Wednesday, February 11, 2009

The debate over "real" RTS'

There has been chatter of late over the new/old, real/fake, hardcore/gimp RTS genre. This was brought on by the HALO WARS demo which is worth a look if you haven't played it already. But anyway, I believe all sides are missing the point.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

I played the first level of Halo Wars last night and was not into it. I could tell exactly where the game was going and wasn't too thrilled about the prospect of "Oh, hey. Guys are attacking my base. Better go back there and fight them off even though I'd rather be pushing forward."

w1ndst0rm said...

So you aren't too thrilled about the most basic tension in any RTS?

Unknown said...

That might be it. It's like trying to take a piss in the woods with a mosquito biting you on the back of the neck.

avk said...

Tim, you clearly haven't played Company of Heroes, or you wouldn't call that the "basic tension in any RTS."

w1ndst0rm said...

AVK, from Wiki:

"Players must take control of certain points on the map. The more of these points a player controls, the more resources they acquire. This concept demands constant expansion of a player's territory. These points are connected like supply lines, and so, during the course of a battle a player can capture one point in the supply line, isolating the rest which had been connected to the base through it, therefore severely reducing the enemy's resource intake."

In other words if a "supply line" is cut you are faced with the basic tension of any RTS. Do I continue offensive expansion? Or do I go back and shore up my supply lines? Or some from of both?

avk said...

As admirable as your research skills are, we'll talk about it after you've played it.

Or, at the very least, we'll talk about it in some forum less tedious than blog comments. I can explain why CoH plays differently than other RTS games despite the surface similarities, but I can't do so both well and tersely.

w1ndst0rm said...

Sounds good; let's do it. I am just as certain that you can tell me the other aspects of said game as I am that the basics are there as well.

Oh-oh, let's invite Andy and 60%/40% too.

avk said...

...but I can make a colorful analogy.

Company of Heroes is actual sex. All its predecessors are masturbation. Sometimes good, sometimes great. Sometimes it just gets the job done. Now, after I play Dawn of War II and Starcraft II, I'll be able to tell you if we're moving forward into something other than the missionary position (there are others!) or backwards into spanking it.

Imagine explaining sex to someone who has only ever masturbated and you'll understand where I'm coming from.

(Note: My analogy is somewhat more intense than what it represents. I would rather have sex than play CoH at any given moment. Well, almost any given moment.)

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