The Halo universe is a wonderful place to explore with a rich story offering an engaging experience. The timing was certainly right to expand outside of the FPS arena and into the RTS domain. The team at Ensemble Studios had all the right ingredients at their disposal to deliver an epic experience so let’s jump in and see what legacy they left in the wake of their untimely closure.

The challenge with RTS games on console platforms comes in when one has to micro-manage units. A task easily handled on the PC with a mouse can be the Achilles heel when poorly implemented with a console controller. Interestingly Microsoft was approached to use the Halo IP after research had been done on a workable RTS control system for the Xbox 360. Fortunately Microsoft said yes and took the chance to experiment with a new control scheme. So, with a certain amount of optimism, I ventured into the single player campaign, eager to discover if Ensemble had managed to pull it off.

Continue reading El33tonline’s review of Halo Wars.