It had to happen. Or, at least, I hoped it would happen. Not that I've ever really played Halo--my parents have a ban on M-rated games in this house--but this really, really, REALLY makes me want to get an XBox 360.
As it is exclusive for said console.
I seriously hope that it's not M. But knowing Bungie, I have little hope for otherwise.
Posts: 292 | Registered: Jun 2006
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quote:Originally posted by SoaPiNuReYe: I don't think its gonna be that great. RTS games don't mix well with consoles.
Except for Goldeneye, this could have been said for the FPS genre for a long time. At the moment, however, there are plenty of good console shooters. I don't think that we can necessarily rule the game out based on this alone.
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Originally posted by SoaPiNuReYe: I don't think its gonna be that great. RTS games don't mix well with consoles.
The historical record certainly contains more bad than good, but they have been improving over time. Battalion Wars on the GameCube, for example, was quite good -- but it was an exclusive title. On the other hand, The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth II on the 360 suffered [IMO] because it was a port of the PC version.
It's also worth noting that this isn't being produced by Bungie, but by Ensemble Studios, of Age of Empires fame. I only hope that they draw more of their inspiration from games like Bungie's Myth series and Battalion Wars than from AoE. This snippet from 777's link is somewhat heartening:
quote:Q: Can you reveal anything about “Halo Wars” storyline?
A: Players will lead the crew of the UNSC’s “Spirit of Fire” from initial skirmishes to an all out war against the evil Covenant.
Hopefully this means that the battles will be moderate in scale -- I wouldn't think they could fit enough units for an Age of Empires-sized battle on a single ship.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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If the console was any good for RTS games, companies like Blizzard would have gone over to them years ago.
Posts: 1158 | Registered: Feb 2006
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quote:Originally posted by SoaPiNuReYe: If the console was any good for RTS games, companies like Blizzard would have gone over to them years ago.
That's a non sequitur. Blizzard excels at, among other things, making great RTS titles for the mouse and keyboard interface. That doesn't translate to an ability to make great RTS titles for a console controller interface.
In fact, Blizzard tried their standard RTS formula on consoles in StarCraft 64, and when that wasn't exactly a success, they realized that their RTS formula didn't work on consoles and refrained from porting the subsequent ones. Blizzard RTS titles demand a lot of unit micromanagement, which isn't really feasible on a console when you're talking about 50-200 units. EA's LotR: tBFME2 got around this by automatically grouping units, but it still stuck to the RTS formula pioneered by Westwood and polished by Blizzard. In contrast, console RTS titles that abandon that formula -- exactly as Ensemble Studios claim they're going to do -- and focus on smaller battles, even abandoning tech trees altogether, are better. The most obvious and most recent example of this is Battalion Wars, which sold well enough on the GameCube that it's getting a sequel on the Wii.
Another interesting tidbit of which you may not be aware is that the development team of a console RTS called Goblin Commander was led by a couple of ex-Blizzard guys: Ron and Chris Millar.
I'm not saying that Halo Wars is going to be awesome, but I do plan to keep an eye on it. I think it's much too early to assume it's going to be bad simply because it's a console RTS. If anything, the fact that it's a console-exclusive RTS bodes somewhat well.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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It says in the link that I provided that as the game is made exclusively for the console, the entire control system will lack anything from a PC version that would make it clunky.
At least, that's what I gather from it. It's being made from the ground up for the Xbox, not translated from a PC version.
Which I bet is an approach Blizzard would have never bothered to take--as they already know that their PC RTS's absolutely rock, anyway.
Posts: 292 | Registered: Jun 2006
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From what I hear, if any RTS ever can work on a console, this will be it. I've got my fingers crossed. Not literally though, that would be a long time to have my fingers crossed.
I also heard that there could possibly be a Windows Vista version later on.
Posts: 1287 | Registered: Apr 2006
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At its philisophical core, Full Spectrum Warrior is an RTS. It doesn't have the usual trappings, but it is entirely about positioning and using your troops to achieve tactical superiority. And its interface was ideally designed for consoles.
It just takes a bit of out-of-the-box thinking to make an RTS really work on a console. Personally, I'd prefer to see a new subgenre arise from the problem of creating the perfect console RTS, than to see the PC-standard features implemented mechanically with a slightly different control scheme.
Posts: 1907 | Registered: Feb 2000
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Exactly. I don't really have anything constructive to add beyond that, but I hope that companies keep trying to get it right. I never played Full Spectrum Warrior, but Battalion Wars was very promising.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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Alex Seropian once mentioned something along the lines of "we will retain all creative control over all our series, and you won't see us licensing anything besides the engines out."
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Yep. I have the feeling that when Seropian and Matt Soell left, Bungie lost a lot more than anyone suspected.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Sep 1999
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"I just can imagine playing an RTS with 4-6 buttons and no mouse, but we'll see."
To be fair, Xbox 360 controllers have 8 easy-access buttons and an additional 9 slow-access buttons. And there are plenty of easy -to-play games that use all 17 of those buttons, and both thumbsticks, intensively. Oblivion is a good example.
Posts: 3580 | Registered: Aug 2005
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