Comments on: Ensemble and Console RTS

By: Strategos' Risk

Strategos' Risk — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 10:28:36 +0000

What about Endwar? Consoles innovate with hardware accessories, after all- voice commander!

By: GotGame.com

GotGame.com — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 22:36:10 +0000

You just simply cannot beat a mouse and keyboard for RTS games. Even if the reason is solely because of the possible number of different inputs (different key combinations i.e. ‘ctrl + s’ is different than just ‘s’) for the mouse and keyboard vastly trumps what a controller can come up with.

By: Robert

Robert — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:06:09 +0000

Tom Chick wrote not too long ago on CrispyGamer about console RTS games:

http://www.crispygamer.com/_GeneratedPages/Columns/Column884.aspx

I think he’s on to something mentioning games like The Outfit, Battlezone , Pikmin, Overlord, and Sacrifice. These were both titles that worked in a familiar console camera viewpoint (1st or 3rd person) with pretty conventional control scenes that console gamers can relate to better.

This kind of perspective lends itself to a different sort of RTS game, but I agree with Troy above-the genre will need a reimagining to make it really work on consoles.

Focusing on “hero” style units and their retinues, four or five “squads” of land units that can easily be cycled through and given simple orders that always relate to the hero unit (guard this point I am at, follow me, attack the enemies near me), and use-on-demand abilities for things like air support (ala Company of Heroes) seems like the way to go.

By: Troy

Troy — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 18:44:32 +0000

Haven’t touched it yet, which is fine because I am so far behind on other stuff.

By: James Allen

James Allen — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 18:41:55 +0000

Speaking of console RTS games, I’ve been playing the Multiwinia press preview, and it has an interface specifically designed for an Xbox controller (since it will be released for the 360 and PC). It feels weird playing it on the PC (well, different, at least), but the simplified control scheme seems to work well, although all of the hotkeys I am used to using are gone.
Have you had a chance to play it yet, Troy?

By: Troy

Troy — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:47:33 +0000

I’m not sure about better. I think that TBS games can make the transition pretty smoothly. You need to work on the interface a little, but Shattered Union was just as average on the 360 as it was on the PC. And the DS is a great little strategy game platform for TBS.

RTS will need a complete reimagining, I think.

The Wii is an interesting problem. You’ll note that there is no Wii version of Civilization Revolution, yet, and I believe that the controllers were one of the issues. Console controllers are just not precision instruments, and flailing your arms is not a precision activity.

So long as your strategy design requires lots of data, lots of balancing and lots of precision, it doubt it will work on a console.

But then I look at Oblivion, a game whose UI is very inefficient, especially on the PC, but that can be managed reasonably well on the 360. I think that these problems can be solved, but it involves thinking about the tools you have.