On top of the campaign you have the option to create skirmishes with the enemy, in which you can choose either from the Covenant or from the UNSC.
Covenant bases are in principle the same as those of the UNSC, but quite different in how things are constructed, and you also have access to items such as base shields which the UNSC do not.
Tech levels are the real point of variation, as whilst playing with the UNSC you'll need to build reactors which increase your tech level to a max of four. Playing with the Convenant you only need a single temple, which you can use to research up to three tech levels. These are more expensive than the human levels, and if the temple is lost, the upgrades are deactivated until a new temple is built. This balances out the potential advantage that humans have through a fourth tech level, therefore both sides have some pretty clear advantages and disadvantages.
Each side will have control over a leader, which is a unit with special abilities that cannot be killed. The Covenant have a portal through which they can transport any unit instantly to the leader’s side, which is seeminly one of those perks to balance the weaker side. Each side will take some effort to master, but the included in-game tutorials do a great deal to make the transition from UNSC to Covenant easier.
There are a healthy number of skirmish maps available, and these range in size depending on the number of players playing them. Each is pretty entertaining and well designed, with some of them giving you (or the enemy) the ability to unlock the flood, which can be frightening and frantic as your units are converted to mindless flood zombies.
The multiplayer side of the game is much like the Skirmish mode, with the AI replaced with a human opponent. This of course is always desirable, and the fact that the emphasis is no longer on base building, the traditional strategies that have often applied to to online RTS titles no longer apply. This is great news for anyone new to the series, as these strategies are often frustratingly annoying when you are starting out, as your base is destroyed in moments from an early rush attack. So kudos to Ensemble Studios for changing the RTS dynamic in this respect.
Final mention must go to the audio score and visual experience that has been created for the game. The music has been composed specifically for Halo Wars, and its noticeable. It's a great musical score that responds accurately to the action that is on screen. The game plays an intro to a battle, and then randomly chooses from a selection of audio tracks to play throughout the skirmish, with an outro when the battle sequence is over. This diversifies the game and also prevents the player from getting frustrated after hearing the same audio sequence over and over.
The unit chatter is equally compelling, harking back to the Halo trilogy and feeling very familiar to anyone who has played these games. Graphically too, Halo Wars will not disappoint with some good looking units and in particular some great particle effects on explosions, dust and smoke. Some of the in-game cutscenes look a bit hairy, but this is usually the case with RTS titles as the engine is not usually optimised for those sort of shots, and is more focused on showing a number of units on screen at once from a distance. Overall a very solid job on both audio and visual sides of the game.
Ensemble Studios have done a good job of making the Halo Wars RTS accessible on an Xbox 360 controller. This is possibly to do with it being developed from the ground up on the console, but it also says something about the quality of their experience in RTS titles. Any Halo fan will be instantly familiar with the atmosphere, the units, and the sounds that the game provides.
The downside is the lacklustre story and characters which really do little to inspire you to get into the game. But in our opinion, a solid RTS is predominantly made up of a solid game mechanic, and the success here helps to smooth out any hard feelings one may have surrounding the story.
RTS fans will certainly enjoy Halo Wars, and there is enough here that even Halo fans may forgive Ensemble for the poor story.
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We've included just over nine minutes of video footage from Halo Wars below, which shows one of the campaigns in action.
