UK, July 15, 2008 - For a long time the idea of playing a Halo game and not looking down the barrel of a battle rifle was something we struggled to come to terms with. It was like taking something that's hallowed (or should that be Haloed?) and screwing around with it - it just shouldn't be allowed to happen, at least without good reason. Imagine our relief then that, after going hands-on with Halo Wars for the first time, we feel much more comfortable with the concept of a Halo game that's not a first-person shooter. In fact that's probably doing Halo Wars an injustice, because from first impressions it appears Ensemble has achieved what many thought was impossible – it has created an action-packed real-time strategy game that stays true to the Halo universe, but more importantly it's made a game looks capable of hooking in shooter fans and armchair tacticians alike.
Before we get too ahead of ourselves let's cover the basics. On the surface Halo Wars looks and feels like any other RTS, with players required to construct an army by building bases and farming resources before leading the troops into battle against an enemy hidden behind the fog of war. However, what Ensemble has done is take the essence of an RTS and optimise for Xbox 360, and more specifically the 360 controller. All too often we've seen brilliant PC strategy games coming to a sticky end on console because the joypad controls haven't provided the level of accuracy or speed needed to effectively manage your army. However, since Halo Wars was built from the ground up with the Xbox 360 in mind that was never going to be an issue. What's more, in practice it's more fluid and responsive than we could have hoped for.
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http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/articles/890/890357p1.html
![[Prototype]](https://www.vgchartz.com/games/boxart/2846586AmericaFrontccc.jpg)
