This game went to what Halo was originally going to be, an RTS, this was made by Ensemble Studios.

Story

"Captain's report, February 4th, 2531. Five years, five long years. That's how long it took us to get Harvest back..."
-Captain Cutter

You play from the bird's eye view of Captain Cutter, from the UNSC ship Spirit of Fire. Throughout the story you participate in the defense of a couple worlds while looking for something that the Covenant are after that was shown to our protagonists through a Forerunner artifact. You must then figure out what is at the planets it showed and stop them. The story is pretty generic though, it is not bad but not one of the best works ever.

Three Spartans from Omega Team


Gameplay

"Spirit of Fire, this is Red Team. We are 100 meters from Ander's transponder signal... Meeting strong resistance. Seein' some pretty crazy stuff out here, over."
-Jerome

The gameplay, since it is a console exclusive, is not on par with PC RTS games because of the lack of controls, the game is still very fun and not broken. The control layout is perfect for a console RTS, but still not on par with a M/KB. In typical RTS fashion, various leaders have a focus and various character exclusive abilities and faction exclusive abilities. If you want a real RTS though, then stick with your PC, but if you like console games or just like games that are fun, then you can get it.

A large fight between the UNSC and Covenant


Graphics

Not that bad, at least the units don't look cartoonish that much when zoomed in and or out, thought it would have been nice if the camera could at least zoom out more then it can now. The cutscenes are very nice to look at.

Music

A little different then the usual rehash-remix normally common in Halo, it is good enough to pass for Halo music.

Pretty fun, if that is what you are looking for, if you want something hardcore then look to the PC.

It's far from being a great RTS, but it's pretty good for a console RTS. *coughwatereddownstarcraftcough*

I personally love this game. Sure its not a traditional RTS like PC RTS's such as Crusader and Starcraft but its still very fun. I loved the campaign, but the multiplayer is awesome. 3v3 matches are so much fun!