Unlike other games in the Halo franchise, Halo Wars goes back in time, letting you play UNSC troops or even the Covenant. For those who have played any amount of Halo (read: hours and hours of Halo), this is going to be a cool experience after fighting first person style in the future for so long.

Also unlike other Halo games, Halo Wars is an RTS (real time strategy) game. Unfortunately, if you’re a big RTS fan, you’re not going to be very impressed with the gameplay in Halo Wars. On the other hand, if you’re normally a FPS (first person shooter) player, Halo Wars may offer you an exciting new diversionary style of gameplay.

The game was created especially for the Xbox 360 and the Xbox controller, so even though it’s not exactly like a PC RTS where you have minute control over groups and squads, Halo Wars still does an adequate job of making controlling your army easy. When it comes down to it, Halo Wars is all about the battles, building up massive amounts of troops and sending them to vanguish your enemy – whatever side you might decide to play.

There is multiplayer gameplay, which adds a whole new level to the game.

If you’re a Halo fan, you’re going to want to check this game out.

In the game you can play good or evil, which is kind of unique. After battling trolls, orcs and ents for a while, it might be good to switch sides and play one of the bad guys. Things like this make games even more interesting for a wide array of people. There’s more than one campaign you can play for each side – good and evil.

For most of the game, you’re going to play one of the four basic classes available – warrior, archer,  mage, or the scou. Each character class has their own strengths and weaknesses, so depending on your gameplay style, you may want to try one or more to see which one you like best.  There is both ranged and close combat.

The campaigns are tough if you’re fighting alone (alone with the game’s AI helper), but you can have two player cooperative play either locally or online, which will help out immensely with most of the campaigns.

Don’t worry, you’ll also get a chance to play as some of the movies heroes – Gandalf, Aragorn, Sauron, etc. This is great fun after controlling a lesser character in the game.

If you’re tired of the campaign, there are several 16-player online modes, including Hero Deathmatch (which is as exciting as it sounds.)

If you’re a fan of the movie or a fan of other Lord of the Rings games, you should make sure you give this one at least a try. I’m thinking you’re going to like it.

Supreme Commander (like Total Annihilation when it first came out) takes a lot of hardware acceleration to run and run well. This is a good and bad thing. On the bad side, some people won’t be able to play the game. On the good side, if this game is around as long as Total Annhilation, the hardware requirements will be less and less of an issue.

If you do happen to have a computer that can handle this game, it is truly a RTS masterpiece. The graphics really stand out, but it’s the gameplay (both solo and multiplayer) that keeps people coming back to this game and will make it a new classic.

If you haven’t played it yet, GameSpot has a pretty good SupCom Game Guide available on their website.

If you’re thinking about getting this game, which came out on February 20, 2007 in North America, I’d recommend getting the Supreme Commander Gold Edition, that has all the add-ons bundled with the game.

The game includes resource management, building cities and building units – all the tasks you’ve come to love in RTS games. This game (like Total Annihilation) takes it to a new level. One of the cool features is the ability to zoom in and out of the battlefield. With this feature, you can sit back and see the whole “war” or zoom in and concentrate on a single battle.

Whether you’ve played Total Annihilation or not, Supreme Commander is a game to check out if you haven’t. By now, your computer hardware should run it (if you’ve got a new computer recently), and there are still a lot of players out there ready to pwn you.

And speaking of Total Annihilation, if there are any old school TA fans out there, leave a comment to honor that great game!