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Co-op mode is less successful, putting two players in charge of the same base and resource allocation - clearly a recipe for frustration and argument. Frankly either Ensemble should have created a dedicated campaign, facilitating two commanders on the same battlefield, or just not bothered.

There are a couple of other niggles, too. The Flood in Halo Wars feels a little subdued compared to its previous (or later if you want to think chronologically) incarnations. Yes, it's slightly frustrating having your infantry taken over and turned against you, but vehicles are immune to the Flood and even a single Warthog can dispense with all but the most powerful Flood units with ease.

Then there's the ability to garrison infantry behind cover, or in structures. Great in theory but, unlike Company of Heroes where it was a necessity of the gameplay, in Halo Wars it feels like a tacked on afterthought, with cover being placed seemingly at random, often in places where it doesn't actually offer any advantage and affording infantry little in the way of protection from anything but other infantry.

None of these flaws can detract from the brilliance of Ensemble Studios' creation, though. Halo Wars is a fantastic game. Tom Clancy's EndWar was a decent attempt to make an RTS work on a console, but didn't really follow through on that vision, partly because it went too far in trying to revolutionise the way a console RTS plays. Halo Wars on the other hand, does just enough to make an RTS work with a game controller, without losing the familiar feel of the genre. And that alone makes it worth buying.

Verdict

Halo Wars isn't Halo. With Halo, Bungie looked at other console FPS games and came up with something completely fresh and, in hindsight, utterly brilliant. Halo Wars is fundamentally no different to any other console RTS, but unlike its peers it works in a console environment. Ensemble has taken an existing formula, tweaked what needed tweaking and polished it to a high shine.

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