Halo Wars’ controls trump the mouse and keyboard

handles better than a PC RTS. At least, that’s what the guys at Ensemble (the developer of the game) seem to think. In a recent interview with CVG, lead designer Graeme Devine noted that the game trumped the typical PC and mouse setup and noted that he “wouldn’t say it if [he] didn’t believe it.” He also commented on the fact that Ensemble spent the majority of their first year in development simply ironing out the supposedly stellar controls.

From the interview:

We spent the first year of this project just working on the controls. Without the controls working it’s pointless even doing the game. We actually took Age of Mythology and we set ourselves a target. One of our testers, who’s a hardcore RTS PC guy came over and told us that it’s easier to play with the controller than it is with a mouse and keyboard.

Devine went on to say that when the tester said that it was better, Ensemble “gave [themselves] the green light” with the lofty project. Using Age of Mythology as a benchmark is an excellent idea, although I question if a Cyclops has anything on a Warthog. Too bad we won’t ever see a mash-up on that scale.