The newest game in the "Halo" franchise is here. But it's not a first-person shooter; it's a real-time strategy game. Do you know what to do? The makers of "Halo Wars" suggested 10 things you've got to try in their "must-do" list:

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The Must-Do List For Players of "Halo Wars"
(Real-time Strategy Game for Xbox 360, March 2009)

1. Jack an enemy Wraith tank with a Spartan. This is the absolute best "money shot" in the entire game.

2. Chew through an entire enemy army with the Arbiter's Rage power. It's visceral and evil all rolled up in something never seen in a strategy game before.

3. Get a gold medal on Legendary difficulty on any scenario. This can be incredibly difficult, but it also showcases how many different/evolving strategies you have to employ against a tough opponent.

4. Field a dual Scarab army as any Covenant leader in skirmish. Build some Engineers to heal them up and you might just be able to run the entire map.

5. Play the Deathmatch skirmish mode. It's a huge adrenaline rush where you focus on what to build since all of the techs are purchased for you.

6. Go to www.halowars.com and browse the plethora of stats about all of your games. This can be an invaluable tool to figure out how to beat those pesky online foes.

7. Play the campaign in co-op with another player over Xbox Live or system link. The campaign really plays differently with two people, plus some of those elusive achievements and medals are easier to get with two folks.

8. Play a few skirmish games on Automatic difficulty. This difficulty level will change as your play gets better (or worse). It starts at 40, which is in the ballpark of Normal difficulty, and can go as high as 200. That's twice the difficulty of Legendary. How good are you?

9. Grab all the skulls in the campaign. Each campaign mission has an optional objective to kill a certain number of specific units. Complete that objective and the skull will pop in and flare itself on the minimap. Some skulls affect visual things like the "Wuv Woo" skull that makes Scarabs shoot beams of pure love and rainbows. Other skulls affect gameplay and can even increase your overall score.

10. Visit the Halo Timeline in the main menu. For the true "Halo" fans, there is a lot of lore to uncover here. Much of it unlocks as you explore and play with various parts of the game.

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Now I know why the Covenant fly purple ships. And now, after playing "Halo Wars," I remember how much fun I had as a kid.

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Boys like me who grew up in America in the 80s never soured of certain tastes.

Since an early age, we needed transforming robots and a set of action figures comprised of colorful fighting men (ninjas and a cute redhead were acceptable in that fighting force too). As we got older, most of us packed up the toys but sought similar sensory thrills from video games.

Battling through the campaigns "Halo," "Halo 2" and "Halo 3," were like playing with three new Christmas batches of G.I. Joes.

Video games did not always provide. The offered other delights but failed to deliver the specific thrills of those specific toys of my youth.

Years later, I've still not played a great "Transformers" or "G.I. Joe" video game, at least not anything named as such. I have played them by other names: I discovered "Metroid Prime" to the best Transformers game -- she can transform and roll out, after all -- and the "Halo" series has offered me a definitive G.I. Joe video game experience.

Battling through the campaigns of "Halo," "Halo 2" and "Halo 3," has been like playing with three new Christmas batches of G.I. Joes. Master Chief and the enemy Covenant are action figures held by my fingers.

Like G.I. Joes, the "Halo" soldiers and aliens are lanky and colorful, bending at their many points of articulation. Spaceships look to be made of hollow plastic. Warthog jeeps roll and tumble through the game in that way that toy trucks do when they are driven, not by a steering wheel, but by a kneeling boy whose hand is clamped over their roof.

The "Halo" games could have meant something else to me other than G.I. Joe brought to virtual life. Had I played them in multiplayer more, I may have come to think of them as grown-up versions of backyard war games waged with my brother. And by the time I played through "Halo 3," I did at last savor some other meaning from the series. The grown-up part of me relished the smartness of each battle in the games' campaigns, the tactical intrigue of combat against a capable, crafty, calculating enemy.

The enemies fly purple planes and some shoot pink needle bullets, like an invading force from the Barbie dollhouse of a sister I never had.

But the boyish G.I. Joe delight of "Halo" has lingered for me. That is why the announcement of Ensemble Studios' "Halo Wars" a couple of years ago was a personal delight. As a real-time strategy game, it would let me control the "Halo" characters from an elevated perspective. Other students of the RTS genre might call that perspective a god view. I think of it, instead, as the view of a four-foot 11-year-old looking down at the 3 3/4 -inch forces of G.I. Joe, Cobra, Master Chief and the Covenant -- all toys assembled on the carpet, ready for my direction.

"Halo Wars," which ships in the first week of March, is a brief 15-mission game, its single-player a new tour of duty for some virtual toys that lasted me a weekend. Multiple difficulty levels and multiplayer will give this game more life for others, but for me, I was happy with a trip back to boyhood battlefield management.

Seeing the "Halo" troops and trucks from above makes them seem more G.I. Joe than ever. I realize how much a boy fantasy this series is. The enemies fly purple planes and some shoot pink needle bullets, like an invading force from the Barbie dollhouse of a sister I never had. How primally important it is to smash them.

I haven't played enough real-time strategy games to tell you if this one brings smart new things to the mix, but I have played with enough action figure two decades ago to say this game brings those delights back. The controls which could be cumbersome for a game in a complex genre are a cinch, presented with a hand tied behind the back - no left trigger is used. The base-building is simple; resources for constructing vehicles and training troops are easily and automatically gained. The gameplay is all about scattering your toys across the field, the smashing of them into each other and then witnessing (at long last!) the visualization of all those explosions you used to have to sound out by puffing out your cheeks and growling.

Despite its grander scale than the first-person games, ["Halo Wars"] feels like a minor tale.

The "Halo" universe is a such a good universe for this. The characters do what boys dream of. Spartans can climb enemy tanks, punch their hull and ride them -- as they do in the first-person "Halo" games -- but here they do it in fine detail while sixty other units buzz around them. Special command powers cause Warthog jeeps to ram into the nearest target, back up and ram them again. Super-tuned vehicles (you wait and pay extra for the enhancements) spin their turrets, carry armed men on their wings and fire more rockets then you could ever draw in mid-air with short fingers vaulting to their targets.

The adventure is a "Halo" side story, a bit of pre-history that, despite its grander scale than the first-person games, feels like a minor tale. It's a "Halo" chronicle of a mission that goes somewhere strange, a sequence of levels that provide the variety of chase, siege, and rescue on landscapes ranging from city to slime to the back of a massive starcraft. It's story may be canon, but its events feel peripheral because they are perpetrated by people who lack the star power of Master Chief. The attraction to this game is truly the toys: to see which ones are available to play with next, to see what they can do and which ones they are up against.

In the midst of all of this there is another wonder: the best "Halo" film yet made. Production house Blur has crafted more exciting cinematic sequences of "Halo" characters and crafts in action than Hollywood might ever grant us, even if they weren't botching the plans to make a movie at all. Climaxing with a terrific rendering of Spartan soldiers in acrobatic battle, the "Halo Wars" cinematics are rivaled only by those of a "Metal Gear Solid" or "Final Fantasy" in stealing the show from the gameplay they interrupt.

"Halo Wars" was a wonderful game for making me a boy again for a weekend. It's an action-figure battlefield for those who want to play again.

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I'm not trying to show off my advance copy of the next "Halo" game in today's Lunchtime Video. I'm just trying to show you the unusual thing Microsoft put on the back of the game's box.

(Videos not viewable by users logging in from Canada or the U.K.)

Peer behind the curtain as I reveal how game companies give us copies of games to review and what they do and don't allow us to say. The case study for today is: "Halo Wars"!

(Videos not viewable by users logging in from Canada or the U.K.)

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Some gamers already have the two-mission "Halo Wars" demo on Xbox Live and I'm one of them. Prior to this, I hadn't seen "Halo Wars" in person and haven't touched a strategy game since "StarCraft" in the 90s. "Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3" almost converted me, but it never happened.

Maybe real-time-strategy has changed since I last visited, but while I credit Ensemble Studios for making "Halo Wars" perfectly manageable on an Xbox 360 controller -- it only took a few minutes to become comfortable with commanding units -- it didn't feel like the strategy games I remembered.

Instead, "Halo Wars" felt like an action game to me -- a strange, "Halo"-themed action game more like "Diablo" than "StarCraft." In the first two missions, you're taught the basics of base building. I used to love base building, working to construct an impenetrable fortress.

Base building does not appear to be a central tenant of "Halo Wars;" instead, it's only there to produce resources and units to make progress outside the base. There is little in the way of customization to make a base feel like your "Halo Wars" base. The "Halo Wars" website details a single turret option for defense -- at least on the USNC side -- which was an option I didn't get to play with.

But managing your home turf isn't everything. The combat in "Halo Wars" is strangely satisfying because it's familiar and yet so different. You're watching the characters and sound effects you love, but instead of being involved in the action, you're just watching series of animations play out after you click X and the A.I. goes to work. The scripted nature almost  doesn't feel right, but because the early missions required no mental dexterity, I'm hopeful later "Halo Wars" missions will give me a reason to become more engaged.

These complaints could have everything to do with the demo only featuring the first few missions, but if a demo is supposed to give me a solid taste of the rest of the game, the "Halo Wars" didn't do a very good job. Ensemble's control scheme is phenomenal, but it's the rest of the game that gives me pause.

The review disc for "Halo Wars" is sitting next to me. The answers are probably there. I'll pop it in soon and let you guys know what I find.

Got a comment you can’t bring yourself to share below this post? Drop me an e-mail.

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-The Game's Text Won't Repeat The Mistakes Of "Banjo-Kazooie" -- Several prominent Xbox 360 games have been programmed to display text in such small sizes that words can't be read on standard definition TVs. Pity the gamer who hadn't splurged on an HD set. This was an issue with Capcom's "Dead Rising" in 2006 (which was never fixed) and Microsoft/Rare's "Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts" earlier this year (which Rare plans to be fix).

A few of recent console real-time strategy games, notably those from Electronic Arts, also had text that was hard-to-read on standard TVs.

That would seem to make "Halo Wars" a likely suspect for the same failings. Not to worry, said Devine: "We're proud of the experience on SD." How come? "Half our play-test lab is full of the crummiest standard sets you can find," he said.

Breath easy, gamers living in the SD era who want to play "Halo Wars."

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Late last week I was given a demonstration of "Halo Wars," the real-time strategy game that will be the first of at least two "Halo" games coming out in 2009.

As it was at E3, "Halo Wars" appears to be light on resource-management and high on multi-unit action. Controls were simple and the potential for coop campaigning over Xbox Live was intriguing.

With lead "Halo Wars" writer Graeme Devine at my side while I played a pair of the game's missions, I picked up a number of facts and clarifications about this March 2009 addition to the Xbox 360's biggest franchise:

-No Playable Flood -- While it has been revealed that the infectious Flood species will appear in the "Halo Wars" campaign, they will not be playable. Only the United Nations Space Command forces of Master Chief fame and the enemy Covenant are playable in the game's campaign and/or skirmish modes. Devine said the team struggled to find a good way to make the Flood playable. Whatever they thought of, Devine said, "felt to much like the ['StarCraft'] Zerg." So they left them out.

-No 'ODST' Or 'Fable' Connections In The Works -- Players will be able to make their own Orbital Drop Shock Trooper units, but "Halo Wars" will not have any gameplay or direct story connections to 2009's later "Halo" project, the "Halo 3" spin-off "Halo 3: ODST." I asked Devine if there might be a "Fable II" connection, given that a version of Master Chief's armor is accessible in the Lionhead role-playing game. I was joking, even as I egged Devine on that players should be able to arm their "Halo Wars" squad with a really smart "Fable" dog. Devine, seriously, told me that the game's development team had considered a "Fable" cross-over of some sort but decided to leave it out.

-"Halo Wars" Does Not Violate "Halo: Combat Evolved Fiction" -- The original "Halo" depicted the Flood as a surprise discovery for both the UNSC and the Covenant. But the Flood are in "Halo Wars," which is a prequel to that first "Halo" game. So how could the UNSC and Covenant really not known about them in "Halo: Combat Evolved"? Devine is aware of this seeming contradiction and said that the "Halo Wars" story will explain it away.

-The Covenant Are More Powerful Than The UNSC -- The Covenant is playable in skirmish mode, which stands apart from the story-driven campaign. I tried this mode, wanting to control the Covenant for the first time since "Halo 2." I fortified a Covenant base with a Warehouse that automatically generated resources, a Hall to build and train infantry and a Temple to generate a hero character, the Prophet of Regret. Devine pointed out that, with enough resources, I could build one of the Covenant's massive Scarab tanks, the most powerful vehicle in the game. He said the Covenant units are, generally, more devastating than the UNSC forces. My Prophet could activate a Cleansing laser, a drill of light descended from the heavens which I could direct with the analog stick on a resource-draining path of destruction. Devine said this shouldn't pose a balance issue during multiplayer skirmishes because, while they may have great offense, the Covenant has an inferior defense.

-There's A Woman In This Game -- The most prominent female characters in "Halo" games tend to be feminine virtual reality programs like Cortana or "Halo Wars"' Serina. But what of an actual flesh-and-blood woman? Devine said that one of the hero units available in the UNSC campaign will be a female Spartan named Alice.

-There Should Be "Halo Wars" Content Beyond "Halo Wars" Disc -- While "Halo Wars" development team Ensemble Studios is shutting down after the completion of this new game, Devine said that the company forming in its wake has a contract to provide downloadable content for the game. He would not specify what kind of content will be offered, but that leaves open the option for new maps, units or other add-ons.

Microsoft's "Halo Wars" will be available in the U.S. on March 3. Copies will hit Asia and Europe about a week earlier in late February. The game will be the first major release from Microsoft Game Studios in 2009.

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