Halo Wars is a top down strategy game similar to Age of Empires in its gameplay. It's story is about a ship called the Spirit of Fire that is protecting one of the outer colonies when they follow a covenant ship that attacks the colony to a unknown planet, with a mysterious past. The story follows the characters Captian Cutter, the commander of the ship, professor Anders, the brainiac scientist, and sgt. forge, the sarcastic leader of the marine ground forces. In the game each character is a playable character in a leadership type roll. Each character has their own abilities and special units they can research and use. For example, sgt. Forge can make "Grizzleys" or super tanks. The campaign that takes about 20-30 years before the events on Reach is fun and has good replay value, you can collect skulls for use in "skirmish" local matches. The multiplayer is arguably what makes this game the most interesting. Besides Cutter, Forge, and Anders you can play as three covenant leaders. These characters are a little more obscure in their roles in the plot but are just as fun to play as. Unlike the human characters they are actually on the ground and can be controlled. They are the Prophet, the Arbiter and a brute chieftain. Like the humans they have their own abilities two. What makes this fun is how evenly distributed the power is between each of the 6 playable leaders. Each one with their own perks and their own down falls. In skirmish matches any of the leaders can be pitted against eachother to the point where you could have 3 professor Anders vs 3 professor Anders. This allows the player to find new combinations in strategy, new tactics and better gameplay. Although this game may have not directly tied to any of the other previous games made by Bungie, the story leaves no loopholes or incongruity to the main halo lore and story. All in all this game is extremely fun for those who like command strategy games and also love the Halo series.—jmburrage