It's the prettiest looking RTS we've seen in a while, but how does it play?

RTS gaming for grown-ups.

The follow up to Rise of Nations packs strategic punch.

Several attempts have been made to capture the scale and atmosphere of Tolkien's epic on PC, but few have come close. In The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle Earth, EA Games has combined relatively straightforward RTS gameplay with an outstanding look, impressive atmospherics and a remarkably accessible interface.

Microsoft's bold claim with Halo Wars is that it'll finally cure the curse of the console RTS - namely that it won't have controls that suck compared to a PC's keyboard and mouse combo.

RTS is getting tired and repetitive, and Star Wars games have been famous for almost always being bad.

What could have been the perfect RTS game is marred by poor performance.

Although its billing as a 'next generation' city-building game might be a little over the top, Immortal Cities: Children of the Nile is a well designed and pleasantly addictive title that comes with a nice sense of history.

Turn based strategy gaming for the thinker, with long term playability.

Take the world's best military forces into Iraq and handle the situation yourself.

The movie's flop obviously hasn't helped, but developer GSC seems to have cut a few unexpected corners in the latter stages of developing Alexander, with the result that what promised to be a stirring title turns out to be fairly average after all.

If only all film licensed games were as wonderful as this thoroughly enjoyable game!

The Close Combat RTS series has been held in high regard among strategy gamers, despite the mediocre later releases.

Pyro Studios, the development team behind the Commandos series, has turned its hand to the hybrid RTS/ table-top strategy genre – a genre which consists primarily of Creative Assembly’s brilliant Total War games.

TimeGate Studios' original Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns caused a bit of a stir back in 2001 by defying a few of the realtime strategy genre's long established conventions.

After playing Microsoft's Impossible Creatures for a while, I've decided that making animals is fun, but not that fun.

After playing Microsoft's Impossible Creatures for a while, I've decided that making animals is fun, but not that fun.

We're big fans of Creative Assembly's Total War series. Like the original games, you have the option of playing through various campaigns, or jumping straight into the tactical game with historical scenarios or custom battles.

You might expect Dawn Of War II to follow in traditional sequel style, offering a real time strategy experience with more Orks than you can throw a Bolter at.