Mike Bantick
Tuesday, 03 March 2009 03:12
Opinion and Analysis
Page 2 of 3
But developers persisted, and 3D First Person Shooters now have a foothold on the console platforms. In fact, apart from Valve produced games, it is rare to see a FPS not go cross platform.
But RTS games continue to elude console players in most cases.
Electronic Arts have attempted occasionally, with games such as Battle for Middle Earth and Command and Conquer making the odd appearance on the current generation of console hardware.
Now there is a new push to get RTS into the living room.
Halo Wars has successfully bridged the gap with a simple set of commands, nicely constructed campaign that is less “sweeping” than most traditional RTS games, and crisp uncluttered design. It is a game that could not work on the PC platform in its current form, too RTS ‘lite’.
Following in the Halo Wars footsteps will be Stormrise, brought to us by The Creative Assembly, the same people responsible for the incredible experiences in the Total War series of tactical and RTS games.
Stormrise is ambitious in that, unlike Halo Wars, it will attempt to bring RTS cross platform, to both console and PC players. We
mused on whether this could be successful, even with the new ‘Whip Control’ interface being developed for the game.
In a
recent interview with AusGamers.com , The Creative Assembly’s creative director, Ken Turner was asked if RTS could indeed be viable on a game-pad controlled platform;
“Sure,” Turner said “but not as we know it. Real-time strategy is quite a broad category, but we have come to associate the acronym RTS with a very refined and matured gameplay formula on the PC. Attempts to bring this formula across to console, by bolting a controller interface on top of the PC game mechanics have been better of late, but still unsatisfying in terms of responsiveness.”
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