Victory doesn't result from amassing an army of units and rushing the enemy; rather, the selection of specialized forces is encouraged, if not demanded. While you're free to dump units at the foot of the enemy, Halo Wars ensures such a win is hard fought and lengthy. Instead, it's better to choose units equipped for the task at hand. Marines can take care of a couple squads of Grunts, but only at a loss; send out a Warthog or Hornet, though, and the casualties are significantly reduced, as well as the time spent in combat. The further you advance through the 15-mission campaign, the more comfortable it becomes to leverage your units and contrive successful strategies.

Halo Wars occasionally fails to provide opportunities to exercise this strategic liberty. A few missions during the course of the campaign afford little wiggle room, forcing you to play through action-oriented sequences designed to move the story forward.

Whether played via Xbox Live or local network, the game comes into its own: competitive matches are devoted entirely to strategy, devoid of the action sequences critical to the campaign. There's even cooperative play through the campaign, although it's mainly of interest for the achievements.

All of the streamlining done to make Halo Wars digestible on the Xbox 360 platform also makes it more accessible in terms of control. While it will never come close to the precision of a mouse and keyboard, the goal here isn't to do that because the nature of the game differs from a traditional PC strategy title—that same precision isn't needed. Individual units can be selected with a press of the A button and you can even highlight multiple units by holding down A to bring up a large circular reticle. Most of the time, you won't use these. You will, however, tap away at the bumpers when directing your units on the battlefield. Left selects all of your units on the map, whereas right grabs the units within the confines of the screen. As rudimentary as these controls may seem, they work in parallel with the game's design for a fluid and accessible way to handle units.

The difference between Halo Wars and a more traditional PC RTS is distinct. Yes, the controls aren’t as precise nor is there a great diversity of units, structures, or resources—but that's the point. By approaching the game as fundamentally different, the resulting design feels native to the console controller. In the end Halo Wars just plain works, and is a huge step in the development of real time strategy gaming on the consoles.

Questions or comments? We'd love to hear from you .