Online Gamers Pro

Halo Wars kicks off 20 years before the events in Halo: Combat Evolved on a planet in the Epsilon Indi star system called Harvest. You’re immediately introduced to some of the key characters from the Halo universe, including Captain Cutter of the Spirit of Fire and Serina, who takes Cortana’s place from Halo as the ship’s holographically constructed AI system. Sporting a cap and smoking a cigar, Captain Cutter comes across more grizzled, less diplomatic, but equally as decisive as Captain Keyes from Halo.

Controlling your troops is also straightforward using the Xbox 360 controller, with face buttons used to select and issue commands, cancel orders, or deploy special attacks. Each unit has a more powerful secondary attack that can be used and reused after a recharge period. The warthog can ram enemy troops, UNSC soldiers can throw grenades, and scorpions can unleash some heavy cannon fire, which decimates structures, vehicles, or hunters within a small area.

Along the way, you’ll encounter yellow UNSC troops. Sometimes they’ll fall under your command, but on other occasions, they’ll be following other orders, such as guarding a particular strategic point or waiting to aid in your extraction. After each mission, you’ll be given a score and rank based on your performance, with gold, silver, or bronze awards up for grabs. You’ll also earn bonus points for doing the mission in a shorter time period or by completing secondary objectives, such as killing 20 jackals. However, if you want to do everything in each mission, you’ll need to do so before finishing the final main objective because doing so will trigger the end of the mission.