3.5/5 ★ – bryansbane's review of Halo Wars.

Halo Wars is shockingly good for what would appear to be a low effort spin-off title in another genre. Like, reflecting back on this game I really only have good memories. Super fun gameplay, great characters, cutscenes, music and a pretty decent story to boot. One of my favorite memories was getting this a the midnight launch. I wasn’t going to be able to buy it at the time, but my brother was and needed someone with a drivers license to take him. We waited for hours at the store, and they gave us free pizza for which I ate an entire large by myself even though I wasn’t buying a copy. When we got back home I watched my brother play and thought it looked better than expected. He got the day off school for the game, and I ended up being sick so I stayed home and watched him. What a great time. Halo Wars felt like an oddity when it released. It was the first game on the series not developed by Bungie, but somehow both it and its sequel ended up being more faithful than the 343 titles. If you like real time strategy this is definitely worth a go, even if you’re not a Halo fan.