Halo Wars is one of those games that it seems we’ve waited ages for, but the demo is due up on Thursday this week.  I’ve been lucky enough to get a copy of the demo early so I thought I’d give a preview of the game.

The game differs from the previous 3 Halo titles in that this time it’s a Realtime Strategy game.  Like most RTS games it involves resource management, moving troops and vehicles with different skills and an amount of strategy to beat the enemy.  Just like Command and Conquer on the 360, the game uses an isometric view and has simplified controls for the 360’s joypad.  Basic controls are kept simple; A chooses troops, X moves them or engages enemy and Y lets you use special weapons like grenades.  The tutorials are short and painless and it’s worth getting to grips with these before you start trying to play the demo levels. 

The Campaign mode tells the story from 20 years before the Halo event.  Humans are taking back a planet once ravaged by the Covenant, but things seem to get complicated when the Covenant find an artefact.  Serina (the forbearer of Cortana) and a brash captain (Captain Cutter) are at the forefront of the fight.

Supplies are received by building supply bases for craft to land from off-world.  It’s a similar idea to the Command and Conquer Tiberium fields but without the fields (if that makes sense), I’m sure they’ll be ways that the game will make you fight for resources later on.  In addition, the enemy leaves crates around for your troops to pick up and add even more energy to your base.

Graphics-wise, the game stays faithful in look and feel to the Halo series, albeit set in an isometric world rather than first or third person.  The menus and music are all very Halo-esque, as is the speech.  Despite the troops being small, they really have a lot of detail to them.   The cut scenes help as well, in the first mission there are loads but they never seem to be unwelcome, just moving the story on.  They seem to be even better than the story in Halo 3, which is welcome as story is vital to make any RTS game more interesting.

My final point of praise goes to the easy upgrading of your base, they’ve made it really easy to keep track of what you’re doing and through icons it’s pretty straight-forward to work out how much more resources you’ll need to create any specific unit or upgrade your supply base.

The only criticism I have at the moment is that sometimes the small radar map doesn’t give you enough information on where your troops are on the playing field, they’re just green dots which can be lost amongst the enemy and other information being shown. 

So in summary Halo Wars works really well and avoids some of the control pitfalls of the RTS genre on console while retaining the all important Halo feel.

The Halo Wars demo arrives on XBL tomorrow and is well worth downloading.

9/10