The game many Xbox 360 owners spent February dreaming of, especially after playing the demo, is finally here – Halo Wars is on its way to a store near you, if it isn’t already there. Ensemble Studios and Microsoft Game Studios’ latest entry in the Halo universe offers a new way to look at the game and legendary battle between the humans and the Covenant. Not only that, but Halo Wars gives a first-hand look at the series events before the original Halo.

There are two versions available of Halo Wars. There’s a $59.99 standard version which just gives you the game. For real fans, there’s an even better limited edition for $79.99 which comes with the Halo 3 three map Mythic Map Pack, the Halo Wars: Genesis comic by Graeme Devine, Phil Noto and Eric Nylund, the Honor Guard Wraith vehicle, six leader trading cards and a Spirit of Fire ship patch you could attach to a jacket, shirt or bag.

The funny thing is, if you’ve played games like Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings or Advance Wars, you’ll probably have a pretty good handle on this real-time strategic RPG…

Halo has gone from being a mere video game to a full scale phenomenon and the engine shows no signs of stopping. Its third installment has sold an amazing 8 million copies and sold $170 million worth of games in the US in its first 24 hours. In his keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced two new Halo games will ship this year.

First up is Halo Wars, a radical departure from the first-person shooter heroics that made the franchise famous. Instead, it’s a real-time strategy game and…

Come the first half of 2009, Xbox and the Halo franchise will have an RTS and a prequel delivered in the form of Halo Wars. The price and rating has yet to be determined but Ensemble Studios is making an ambitious but risky move making an real-time strategy game for a console rather than PC.

In Halo Wars, you will command armies on the UNSC warship “Spirit of Fire.” Some of the units for the UNSC will be familiar, however there will be new units and weapons…

According to Thunder, a moderator on the official Halo Wars forums, the upcoming real-time strategy game for the Xbox 360 will make an appearance at E3 2007 this week. Here is an excerpt from the post where he made the announcement: “The good news for Halo Wars fans who have been hanging in there waiting more »