In the almighty fuss that’s currently being kicked up over Halo 3, we’d forgive you for briefly forgetting about Halo Wars, the first ever real-time strategy title based on Bungie’s insanely popular series of shooters.

Built from the ground up by Age of Empires developer Ensemble Studios, Halo Wars takes place prior to the events of the first Halo, and lets players take control of the crew and vehicles of a UNSC ship, CFV-88 Spirit of Fire, in the first battles against the Covenant. It’s due out on the Xbox 360 in 2008, and today we got our first look at an extended patch of gameplay.

There’s plenty on display in the footage to like: visuals that withstand comparison to some of the best-looking titles on the RTS market, a sensible deployment of the A button, and all the faithful sights and sounds you’d expect from a Halo game, including mouthy marines, screeching Grunts, and many of the vehicles from the series so far. The fishtailing Warthogs, in particular, look admirably authentic.

Project lead designer Graham Devine is the narrator and guide throughout, and talks us through a small skirmish between units of UNSC marines and Covenant, before moving onto a far larger, more bombastic encounter, which culminates in the UNSC chaps taking down one of the Covenant’s gigantic Scarabs (above). Score.

Our only reservation? Well, it’s currently looking just a touch vanilla compared to some of the more sophisticated RTS experiences on the PC (possibly because the game is aimed at the console crowd?), though it would be harsh to make broad judgements based on only ten minutes of gameplay. See what you think below.

Footage provided by GameTrailers.com.