Halo Wars

Halo Wars

The first of many new ‘Halo experiences’ promised for Xbox, in this case a real-time-strategy game with a focus on combat. Hoo-rah!

A new Halo game is upon us from 27 February, but it won’t be in the guise that fans have been trained to expect. Instead of action-oriented first-person-shooting and multiplayer deathmatch marathons that have made the series famous, Halo Wars is all about managing battlefields from a third-person viewpoint. Yes, real-time-strategy – a full-on RTS! But before you panic, Halo Wars is being built by a team that has produced some of the best; Ensemble Studios, responsible for Age of Empires.

The result, as we now know from hands-on experience with Halo Wars, is mightily impressive. Visual appeal is instant – even before it all ‘kicks off’ just watching your armoured base and troops spring to life in finely-detailed miniature is superb. But equally gratifying, especially to somebody who doesn’t know his RTS from his elbow, is that gameplay-demands feel within reach but hold so much potential.

We spent a good deal of time learning the ropes in multiplayer skirmish mode, which is the free-form Humans Vs Covenant event. You begin with your bog-standard base, furnishing it with reactors to generate resources used to fill your barracks with troops and engineer a garage of ground- and air-based vehicles. Oh, and don’t forget those gun turrets or you’ll soon learn to regret it! It’s up to you how soon you want to venture out of your comfort zone, to reveal what lies in the shadows beyond. Halo Wars is a game that can be played defensively or offensively but you should always have a plan. If you don’t have a plan you’ll just panic when things get busy.

What’s immediately apparent is how Halo Wars gets straight to the matter of battle preparedness and soon after battle experience. There’s no need to search far and wide for raw materials that can be adapted for fuel or to aid in construction, all that you need is back at base. If you look after your base you always have a fighting chance. Players hoping for Age of Empires, or Civilization, resource management endeavours won’t find that here. The clue is in the name after all: Halo Wars!

Controlling everything is honestly very simple, cleverly mapped onto the standard Xbox 360 controller. You can move units (troops, vehicles) individually, group all units visible on-screen, or move your entire task force en masse to a designated point. Because the controls are so intuitive your brain is free to figure out how to get the better of the Covenant who are ruthless and, worryingly, quite inventive!

If you’re a Halo fan you are almost certain to be drawn into all this by the promise of new vehicles and UNSC (United Nations Space Command) technologies. There are similar revelations on the Covenant side too if you want to explore the dark side. If you’re an RTS fan who’s steered clear of Halo until now, the sci-fi universe of Halo has been so thoughtfully implemented in Halo Wars that we think you’ll also find it hard to resist. Ensemble Studios’ artists have really gone to town on the details, but it’s not just bells and whistles, everything has a cool strategic purpose.

Halo Wars is released for Xbox 360 on 27 February. We’ll have the review for you waiting on Yahoo! that weekend, but we can tell you now that it’s looking tasty.