Poking fun at the console RTS is like kicking a sick puppy. We’re all aware that controls, camera and gameplay are significantly weaker on a console than it is on the PC. Despite popular knowledge, it’s still entertaining to observe what each console RTS developer will be trying to do differently with their game. In an interview with CVG, Halo Wars lead designer Gaeme Devine said he observed the aforementioned issues with console RTSs and purposefully designed a game to avoid them.
From the interview:
What we’ve seen before on console is that people try to take a PC game and port it to a console. You end up with a half-way hybrid. There are a lot of things that we saw that were wrong – that we noted NOT to do.
He then went on to say that he didn’t think, “anyone’s done good console strategy games before” other than Pikmin and some crazy German Megadrive game called Hertzog Zwei. I haven’t had the pleasure of exploring the marvel that is Hertzog, but I’m sure it’s amazing.
Personally, I’m in the camp that thinks console RTSs could work if the context was actually considered. I think a game like Halo Wars (where the console was in mind the entire time) has the ability to break the “PC is better” wall we’ve been dealing with. What do you guys think? Will the RTS always be a PC thing?
