For all its detractors, it’s hard to deny that the Halo series is anything short of a phenomenon. Three mega hit console games, with the third becoming the most played online game in the world after World of Warcraft; the brand is practically the conjoined twin of the Xbox marque. Over a decade of popularity has seen comics, novels, board games, energy drinks, toy guns, action figures, all based on Master Chief and friends, not to mention the mammoth community at Bungie.net. In fact it’s almost hard to imagine a Halo game without Bungie.

With Halo Wars developer Ensemble studios stepped up to the plate to show us we could have Halo without Bungie and enjoy it. They then decided to debunk another myth while they were at it and prove that a real time strategy game could be controlled not just adequately, but better, with a console controller and the right system. Simply put, if you love Halo and you love real time strategy, you should get your hands on Halo Wars, the game was made for you.

Even the most hardcore Halo fanboy has to admit that the game plots are just a bit too convoluted and light on the background information for their own good. Even Bungie have admitted that the disastrously bad plot of Halo 2 was a mess from the beginning. Halo Wars has what many will come to identify as the best plot and characters of any Halo game so far. There’s excitement, intrigue, suspense and more than a few interesting and flawed characters to get behind and cheer for right up to the thrilling ending. One of the late game cut scenes is quite simply the best Halo based action sequence you have ever seen, you'll know the one when you see it. The double scotch bravado of Forge and the caustic sarcasm of the AI Serina make for characters that ingratiate themselves quickly to the player. The game is set prior to the events of Halo: Combat Evolved (should it still be called Halo if no one knows what a Halo is in the game?) and features the UNSC ship Spirit of Fire investigating Covenant activity on the ice cap of the planet Harvest. A Forerunner structure buried in the ice reveals a path across several planets to some secret Forerunner technology and the Covenant and UNSC race each other to the goal.

Graphically the game itself looks pretty good. The details on the individual units and their environments are impressive and it’s a lot of fun watching animations as your little Spartan II’s hijack a Ghost or a cloaked Elite ambushes a squad of troops. The entire look and feel of the game from the menus, to the score boards, right through to the music is distinctly Halo with plenty of nods to the original games. There are even skulls hidden in each level that unlock adjustable difficulty settings for extra points. With dozens of units on screen during frantic battles the game never slows down or suffers any noticeable dips in frame rate.

The real star of Halo Wars is the control scheme and it is, in a word, great. Time spent with these RTS controls will have you brushing of the old keyboard and mouse combo as a stone age tool. Okay maybe that’s an overstatement, but Halo Wars system is extremely intuitive. One button selects units, double clicking selects all your units of that type and holding it down draws a circle which you can scroll over the units you want to collect them together. Once you have a group you like you can send them into the blue yonder. If times a factor one shoulder button selects every single unit currently on your screen, you will use that one more often than not, while the other shoulder button selects every unit on the map you have created so far. Then it’s just point and click to move or attack; every unit also has a special attack such as the Spartan’s hijack move. Although some units need to upgrade before they can take advantage of it.

One impressive feature is that the game automatically guesses your designated groups. Say you select a bunch of troops with a Spartan in the lead and a few Hornets for air support and move them away from the rest of your army. Cycling through your army with the d-pad will automatically select all those units as a group. Bases can only be built on certain locations and when you build one you automatically get a base square with empty slots to build supply ports which provide your currency, thank god for no resource collecting. You can also build power plants to improve your tech level and the usual barracks, vehicle depots and research centres. The tech trees provide at the most four upgrades for your units and you can build defence turrets at each corner of your base. Each commander, which you can select for skirmish and online modes, brings with them unique units and abilities.

In some ways the game is a lot simpler than most RTS veterans would be used to and not quite as deep as some would like it to be in regards to number of unit types and buildings available. But everything you could imagine from the Halo universe plus extras are available to tool around with. The Covenant even get the massive Scarab and the Prophets to use on the field. Although (spoiler alert) the Flood make an appearance half way through the game they aren't available at any stage as a playable race. It's a pretty poor show as the Flood seem to be a well established prescense with various units and buildings available. Ensemble may have had plans to include them as a playable race in a later patch but with the developer closing their doors after some financial troubles don't hold your breath for that one.

If you’re feeling a little light on your Halo history, not surprising considering most of it comes from the novels and viral marketing campaigns, Halo Wars has a complete timeline of the Halo universe in its extras with detailed break downs of all the events up to and following Halo Wars. Black boxes scattered round the levels also unlock secret events on the Halo timeline. All this information combined with the story lines gorgeous pre rendered cut scenes is a smorgasbord of goodness for Halo fans. But some fans may find the game is a little light on in certain areas.

The first of these is the campaign, despite the excellent story the campaign is a little short and, worst of all, only allows you to play as the UNSC. The Covenant are still playable in the games online battles or skirmish modes but the campaign is a marines only affair. It’s a shame as the Covenant characters get their own moments during the cut scenes to shine. While the controls for Halo Wars are the best RTS controls you’ve ever had on a console the actual camera can be a bit troublesome. It can get stuck at certain times and doesn’t quite navigate around certain areas with a lot of height difference as well as you would like. When you zoom in the camera changes angle which can be a pain; especially as you are going to want to zoom in a lot to see all those lovely unit details and animations. On that note the game doesn’t allow you to zoom in nearly enough. There are work arounds for the camera problems, hitting the d-pad snaps you to the nearest alert, cycles you through your bases and unit groups and clicking the right stick switches you to the default view. Unfortunately the d-pad is notoriously prone to a miss press and you may occasionally finding yourself jumping to your base, cursing and then switching to that scouting team of Warthogs just in time to see them get wiped out.

Online play is as good as you would expect from any Halo game. All the playlists are available to choose from in a big list and its pretty easy to find games to join. As with any RTS game the success of your online experience usually depends on how quickly you can 'rush' your opponents, quickly spamming some fast strike units like Warthogs or Ghosts and then swarming your enemy while they're frantically trying to prepare defences or basically play as they would during the campaign. Obviously you want to do your best to play with friends to avoid frustration based tantrums. Coop is really where the fun is as teaming up with a mate to tackle the single player game is far more rewarding than being repeatedly killed five minutes into your multiplayer game while still day dreaming of your elaborate strategy. Coop gives you each your own units to play around with so don't be concerned of giving conflicting orders to your units.

Halo Wars is a bitter sweet final hurrah for Ensemble. Rather than a break out console RTS that bucks convention by actually being really good, its a sweet final fling before the studio closes their doors for good. Halo Wars also presents ample evidence that Microsoft can handle the brand responsibly without Bungie and will have many people actually anticipating the next Bungie free Halo game rather than remaining cautiously optimistic. Finally if you do decide to pick up this title it's well worth the extra few dollars for the Collectors Edition which throws in some goodies including a graphic novel by Halo scribe Eric Nylund and the first three maps of the Halo 3 Mythic map pack. If Halo is your thing you can't afford to miss Halo Wars.