Previews// Halo Wars - Multi-Player

Events are regularly updated on the game’s HUD, and if a matter is of particular interest to you, pressing Right on the D-pad will take you straight to the focus of the game’s ‘Alerts’. The D-pad is also mapped to directly point the screen to various aspects of your campaign, such as bases, armies and special powers. Grabbing the attention of local or global units is as simple as pressing one of the Bumper buttons.

It takes some getting used to when you’re in the heat of a multi-player deathmatch for the first time though, but once you realise what everything does and how to direct your troops efficiently it’s a blast. You begin your game with a UNSC or Covenant base, which is surrounded by pods that are used to house buildings and training facilities.

For the most basic operations, you need to build a Warehouse to provide resources, a power facility and a training room for army soldiers, which allows you to create new troops. As you progress, you can build vehicle rooms, turrets to defend your base, air patrol and upgrade towers, which can give you additional perks as well as expanding the number of pods you can have on each base.

During your quest of destruction/defence, you can find neutral bases dotted around the map, which are populated by renegades. Take them out and an additional base is yours. This was something I failed to realise on my first multi-player round as the Covenant, as I mistook various neutral bases as occupied by the enemy. By the end of the round I only had my main base while other players had five, and before I knew it I was fending off wave upon wave of little UNSC men. Needless to say, I did not survive.

There are a few life-saving methods at your disposal though should things get rough. You can choose from a variety of different generals to lead your base that will offer certain unique abilities and troops. And, while the UNSC has access to WMDs in a pinch, the Covenant can establish shields around the base and its troops, whilst sending out Arbiters to deal some damage. Of course, you can create all manner of familiar troops such as Spartans, Warthogs, Banshees and even ODSTs.

As you can probably tell, despite my less-than-stellar RTS skills, I had a lot of fun with the multi-player side of Halo Wars – there are plenty of modes and maps to accommodate any type of grudge match. Be it either System Link, Xbox Live or using bots you can create one-on-one, two-on-two or three-on-three matches across a total of 14 locations, including the ever-popular Blood Gulch.

It’s an enjoyable ride, with controls that aren’t confusing and an interface that allows you to micro and macro-manage without cutting any of the core elements that make RTS games fun.

It could be made even better with downloadable content; something Jason Pace said was a strong consideration to help expand the game in the future. If you’ve ever been intrigued by Halo but find you prefer the more cerebral action warfare experience, you can pick Halo Wars up when it’s released next week.