Rush, Boom, Turtle: How Console RTS players already missed their Halo

I love this week’s Rush, Boom, Turtle: Step Away From the Xbox 360 (and That Sony Thing, Too)!

It’s so nice to read a column on this topic from someone who knows what he’s talking about, and mentions all the games that made some headway in making Console RTS games more accessible. Including the likes of Goblin Commander, The Outfit, and one of my favorite games of all time: Sacrifice.

I will admit though, that I haven’t heard of Aliens Vs Predator: Extinction. And I’ve yet to try Pikmin.

I think about the only recent decent attempt at a console RTS that you missed, Tom, is Battlestations: Midway, which is getting a sequel later this year that I hope improves upon the original.

Anyway, thanks for that entertaining article and the Unit of the Week. I especially appreciate it as a fellow fan of Sacrifice.

Edit in 2022: The article is archived here:

That was good, man I miss playing Sacrifice. Pikmin was great, one tip is when dealing with boss enemies it’s better not to have all your pikmin controlled and focus on groups of 20 or 30 or the group will be too big to control. Is there an official sub genre title for games like Sacrifice or Overlord and Pikmin? I really can’t picture SupCom being playable on the 360 controller without a major restructuring to the game.

The idea of playing rts’s like SC on a console make me nervous and excited. Nervous because I don’t think the controlls will work, excited because I hope I am wrong about said controlls.

Personally, I am waiting untill someone releases a game that is basicly an updated battlezoneish game, but with solid online multiplayer, voice commands for everything, and on a console. Through in a decent story if you want to be fancy and you’ll probobly corner the console rts market.

Have I mentioned that I think Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 for the Wii is the best console RTS? If not, I should probably do that. . . (Though Pikmin 2 is pretty fly as well.)

why can’t player just attach mouse and keyboard to their console, I know it’s possible on ps3, you have to buy special keyboard for 360 though.

actually why didn’t developer try RTS with the wii, mouse and wii mote are very similar, and the other dongle thingie can be used to move the camera/screen around.

It was actually kinda fun. My brother and I used to play it on the N64 (at least I think it was the 64, feel free to correct me). Difficult though, the controls were pretty wacky and the AI definitely seemed stronger.

Where is my sequel to hertzog zwei?

I never could get into Sacrifice, art style was too out there, just didn’t interest me.

They could, but most people play console games on the couch instead of a desk.

Yeah, the mouse thing for consoles is more a hardware dilemma at the furniture level than the interface level. Also, what’s this about a Soccer game being an RTS? That’s, like, sports or something, isn’t it?

-Tom

can you play pikmin 2 with wii mote pointer or do you just play it like a typical gamecube game on it?

Whilst the content of the game is very much “sports”, the control interface is very much “command”, as in the style of “command” found in RTS games.
Check it out:

Official vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntIz_hA4STM
Some guys playing the japanese version http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhW_DhwwU2A

Soccer games have done a full 360. Back in the days of the amiga they used to use one button to do everything, come the 360 and you had 12 buttons doing 36 different things (button combinations and so on) and now it’s back to roughly 1 button. Simple.

You use the standard GC controller for Pikmin2.

Good lord, a Fitzcaraldo reference? How many Herzog fans do you think are out there, Tom?

Well, I got an email about from Troy Goodfellow, and I know Geryk would get it if he were ever to deign to read a column about RTSs. So counting you, that’s four of us. We can start a club now.

-Tom

I’d like to see a Venn diagram plotting the overlap of gaming fans and those aware of Fitzcarraldo. I suspect the relative size of the area of overlap would be best described using one of those physics analogies. You know, something like “if the Earth was the size of a grain of sand in Los Angeles, then the nearest star would be a basketball on the Moon”.

Actually, I suspect Fitzcarraldo is pretty well known, inasmuch as Herzog is well known. I’d also say the image of the ship in the jungle is iconic, even for people who haven’t seen the movie or the Les Blank documentary. Plus, Herzog’s still pretty hip. He’s making movies with Zak Penn, Christian Bale, and Nicolas Cage these days. But, yeah, for now, it’s just the four of us in the club. You can be treasurer.

-Tom

Reader feedback on your column should give you a better idea, either way :-). Edit: and dang, you’re right, it’s spelled with 2 R’s. That’s what I get for not checking my facts before posting.

Everyone knows about Fitzcarraldo! And Aguerre, Wrath of God was amazing – the finale, with Aguerre stumbling around a raft, delirious from poison dart wounds, ranting about his imperial destiny… that shit sticks with you. Also the part where they’re trying to carry cannons in slings up mountain trails. That does not work so well.

Thank you, Herzog references, for tangentially reminding me that I need to see Nosferatu.

Edit: The other awesome thing about Aguerre, Wrath of God is people saying “bible” in German.

Don’t forget about the monkeys, Unicorn. Weren’t there monkeys on the raft? You can’t leave those guys out.

-Tom

Shit, I had forgotten about the monkeys. Possibly because none of them could do the Nazi salute like the monkey in Raiders of the Lost Ark.