than what I've heard from other composers and quite original.
Definitely a composer who respected the style and is able to be flexible to fit in. I think the composers in newer Halo games don't care to fit in or it wasn't in their style range.
I would highly suggest watching one of the Halo Wars "movies" on RUclips where it is all the cinimatics stitched together. The music hits so much harder eith the visuals. Probably my absolute favorite parts are the opening and the emergence of the Spirit into the interior of the shield world. Gives me goosebumps just about every time.
The farther into the games you go, the more atmospheric the music gets, and the fewer themes you'll hear.
Don’t know how many hours I put into halo wars as a kid, but it was a lot. Good times
Spirit of Fire is my favorite of the tracks. So Halo Wars takes place 5 years after the start of the Human Covenant War and 20 years before the main trilogy. They start at the the first human planet that was invaded searching for something the Covenant have found. Five Long Years plays before Spirit of Fire and plays over a starting monologue from the captain of the UNSC Spirit of Fire talking about their 5 year battle to get the planet Harvest back from the Covenant before finally regaining control of the planet. The Covenant leave Harvest and the Spirit of Fire chaises them down to another human colony under attack. They aid in the defense of the planet. Put the Lady Down plays when the Covenant kidnaps the human scientist on a human colony that is under attack and the captain needs to make the decision to chaise them down to save her. They arrive at an ancient Forerunner planet. We're Burning Sunshine plays when the crew of the Spirit of Fire rigs their slip space drive to blow up a planet to prevent the Covenant from using an ancient forerunner ship fleet. Insignificantia plays for the credits. The Spirit of Fire lost its slip space drive and they are now stranded in space far from any human planet with no way back. The UNSC unable to track them down designates the ship as "Lost with all hands" believing the ship was destroyed not knowing that it was actually adrift in space.
The Halo Wars 1 OST is criminally underrated, even as a standalone piece. Insignificantia is such a great vibe.
Stephen Rippy also composed music for Age of Empires and Age of Mythology as they were also done by Ensemble Studios.
You can definely here lot of familiar elements from Age of Empires III soundtrack in Halo Wars, often its line mix of of that soundtrack and Halo.
Stephen Rippy's work with the halo wars soundtrack is incredible. How he managed to maintain the spirit, tone, and sound of Halo while also creating some really interesting, almost poppy, melodies like on Insignifcanta, is awesome.
Insignificanta
Action Figure Hands
Flollo
Bad Here Day
are my favorites. He made some great themes and also some really compelling chill music to have on while you're figuring out your strategy (or watching your supply depots be built)
As a die hard Halo fan, Ensemble's work on Halo Wars was spectacular and far more faithful to the spirit of Halo than any of the 343 games.
Fun fact: Halo was originally designed to be an RTS(Real Time Strategy) before being turned into Halo 1, so this is kinda almost a full circle for the series lol
Also btw for Halo 4, it’s the first one by 343, but although having a very different ost from previous games it still has a bunch of decent tracks, definitely very underrated imo
The halo wars series has some great music that sets it apart from the mainline games. While they may not be as iconic as the others since it isn't as story driven, I still get chills and nostalgia when listening to spirit of fire (the main menu music)
to me they’re as iconic🙂 like action figure hands
Five Long Years plays in the opening cutscene, which is series of beautiful visuals and concise expository narration explaining the 5-year long campaign fighting the Covenant on the planet Harvest. That's why it's in sections.
Spirit of Fire always made me feel sad. As a kid I couldn't really explain the feeling, but it was simultaneously uncomfortable and captivating. I couldn't help but sit in the main menu letting the entire song play out. As an adult, now, I still get this feeling, but now with a mix of nostalgia
The nastolgia is where this track really hits😭😭😭❤
The story of this games development is very interesting, The devs really went through hell to get this game done. TheActMan does a good job of explaining it.
"Nostalgia" is my only descriptor for the music. I miss it.
I do love how the story it covers is canon.
13:18 "Take care of those Elites! He's mine."
In Halo, you are an unstoppable super soldier tasked with being humanities savior, taking on scores of foes that run at the mere sight of you, while discovering ancient ancestry long passed.
In Halo Wars, you play in the eyes of a grizzled tactician, pressed into making rash decisions and constantly planning against unrelenting onslaughts of technologically superior aliens, mystical machinery, and horrid space parasites while far from home, all for the greater good, and ensuring as many of your forces see the light of tomorrow.
If anything, Stephen Rippy was the perfect choice for this tone of a game.
From flying into a planet and slamming into a Covvie ship BSG style to pulling the Spock maneuver, Halo Wars and its cinematics are bloody timeless
You should see a set of cinematic long plays of these games (not just the cutscenes/cinematics, but where someone plays through with an eye for telling the story through the capture). You'll love it, and a number of the halo songs you've heard might bring you to tears knowing the story behind them.
6:04 The choppiness is actually from gameplay themes. Modern game soundtracks can actually be reactive to player actions and the halo franchise pioneered that. What you heard as a single short theme is a sample of a modular soundscape that can be shuffled and stitched together to make something indefinitely long that can fit the feeling of that stage of the story/setting. You heard what, a minute of song? In game the player might have that last 5-10 min if they're taking their time, or have the music blend from the previous theme through a few seconds of the current one and on to the next seamlessly if they're speeding through faster than intended.
Finger prints are broken probably refers to the fact that only humans can interact with forerunner tech through our unique fingerprints that the covenant species can't, since this game was made before humans being the forerunners was retconned
Insignificantia is the game's end credits track. You wouldn't have heard it during gameplay or in the background of a cutscene. That's why it sounded out of place relative to the other tracks. It's there for you to listen to while you process all of the emotions whirling around inside of you right after you've finished the game.
Some other tracks from this game that I think are really good but didn't make it into this video are Action Figure Hands, Flip and Sizzle, Bad Here Day, and Money or Meteors.
For a first try with a property they were completely new to and with no assistance from anyone at Bungie, Ensemble and Stephen Rippy did a heck of a job. It's a shame what happened to them after the game's release. They deserved better.
The Halo Wars OST just embodies ambience. It's one of those OSTs that I might pick a couple tracks out to listen to, but usually I flip it on in its entirety. Remove a couple tracks and it's a fantastic sleep playlist, too.
Since the cutscenes were done by Blur and not in-house, I assume they were scored after production and that's why Steven Rippy made a lot of the tracks exactly as long as they needed to be for the scene and not longer pieces that can be shortened or lengthened as-needed like some of Marty & Mike's tracks.
Halo Wars is such a unique example of a spinoff, because the gameplay couldn't be farther from the source material yet it has a perfect feel that matches Halo 1. The characters don't have a massive amount of dimension to them, but they really don't need to. They're memorable, were very well played, and fit exactly where they needed to in the story. It's one of my absolute favorites
If you want a franchise that will surprise you with its music just as much as Halo, I strongly recommend looking at Ace Combat. For being an arcade flight sim about pulling off superhuman feats of aerial combat, the music SLAPS
Ah, good ole halo Wars 1. One of the best RTS games period.
19:47. END TRANSMISSION:
The Halo franchise in general is predominately first person shooting with a strong emphasis on environmental storytelling. The main character generally has a direction or a waypoint they need to head towards, and they encounter various setpieces along the way as they blast their way through aliens to get to the next pivotal story point. The character is a super lethal, but small part of the overall war effort. Halo has cutscenes, but they take a back seat to a game design that tries to emphasize putting the player into the unfolding action. Most cutscenes are short in the main franchise, or happen sparingly in favor of storytelling that leaves the player in control of the camera/movement.
Halo Wars by contrast is a strategy game. You take an eagle-eyed perspective of the battlefield and direct armies towards big picture objectives. Most of the storytelling comes from named characters having dialogue over the various objectives the game presents you. The player is basically a commander, and the emphasis is on telling the story through plot macguffins and cutscenes. Halo Wars is a massive divergence from the original genre, but a very faithful adaptation of the source material and a quality rendition of the franchises' world building. It manages to feel like Halo, without putting the camera in the player's helmet, so to speak. There is a heavy reliance on using full cutscenes before and after the missions.
For this soundtrack, the pieces that had abrupt pauses and starts were almost universally cutscenes, and sometimes very separated sections of cutscenes. All the tracks that had repeats (typically one refrain) were looped mission tracks which got reused in various ways. The 'groovier' tracks would play out as you were in the game in control of your army and base. The more dramatic tracks that were broken up might be something like "Cutscene A, Cutscene B, Cutscene C" in a given mission. They rely on repeating the same motifs in different ways to tell a story of rising and falling action throughout the arc of a given gameplay segment, and break up the action so the player can immerse more in the story.
Your instincts on this were pretty accurate all things considered, which is a testament to how well Stephen Rippy and the orchestra captured Marty's original charms.
Halo Wars is different, but still feels Halo to me. The soundtrack is a good new take in the series and I really enjoy it. It is no 'Finale' or 'Keep What You Steal' but it is really good.
Time for some video suggestions. I already talked about the Endless series so now lets recommend FROSTPUNK:
Frostpunk is a city builder set in a dystopian 1800s where the world entered a new ice age. Humanity now lives on small cities around huge ass coal generators that provide heat and energy. You are the captain, you must rule the city as it grows, ensuring it has coal, food, hosing and order so it doesnt collapse to the cold or to anarchy.
It makes you take some pretty tough decisions, you can try being a good leader but sometimes an iron fist is better to keep order amist the chaos. There are many moral and technichal decisions to make, but no matter how you approach it, you must remember:
THE CITY MUST SURVIVE!
And the soundtrack perfectly reflects that vibe. Its epic and mellow and terrifying sometimes. Playing as an ice storm ravages your buildings and gives your people frostbite. Slowly getting more desperate as your resources dwindle and your people lose hope.
stephen rippy is known to me for two things.
1.) very good RTS soundtracks
2.) absolutely nonsensical song titles, ESPECIALLY on the bangers
I'm actually kind of surprised to hear that hw1 music is controversial, I consider HW1 OST to be just as Halo and Nostalgic as any other Marty piece, anything after this though is another story. I also hope people don't dislike it JUST because it wasn't made by Marty.
edit: anything after HW1 OTHER than infinite, I think Infinite's music was pretty good all things considered.
I wish she watched the cutscenes many of these tracks were paired with after listening to the tracks separately.
Definitely like it, Before I was A huge Halo Fan I was a Huge Age of Empires/Mythology Fan so Halo Wars was a match made in heaven.
Unfortunately this was the last game Ensemble studios ever made as they were shut down after it released but it was a great send off to an amazing studio.
People think Microsoft only sucks ow but they have always had their heads 6 feet in the gutters
This video made me realize that "Fingerprints are Broken" is a banger.
Im pretty sure people have asked, but you should try to watch whatever cutscenes as well
Fun fact: most of the music for the Halo Minecraft Mash up was from Halo Wars
With We're Burning Sunshine, Forge and Red Team are deploying the ship's FTL drive to the summit to detonate the sun and collapse the shield world. In the midst of all this they are set upon by the Arbiter and his honour guards. Red Team take care of the guards while Forge goes hand to hand with the Arbiter and defeats him. Its one of THE BEST cutscenes in gaming period in my opinion.
You should watch the halo wars cutscenes pretty much like a mini animated movie and it’ll give you context for some of the tracks.
I played every Halo game on PC since i was 7 years old, Stephen Rippy did a really good job on this new journey. Thanks for your content.
WE GETTING ALL UNITS WITH THIS ONE BOIS!!!!! 🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️ 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Insignificantia my beloved, probably my favorite piece of Halo music
Halo Wars 1 has a beautiful track list in my opinion that Spirit of Fire track is just perfect. I'd leave my game in the main menu and listen to it endelessly
Have to comment again @17:30 “Piano, piano do the same thing that the vocals just did!” Love it! It’s exactly how I react to hearing an awesome part of a new song. I can just on my own, out loud, say “come on I want it with that instrument as well! please you gotta give it to me. You can’t make something so great and then lack the brilliancy of doing it with those earlier instrume… YES YES YES I HAVE TO REWIND TO LISTEN PROPERLY!”
Part of the Problemplays at the start of the match before you start fighting each other. The melo of it reminds me of when I'm setting up my base and planning my strategy at the start, so I work towards it. 10:03
That piano has become such an iconic part of the Halo soundscape. It's as vital as the choir.
It’s a crime ‘Just ad Nauseam’ wasn’t on here
I was really hoping "Action Figure Hands" would be featured but it wasnt. I even suggested it on a previous video
As a diehard Halo fan and a huge enjoyer of the trilogy OSTs, Halo Wars had amazing composition. It was different enough as to not copy Marty's music, but it seamlessly fit into the Halo universe's tone. It was also nice to see Halo come full circle and be developed as an RTS game, as originally intended by Bungie back in their Mac days.
Introduced my bro to the campaign and we co oped it. I made sure he stayed during the credits just because the music was so good. Pretty sure it’s it’s insignificantia
Hw1 was my favorite halo game. Period. Favorite music, favorite cutscenes, love a good rts.
The same guy who did the Halo Wars soundtracks, Stephen Rippy, also did all the Age of Empires games. And Age of Mythology. I LOVE his style and his level music is fantastic. I listen to this soundtrack all the time while I study.
My favorite Halo Wars BGM is Action figure Hands! It brings memories of fluid playing 2v2 games online.
Bad Here Day is usually my go to track from this OST, next to action figure hands. the stage music is always nice to listen to when forging maps in other Halo games, but all very ambient and atmospheric.
IIRC Spirit of Fire, Burning Daylight, Five Long Years and Put The Lady Down are from cutscenes, and the rest are just loopable background music from game play.
For me at least, Halo Wars has a very unique musical identity that creates an atmosphere that I love. It’s my favorite halo game to just open a private game in and just chill, kinda therapeutic in a way. Some of my favorite ambient tracks that weren’t included here are “Bad Here Day”, “Work Burns and Runaway Grunts”, “Flip and Sizzle”, “and Just Ad Nausem” if you felt like listening to any of the others
I cant say if i liked Halo wars more then the mainline Halo games, them being very different genres makes it like comparing apples and oranges, but i did really enjoy it.
Burning Sunshine is a cut scene track also. Fav cut scene.
This game had me in its grips in my teenage years, i remember how far ahead the cutscenese were to anything i had ever seen in a video game like that before, music was very unique yet had many homages to the original trilogy
I love this soundtrack not only for Halo, but they also did the soundtrack for Age of Empires.
My favorite video game composers are Marty O'Donnell, Michael Salvatori, Stephen Rippy, and Jesper Kyd.
12:41 if this is genuine, burning sunshine is an America saying that essentially means to waste valuable time, especially at the being or end of the day when you need the sunlight to do something.
It’s also a pretty messed up joke about the ending of the game
The piano is solidly anytime the ship "Spirit of Fire" shows up. You were correct about the cutscenes and why it sounded seperated. This game was made without permission and saw Microsoft aquiring Ensemble Studios. Still a favorite of mine to this day.
Held a base for 5 hours in a 1v2 situation as Cutter Deathmatch. Best RTS next to Dawn of War.
The Halo Wars soundtrack is, imo, the most underrated soundtrack in the entire series. It catches so much of the scale that you hear in the rest of Marty's work as well as the style while maintaining its own identity.
Here to let you know, old timey RTS games had great music, since that's how you were to fill the time as RTS games can tend to be longer. Great examples -> Rise of Nations, Command and Conquer, Starcraft, etc. You should definitely check out these games' OSTs.
Insignificantia RAHHHHH I love it
the thing i love about halo wars is it makes the war with the covenant more real and desperate because its just humans with one out of date ship against them not a super soldier with plot armor
It’s different like Reach is.
Everybody f**king dies.
lol no they don't
Only one major human dies and only one major covenant die lol
Have you even played the game? Only Forge dies from the main human cast.
Strange request: Can you check out the Banana Kong 2 Soundtrack? I absolutely love the music! And it's by the same composer who did the Sonic Mania OST (Tee Lopes).
Honestly all the games have some great Soundtracks even Halo 4 and 5 especially Halo Infinte. Even if the community may not like it you should definitely react to them to compare them. Halo Wars definetly is liked so you also should do Halo Wars 2.
*cough* shill. No offense.
So, fun fact, only 2/7 tracks here are sort of “ambient” tracks (ie, those that play during gameplay, on the map. 3/7 are cutscene tracks like you predicted, and that is why they’re a bit choppier and more variable. The last track is the credits music, and the first plays during the main menu. The second track is the intro cutscene, and while it doesn’t actually pause, it accompanies narration over a similarly choppy recounting of the past five years to that point.
As for burning sunshine, not only is it an idiom representing wasting time (ie, burning the hours of sunshine we have left) but in this case, they are preparing a nuclear reactor to explode inside the heart of an artificial sun, so…double meaning?
And the four descending notes you state sound like the end of “We’re burning sunshine” are also in “Five long years”, and are the motif of the main villain. So what you’re hearing is him making an entrance into the cutscene
HW1 has a better OST than HW2. Both have great gameplay though
Yeah, I find the gameplay mechanics of Halo Wars 2 a step up, but it suffers dramatically in terms of things like story. There's very little that actually happens in the game by comparison, but the Banished campaign expansion was great.
I love halo wars 1 the music is spectacular just can’t go wrong with the halo ost
easily the most underrated soundtrack of the franchise. Spirit of fire, Insignificantia and Fingerprints are broken hit so hard every time
Would love to hear you listen to more of the in game music, like Just Ad Nauseam (no idea if I spelt that right)
ah halo wars ensemble studios last game, hated by bungie and was immediately shut down by Microsoft
I absolutely love Halo Wars music! Fingerprints Are Broken and Bad Here Day are my favorites.
We're burning sunshine is a way of saying were wasting or running out of time, also not only was there a different composer but this was also a different game company making it which got shut down by Microsoft after development was completed even though Microsoft requested the game from them
I think the reason why you couldn't really tell where songs might be placed in the context of the game is because it's a real time strategy game instead of a first person shooter. The songs are meant to be a bit of ambiance while you're taking time building up your army and securing forward operating bases. A lot of the climactic events happen during cutscenes before or after missions, but sometimes there are very long, intense musical sequences that play during large scale battles.
I absolutely loved Halo Wars when it released (I was 11), and the music is still as good today as it was back then. They kept the feel of the original games alive while putting their own, sort of techno sort of not, spin on it.
I can’t wait for the halo 4 reaction
Nice video! Also last vid I made a comment, I don't know if you seen it so am going to copy and paste it here lol.
Hi, I'm new to your channel and I love your reactions! I don't know if you read suggestions, but you should listen to the OST of the game Piggy, here are the best themes:
-Scary Shanty*
-Kraxicorde theme
-Crystalized*
-Duality*
-Twisted Twins
-Kona*
-Uneasy Urgency
-Her Encounter
-Let Go*
-Washed Clean By The River*
-Travelling Time
-The Lonesome Sailor*
-The Wretched Wolf*
I put a little star * to the one you MUST listen to.
As you play these songs, the cutscenes just play in my head.
You are absolutely right about the cutscenes by the way 😁
As you said yourself, there's the differences between each track, ones that are clearly used in cutscenes and ones that are used as music for multiplayer games, like "fingerprints are broken" is one of those multiplayer tracks and "5 years" is used in a cutscene.
Anyone else getting Very Heavy Age of Empires 3 vibes but with a halo flavor from this or am I nuts?
local units……..
ALL UNITS!!!!!
To add extra context to the last track insignificantia it's played during the end credits where the developers (ensemble studios) also say their goodbye as halo wars was a game that they didnt want to make but were forced to by microsoft whilst recieving no help from bungie as they were against the idea due to seeing it as microsoft "whoring out the franchise" and not only that microsoft informed them part way through making the game that they would be getting shut down after the games launch making it their last ever game.
In my opinion it was a great game and so was the sequel halo wars 2 with them being two of my favourite halo games.
The Halo Wars 2 soundtrack has some great tracks in it, a lot more intense and actiony than the first
We didn’t have Just Ad Nauseam? Who tf makes this suggestions?
The vocals in Five Long Years kinda remind me of Parapluie from Band of Brothers
When you get to halo 4 I highly highly recommend Green and Blue along with Arrival. My two personal favorites