Lackluster has never been more amazing

If Halo Wars came out for the PC the laughing still wouldn't have stopped quite yet. You could still hear the chuckles in households and apartments from gamers everywhere. But of course it was built up and produced just mainly for the 360 and that is something you must keep in mind while you're playing through. So when you learn the controls, see the graphics, and play through the campaign, multiplayer, and any other mode just keep saying that to yourself. And finally when you finish it and your mind just keeps repeating "360...360...360", you would be tempting to say 5 stars, greatest game ever. But after about 10 seconds of doing that my mind turned to mush. I can't help but think how awesome this would be on a PC, how much more could have been put into it, and how much more complex some of the controls to allow precision control.

So what's wrong with Halo Wars? It's shallow, and for anyone who has played an RTS on a PC you can feel it. My finger started itching to turn on my laptop and boot up...well anything. Anything with tons more units, anything I could use a mouse in. But when you sit down and think about that "problem" it's not that big. Because, once again, this game was made for 360. So for it's only real fault thats not so big.

What I like about Halo Wars is how brave it is. No where does it ever try to be like a PC version of itself, never does it lie to you or pretend to you like it's Bungie created. And never does it fail in the level of fun you can get by building warthogs, ghosts, and scarabs. Let alone doing that and blowing away a friend.

Halo Wars is unique is many ways. Ensemble's last cry, a non-Bungie Halo game, and an exclusive RTS for the 360. If you imagine what this would look like had all those negatives been stacked against another gaming company the game wouldn't even be worth the plastic it's housed in. But because of hard work and some smart thinking Halo Wars straddles a unique zone of gaming never attempted before and doesn't run away it what it's trying to do. This will be a game in my library and I might not play it as often as another Halo game, but it will be just as much fun when I do.

The views here are this user’s only and are not representative of Giant Bomb's thoughts and opinions on the discussed video game. GB's official reviews reside at giantbomb.com/reviews.