Real Time Strategy on Consoles
A wise man (played by Jeff Goldblum) once said, “[They] were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” The quote is from the 1993 film Jurassic Park and I think it has an application to today’s video game industry. For years, people have been debating the possibility of putting real time strategy games on consoles. Countless attempts have come and gone, all being considered failures to some degree. The most recent being Halo Wars and the verbal debate on console RTSs is again in full swing.
Game series survive based off one continuous, common theme. I mean, “survive” in that they don’t always succeed in evolving the series. The current trend is pulling games from their original genres into new ones. For all we decry about the lack of original ideas, genre-jumpers are not original. In some ways, it may be the developer ran out of ideas. Genre-jumping games are diversions to extend the life of series that might be better off not reproducing.
For those of you who wanted to cry as you finished Halo 3, I have some good news for you: Microsoft is not done with Halo yet. We all know that an RTS, Halo Wars, is in the works, but that’s not all. That’s right, there’s more to come; it’s time to celebrate.