Real Time Strategy on the console - can it be done?

Mike Bantick
Tuesday, 03 March 2009 02:12

Opinion and Analysis

So here I am playing through Halo Wars on the Xbox 360 and Dawn of War II on PC.  Games not dissimilar in theme, but different in how they play.  Many said a first person shooter could not be done without the accuracy of keyboard and mouse, but can real time strategy also find comfort on a console platform?

I have always like strategy games, from board games such as Risk and Diplomacy, through miniature wargaming on the table top, and ultimately onto electronic games.

Games such as Strategic Simulations Group’s Warlords series, the life sapping Civilization, many games that re-enacted sophisticated hex based board games and even the Heroes of Might and Magic series.

Then there are the Real Time Strategy games, which I always thought was a bit of blight on the word strategy.  Many of the games were mere click-fests, taking not much more talent than knowing when and where to click in sequence in order to win – a little like knowing the moves required to Rubics most famous cubic puzzle.

The Command and Conquer series was famous for the tank rush, players racing to hoard as much Tiberium (or Tiberian depending where you came from) in order to develop an invincible blitz-krieg of armour to overwhelm opponents.  Not too much strategy there. 

But developers soon cottoned on and gamers have been clicking away on WarCraft, StarCraft, Total War, Dawn of War, HomeWorld, Impossible Creatures, Battle For Middle Earth, Red Alert, Company of Heroes, and many other screens since.

And it works well on the PC platform, with the standard format being a main screen, build queue sidebar and mini-map.  Being able to move quickly to any point on the screen, click on the mini-map to issue orders, queue unit builds, plus the use of the keyboard for essential short cut commands has been the hallmark of computer RTS gaming for many a couple of decades now.

And all has been right in the world.  PC gamers were able to thumb their noses (when not using those thumbs to enter game commands) at console players, who with their meagre game pads were restricted to fighting, 2D shooters and platform games.

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