Tuesday, September 07, 1999
- David Filip
I don't often see 3D web page
columnists whose favorite game genre is anything but the First Person
Shooter, so I'm happy to tell you something different: My
favorite genre is real time strategy. As far as I'm concerned, a
better concept for video gaming has never come before, and may never
come again until new implementations of the RTS genre expand it into
territory yet unseen.
Although I enjoy Half-Life,
Destruction Derby, Phantasy Star, Pac-Man, Pong and video games of
every type from every era, there was always something dramatically
appealing about real-time strategy to me. Even before the days
of constant vocal feedback in games ("Yes sir!", "Right
away sir!", "I'd do it for YOU sir!", "Your mouse
inspires lackeys like myself to deeds of greatness sir!", etc)
Populous, Herzog Zwei, Warrior of Rome and Command H.Q. kicked major
quantities of arse.
Maybe it was the power trip of
leading an army with the combined IQ of four roasted peanuts into
battle. Maybe it was the use of action-game reflexes to manage a
fight instead of dealing the blows directly. Maybe I'm just so
tired after a hard day that I'd rather tell my troops to shoot a
target than to use an in-game weapon myself.
For whatever reason, it's something
I enjoy. The differences between today's current RTS games
aren't entirely dramatic from the RTS games that began our decade.
Between the four RTS pioneers I mentioned, there were all the genre's
basic trappings - some shared by more than one of those classics, and
even some features considered "advanced" today.
These games had resource management,
mini maps, strategic and tactical structures, the
"Commander" concept, flanking advantages, terrain
advantages, elevation advantages, nukes and "magical"
powers, repair units, fog of war, espionage, amphibious landings,
individual unit stats and experience points, and more. The
twenty legion limit in Warrior of Rome II may have been annoying, but
the funky dancing centurions in the sound test more than made up for
it. Those of you who played this game know what I'm talking
about.
Those of you who played the other
games a decade ago also know that any of those features could have
been combined to make a super-RTS far earlier than Westwood did if
they'd all worked on the same team. Dune II did a pretty good
job with most of the concepts, but when it added box-banding, that was
the killer app that made the RTS a part of mainstream gaming history.
Of course history didn't repeated
itself often enough some times. I still leave the ancient
Command H.Q. program on my computer (it takes up a whole 600kb or so)
and wage war with the excellent amphibious invasion systems, defensive
rules, and flanking system. Only with CHQ can I enjoy features
that haven't made their way into many of today's "state of the
art" RTS games.
As with every other genre, RTS games
are getting absorbed by the 3D bandwagon, but it's not necessarily
being improved. Total Annihilation, Myth, C&C2 and others,
in spite of the addition of realistic hills and physics, could still
have offered similar gameplay in a total conversion for Dune II or one
of the earlier 2D titles. Is 3D really making an improvement in
our strategy games?
Even upcoming new 3D titles like
Black and White and Metal Fatigue could have been represented in 2D
(and, in fact, a Game Boy version of Black and White is in the works).
The use of 3D in many strategy titles is usually just to make the game
prettier. Starcraft played beautifully but suspension of
disbelief was impossible every time the siege tank parked at the same
quarter angle...(sigh). New games like Dark Reign 2 seem to be
making the RTS genre play similarly but act like an interactive war
movie. It's always nice when a game has good graphics, but I
hate it when innovative 2D RTS games like Alien Intelligence are
canned. Even if AI had reused the same tank-parking angle as
Starcraft, I'd be happy to play something with AI's feature of
simultaneous multiplayer surface combat and space combat.
Through the creative use of
genre-bending, 3D can be more than eye candy. Battlezone proved
that quite well. Homeworld's fully 3D battlefield is absolutely
necessary its attack-from-any-angle style of play. That game
looks good enough to be a space fighter sim, but as a strategy game
it's the dream I've had ever since seeing Star Wars for the first
time. (As a side note, Homeworld's Sept. 1, 1999 world release
date has come and gone. Let's hope it hits the shelves soon!)
Blizzard's announcement for Warcraft
III stated that it would be a "role playing strategy" game.
At first blush I imagined it could play like a combination of Rage Of
Mages and Myth. This may not be a major gameplay revolution, but
what if other genres were combined with real-time strategy and
actually used 3D to the fullest?
Picture an RTS game with elements
from Thief: The Dark Project. How about mixing it with Die By
The Sword? Could you imagine coordinating a Syndicate-like team
within a SimCity game based on the Matrix movie? Let's just hope
the 3D games of the future won't forget the "advanced"
features of 2D games from the past, or Command H.Q. will be a
permanent resident of every hard drive I own in my life. Not
that it would be a bad thing...
As 3D advancements improve, I think
innovations from the cross-pollination of genres will revolutionize
the strategy games we play. I'm also confident that RTS games
will be with us for a while. For as long as gamers like myself
feel too lazy to zap Flash Tanks personally, there will be games that
let us order Core Sumos to do it for us.
Why don't you let us know how you
feel about this article and share your opinion in our Discussion
forum.
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