Because if you are going to rip someone off, do it with clay.

"It's one of those kits where you get a small piece of clay and have to 'unearth' what's inside," notes reader Sarah. And whatever did she find?

This is like an archeological expedition where the goal is to dig up who is going to get sued. No, it's not like that at all — it really is!

The vaguely Europe-y map features 42 territories to conquer. Oh look, "Command Room" features "achievements"! The game will be out this fall through most major retailers.

Halo Wars Collector's Edition Game [Video Games Blogger]

"Human error" is blamed. It covers singleplayer. It covers multiplayer. It covers Trueskill leaderboards. It covers all matchmaking data. Gone. Says the Major:

This was human error related to Xbox LIVE servers. It is not a broader service issue and will not impact other titles or Xbox LIVE experiences. The Xbox LIVE team is investigating the cause to prevent this from occurring in the future.

Larry goes on to apologize, on behalf of Xbox Live ...

"for the incident and any frustration Halo Wars players have experienced in having their statistics disappear from the Leaderboards. You can rest assured that we're putting processes in place to prevent this from happening in the future.

Halo Wars Leaderboards [Major Nelson, thanks Brian B.]

While the first round of Halo Wars downloadable content focused on new game modes, the Historic Battle pack is all about delivering new places to strategically kill the enemy. You'll get two new 1v1 maps in Barrens and Blood River; Memorial Basin, which is a 2v2 map full of wide open spaces; and Glacial Ravine, a large map bisected by snow-capped mountains, perfect for 3v3 play, as seen above.

The pack also comes with four brand new achievements. Add up to 100 points to your gamerscore with:
• Tour Coming Through: Hot drop 50 squads to your Covenant Leader in a single game on Memorial Basin (30 points)
• Never Leave a Man Behind: Finish a game with 5000 net resources contributed to your teammates on Barrens (15 points)
• Drain Cleaner: Kill 20 enemy squads with a continuous Covenant Leader Power on Memorial Basin (30 points)
• Killjoy: Disrupt 5 active Leader Powers in a single game on Blood River (25 points)

The Historic Battle add-on is due out on July 21st for 800 Microsoft points.

Memorial Basin

Blood River

Barrens

Devine was the lead designer and lead writer on Halo Wars before Microsoft decided to shut Ensemble Studios down. Earlier this week Devine confirmed that he is working at Apple in the iPhone group.

While he has declined to say what he is doing, he mentions coding and preparing for Monday's World Wide Developers Conference on his Twitter page.

Last year, Devine was named one of the hot 100 game developers by Edge, ranking at number 36.

Devine is likely best known for his work on The 7th Guest and 11th Hour at Trilobyte, which he formed in 1990. He later went on to work at id and then Ensemble Studios, where he worked on Age of Empires III and Halo Wars.

While no one has said he is working on games at Apple's iPhone group, it stands to reason that such a prominent and talented game developer wouldn't leave his area of expertise.

Fortunately we only have until Monday to find out. Here's hoping we get to see something developed in-house by Devine for the iPhone at the WWDC.

Announced last month, the Strategic Options pack introduces three new single and multiplayer skirmish game types to help players play out the war between humanity and the Covenant. Keepaway Mode is basically Capture the Flag with a free-roaming Forerunner Sentinel in place of a flag; Tug of War Mode has players trying to build the biggest army; and Reinforcement Mode, which pits players against successive waves of enemies with an ever-changing set of units at their disposal.

All of this new gameplay comes at a price, however, and that price is 800 Microsoft points, which seems a little bit on the pricey side for just game modes. Still, if you love your Halo Wars and are looking to squeeze a bit more out of it, Strategic Options is your downloadable content.

Available "in the coming weeks", the Strategic Options pack adds several new ways to experience Halo from a top down perspective online against your friends. In Keepaway Mode, players struggle to capture a free-roaming Forerunner Sentinel in what is effectively the Halo Wars version of capture the flag. Tug of War mode is all about having more units, buildings, and resources than the other player. Finally, Reinforcement Mode has both sides receiving wave after wave of new units, adjusting their strategies to cope with the ever increasing forces on both sides.

The add-on also adds 100 points worth of multiplayer achievements for completing various objectives in the new game types:

· "One and Done" (30 points): Score the winning point in a game of Keepaway against Legendary A.I.'s
· "Pull Hard, Pull Deep" (20 points): Win and never trail in a Tug of War game
· "Freak on a Streak" (20 points): Gain at least 15 population from a single wave in a Reinforcement game
· "Living Loving Bug" (30 points): Obtain a Scarab during a Reinforcement game

Look for the Strategic options Game Add-On Pack to arrive sometime soon for some sort of price.

Nearly three weeks after the game's initial launch in Asia, Halo Wars has sold more than one million copies worldwide, which Microsoft says makes it the best-selling real-time strategy title on the current crop of consoles. Of course, real-time strategy titles haven't historically done too well on consoles in the first place, but still, a million is a pretty big number. Microsoft also offers up some more big numbers with the announcement. Did you know that 2.6 million multiplayer matches have been played since Halo Wars launched, or that 118 years worth of time have been spent playing the game on Xbox Live? Well now you do. You're welcome.

Putting Halo in the name of your game certainly does move a lot of copies, though nowhere near as many as an actual Halo first-person shooter title. To put things in perspective, Halo 3 had 1.7 million preorders.

There's some spectacular stuff here, worthy of desktop wallpapering, visual inspiration for many of the game's gorgeous cut scenes. Perhaps it's time for a point and click Halo Adventures to really breathe some exploitation into the series. What's that you say? "Jesus Christ, no"?

MBC Game also broadcasts Warcraft III, Tekken and Counter-Strike. As game site Siliconera points out, all three home consoles are available in Korea; however, none of them have reached the popularity of PC gaming. Perhaps that guy's gray vest will help.

Starcraft TV Network Gives Halo Wars Its Own Show [Siliconera]

The Halo universe isn't just Master Chief. I know, I know; that's a hard fact for some fans to swallow. Between the novels, the first-person shooter trilogy, and now Halo Wars, there's a pretty rich universe to explore, and this video series aims to explore it, from the Spartans origins as a force to keep humanity in line to Master Chief's last stand.

GameStop is inviting Halo fans to "bring out their inner Warthog" during Halo Wars midnight launch events, held at more than 2,000 locations across the U.S. this coming Monday, March 2nd. While I cannot begin to imagine why they would want you to bring out your inner futuristic military dune buggy, I'm sure they meant it in a nice way. The company is throwing out all the stops for the launch of the next game in the Halo series, with Halo 3 tournaments, dress-up contests, trivia challenges, and Warthog races going on from 10pm to midnight, when a much smaller crowd then they are expecting line up to get their copies of the game.

It's not that I am hating on the game or anything. From what I've heard it's not too bad. It's just there's only one company I know of that puts out real-time strategy titles customers are going to line up at midnight for, and StarCraft II is a ways off. Still, if you can't wait til Tuesday afternoon, check out GameStop's launch page to see if you don't have to.

Halo Wars takes the familiar setting of the first-person shooter series Halo and translates into a console-based real-time strategy game, in which players build up and army, gather resources, and participate in large-scale battles for the future of humanity.

Of course, having played through the Halo trilogy, we know how things turned out, just as we know the fate of most developers who attempt to translate the often complicated real-time strategy genre to the console. Was Ensemble Studios successful in their taste, or did they go out with a whimper instead of a bang?

GameSpot UK
-After shooting through scores of Covenant and Flood soldiers in three Halo first-person shooters, the United Nations Space Command's story rewinds a few decades in Halo Wars. The game grants you command of both the human UNSC forces and their archenemy, the theocratic alliance of the Covenant. Halo Wars offers quality cinematic presentation and a simple control scheme that makes the game easy to pick up and play, but the limited amount of units, short campaign, and dearth of multiplayer modes make it ultimately feel stripped. Halo Wars is a fun playthrough for casual real-time strategy and Halo fans, but there's not enough depth to win over hardcore strategy buffs.

Gameplayer
Now, for those of you who are fans of First Person Shooters, but don't know a power generator from a plasma grenade – don't panic. Halo Wars is quite rookie friendly, and it features very comprehensive tutorials that go so far as teaching you what a cursor is. Handy! After ten or fifteen minutes you can learn all there is to know about busting Covenant chops and setting up pimping command bases – this can be both a good thing, and a bad thing.

Wired
...deciding what to build and where is the bulk of the strategic experience. Upgrading your base will net you a maximum of seven building sites, but a single base simply won't provide enough space to support a well-rounded army. It's a simple system, designed to make fielding an army as painless as possible. But Halo Wars' design suffers a bit from the fact that it is designed to be a more casual experience. If you understand rock-paper-scissors, you understand the combat: Vehicles beat infantry, infantry beat aircraft, and aircraft beat vehicles.

IGN
Like the Halo FPS games, the Halo Wars campaign is all about quick bursts of fun strung together, and that means missions with carefully defined objectives. For many PC RTS players, the draw to the genre is the ability to step into the shoes of a powerful general with every little bit of the situation at his or her command. But there aren't that many ways to complete the missions in Halo Wars. There wasn't a point where the game really took off the training wheels and said, "There's the enemy – go get him however you see fit."

TeamXbox
So the story is good, the controls are great, it does right by the Halo license, what's left? How about the A.I.? Is it challenging? Unfortunately, this is one arena in which Halo Wars stumbles a bit. It's not that the game is too easy or too hard. The problem is, it's both. It's either too easy or too hard. It's never in-between, where I feel like I'm truly evenly matched with the A.I. It never once surprised me or made me think, which is a bummer. I may always have multiplayer, but I would love an A.I. match that felt even.

Kotaku
It's odd, being a long-time fan of both strategy games and Ensemble Studios, to love the single-player experience of a game they made, but feel so flat about the multiplayer sessions. Halo Wars is a fun ride, an action strategy game that delivers on everything but, perhaps, where it needs to deliver most to succeed: multiplayer gaming.

Too simple, or simply brilliant?

Designed by giant ape specialists X-Large, the t-shirts will be available only at select Hong Kong stores between February 16 and March 15. Those lucky few who are interested in such a deal will be able to buy a bundle that includes the game, a t-shirt and a 2GB USB stick for around USD$80. Those just in it for one of the two shirts, they'll be going for around $40.

As you'll see in the gallery below, the stuff is actually quite presentable, and the big, UNSC supply case-looking plastic box the bundle comes in is a nice touch.

[thanks Thomas!]

In Halo Wars, gamers return to the beloved Xbox franchise to explore its early days in a real-time strategy title by Ensemble Studios. The game promises the chance to control not one Master Chief, but an army of marines, Spartans, Warthogs and Scorpions.

Can Halo Wars ride on the success of its lineage and, with the help of some of the best real-time strategy developers in the business, do for strategy what the original title did for shooters?

Loved
Essence of Halo: The biggest selling point for this strategy game is its setting, characters and story. Set in the Halo universe, Halo Wars delivers across the board on everything a Halo fan could want, from a tightly paced plot, to memorable characters, to the rush of commanding a squad of Spartans

Cut Scenes: One of the best parts of this game are the cut scenes. Delivered in amazing detail with highly polished graphics, there's enough there to keep you captivated throughout the single player campaign.

Graphics: The cut scenes are spectacular, but the gameplay graphics are just as adept at delivering an eye-catching experience. Units from the UNSC, Covenant and Flood are all meticulously detailed and the backdrops vary just enough to keep things interesting.

Eclectic Missions: Instead of having gamers run through a familiar gauntlet of control points and forward bases, Halo Wars relies heavily on the story to create an interesting selection of missions on multiple settings, from ship hulls, to infested planets. You even have to solve a puzzle in one.

Strategic Strategy: The smartest thing that Ensemble Studios did in making Halo Wars was realizing the limitations of playing a strategy game on a console. You don't have a keyboard of hot keys, or a mouse to zip around the map with. So the game limits the size of maps, units and pushes things to the point of being hard to manage, but not frustrating.

Hated
Simplistic: While creating a strategy game too complex for console controls would have killed Halo Wars, making it a tad too simple means hardcore strategy fans will at best find this game a brief amusement. Gamers new to the genre might find it a good introduction to strategy.

No Hot Keys: While Ensemble Studios couldn't include keyboard controls in the game, it would have been nice for them to come up with a better system for group selecting and saving to buttons. As it stands, you can only really jump between types of units or local and all units. Something that severely hampers the experience.

Camera Issues: The camera works relatively well, though I noticed that it got hung up on scenery around the border of maps at times. My biggest complaint, though, is that the zoom doesn't zoom enough. There were plenty of times when I wanted to really zoom in and watch a Spartan beat down a bad guy and steal his vehicle, but the zoom doesn't offer that level of detail.

Not Many Units: There really aren't many units to pick from in the game. In the single player this isn't that evident, but once you start slugging it out with real people online you start to realize that there's not much to choose from in this game of Rock, Paper, Scissors.

Limited Multiplayer: Real-time strategy games, like first-person shooters, live and die in multiplayer gaming. After you get through the game's 14 single-player levels, that's the only reason you'll still play it. But there's just not much there. No multiplayer Flood. No massive battles. Not much of a map selection.

I enjoyed my time with Halo Wars, it was just too short for a game that I can't see myself playing much online. Perhaps gamers would have been better served if this iteration of Halo Wars included more campaigns, played from the perspective of the Covenant and Flood, and less multiplayer.

It's odd, being a long-time fan of both strategy games and Ensemble Studios, to love the single-player experience of a game they made, but feel so flat about the multiplayer sessions. Halo Wars is a fun ride, an action strategy game that delivers on everything but, perhaps, where it needs to deliver most to succeed: multiplayer gaming.

Halo Wars was developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360. It will be released on March 3, for $60. Played single player campaign to completion, played multiple battles on Xbox Live against other players.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ

It's not that we're complaining. After all, yes, Microsoft, they are a lovely pair. But, just like the Gears of War 2 campaign you ran last year in The Daily Star, don't you feel a little dirty resorting to early-90s marketing ploys?

Not because we're offended by a bit of skin. We're well beyond saving in that regard. It's just...there's ways you can do this with your tongue in your cheek and a twinkle in your *ahem* eye, and there's ways that are just...well, it'd help if she was looking at the TV (below). Or could aim that kettle.

Oh, and before you object, no. The self-depreciating ironing and tea-making shots aren't enough to convince us this is all some kind of elaborate joke on the part of bored PR types.

Though, when combined with the lovingly handcrafted "press release" below, they do come close.

About Amanda:

Amanda Johnstone is 25 years old, lives in South London and runs her own event management company. She spends a lot of time away from home however when at home she likes nothing more than being snuggled up in bed with her Xbox controller, playing Halo to help take her away from her daily stresses.

Her good friend Sam introduced Amanda to the world of Halo 7 years ago when he launched his 'Halo club' nights at The Cross (Kings Cross, London) which all began as part of his passion for the game. She worked the door for three years and was also used as the 'face' to advertise the night. As she spent more time with Sam some of his infatuation with the game started rubbing off on her.

Amanda became more and more into Halo and was spending more of her evenings with the covenant as Master Chief, trying to save the world. This became an obsession, to a point where not only was she playing until the early hours of the morning on most nights over Xbox LIVE but started collecting Halo merchandise - from themed mugs and posters through to bags and figurines. She even sleeps with Master Chief every night under her Halo duvet cover and pillow case set.

Amanda's obsession doesn't stop here as she recently got herself a little pet Chihuahua and named him 'Chiefy'.

In 2007 she was also lucky enough to win tickets to attend the launch of Halo 3 where she walked the red carpet with Master Chief, Pharrell Williams, Christian Slater amongst other celebs.

"I have so much fun playing Halo and absolutely love getting on Xbox LIVE and getting better scores than a lot of the boys I regularly play the game with. I can't wait to get my hands on a copy of the new game Halo Wars."

When Amanda is not trying to save the world on Halo she is blasting out karaoke hits on Lips. Her favourite songs include Leona Lewis's Bleeding Love and Rihanna's Umbrella.

THE UK'S "HOTTEST" "HALO FAN" [UK:Resistance]

Days after Ensemble co-founder Tony Goodman announced the formation of Robot Entertainment, former management team members of Ensemble announce Bonfire Studios, a new development house based in Dallas. Like Robot, Bonfire is currently working on developing a new intellectual property. They just don't have to worry about maintaining support for Halo Wars and the Age of Empires community at the same time. Freedom!

"Ensemble had an incredible group of highly talented people and the companies coming out of it are really made up of the best of the best. Ensemble was one of the few studios with two A-teams," said David Rippy, president and CEO of Bonfire Studios. "We are already working on an original IP that we'll start talking about in the next few months."

It should be interesting to see what sort of original properties are produced at both Robot Entertainment and Bonfire. I wonder which one is good and which one is evil?

Now it's definite. A press release issued by the company today has confirmed that Robot will be continuing work on Halo Wars, supporting Age of Empires multiplayer and, most interestingly, are at work on a new IP. Which begs the question: if Robot are the new Ensemble, and Robot are working on new IP, who's been given the keys to the Age of Empires franchise?

PLANO, Texas - February 17, 2009 - Robot Entertainment announced today the formation of its new game development studio in Plano, Texas. Founded by many of the original founders of Ensemble Studios, Robot has a staff of 45 comprised entirely of former Ensemble employees. Robot's team developed the hit franchise Age of Empires™, selling over 20 million units worldwide, and the soon-to-be released Halo Wars for Xbox 360™. Tony Goodman, the founder of Ensemble, is the CEO of Robot.

"The video game industry is in a state of upheaval," said Mr. Goodman, "not just games, but the entire landscape. Everything is changing: where we buy games, how we buy games, how much we pay, how long we play, who we play them with. As a fast-moving independent team of game developers, industry leaders and market experts, Robot Entertainment is ideally positioned to play a transformative role in the industry's future."

Robot Entertainment is working with Microsoft Game Studios to develop additional content for Halo Wars and support online gaming and community for both Age of Empires and Halo Wars. Additionally, Robot is developing its own original IP.

About Robot Entertainment
Based in Plano, Texas, Robot Entertainment is a world-class independent game development studio owned and operated by many of the founders of Ensemble Studios. With a team that has proven experience and expertise in creating games that appeal to massive audiences, Robot Entertainment is focused on titles that set new standards for their respective genres as well as groundbreaking original IPs. Robot can be found on the web at www.robotentertainment.com.

Unlike the first series, these figures look a little more relevant to the units and events of the game, with one series featuring the UNSC FLame-Thrower Marine and another the game's "star", Captain James Cutter.

They'll be out in July.

Having obviously not paid enough attention during the early days of Halo 3 development, I was a bit surprised to learn that developer Ensemble first went to Microsoft with the idea for a console strategy game before the Halo license even came into the picture. I imagine it must have been a very pleasant surprise, which quickly gave way to a feeling of oh my god, we have to please Halo fans.

Not that Halo fans aren't easy to please. I mean, look at...you know what? Just going to leave it at that before I get myself shot. Enjoy the video!