Everyone loves Halo but not everyone loves a first-person shooter. In response to the much loved real-time strategy game genre Microsoft is releasing Halo wars for the Xbox 360. Halo wars puts you in all the action of the human struggle for domination that puts you in the commander's seat by letting you strategize and command your space Marines in the epic struggle for survival. Halo wars is an entirely different game from the standard twitch action that you experience when playing Halo against your college buddies. Halo wars for the Xbox 360 allows the armchair general to make life-and-death decisions and direct how the battle plays out.
Just because Halo wars isn't a first-person shooter doesn't mean that you are going to be hard pressed for action. The game was painstakingly designed to integrate as much of the Halo universe as possible and truly make you feel like you are playing an extension of the game and not a completely new reincarnation of the same story. Obviously the core part of any real-time strategy game is the interaction of units throughout the storyline and the specific strengths and weaknesses of each one of these units. The primary force in Halo wars for the Xbox 360 are of course the space Marines.
The backbone of UNSC ground forces is the Marine. The UNSC Marine Corps can trace its roots back all the way to the United States Marine Corp, formed in the 18th century. The people behind the triggers haven’t changed a great deal in all these years, far less so than the theaters of operation. Marines first started setting foot on other planets during the Interplanetary War (2160-2170), taking the fight to Mars and officially becoming the UNSC Marine Corps after their victory in that conflict.Marines come equipped with a variety of weapons, but generally it’s the MA5 series of rifles. A squad of marines can lay down some impressive firepower, and can even damage armored vehicles with a volley of grenades or rockets if they’re available. Versatile, relatively cheap to equip, and fast get on the ground, Marines are a potentially strong force to put into action. En masse, they haul around enough firepower to put the hurt on just about anything an enemy can field.
Just because so much attention to detail was placed into the development of the infantry forces doesn't mean that Halo wars left out any of the same detail in regards to mobile units as well. One of the first things that you were going to be impressed with his level of detail that was able to be achieved with the vehicle models. You really feel like you are observing the entire battle from above while directing the action like a true general. Each vehicle has strengths and weaknesses that allow it to be a true strategic element to the game itself. That Halo wars insures that the action is well balanced by making sure that vehicles can be extremely vulnerable when unescorted by infantry units. How you were able to land the usage of both infantry and vehicle units will really determine if you're going to be successful when playing in both campaign mode as well as in multiplayer mode.
Multiplayer action is where the game is really going to shine. As Halo wars was specifically designed to cater to a strong multiplayer environment. Most of the time the same standard strategy and game play of real-time strategy games on multiplayer after a while makes you get tired or frustrated and move back to single player mode. Halo wars gives you the option of multiple game play contest that will continually keep you interested and decimating your Xbox live friends and shaming them into logging off.
