Yeah, they’re called “city-builders.” Basically, if you want to rule-out “man vs. man” conflict then you’re left with “man vs. environment” or one of the other basic storytelling juxtapositions.
- Alan
I’m giving 10% odds on this being a viral marketing setup…
However.
Sacrifice comes to mind. A very original RTS with a rather unique setting.
Sacrifice was very original and a fun game, but I don’t know that i’d say the story was anything special. I thought the original Dawn of War had a decent story for an RTS. The Winter Assault expansion’s was decent but not as good. Starcraft was probably better than most because it created characters that you actually cared about and wanted to see what happened to them. I can’t say that anything recently has done that for me. I didn’t care for starcraft much as a game, compared to other RTS games, but I cheated through the parts that annoyed me just so that I could see all of the story.
I agree with Lokust that characters you care about makes or breaks an RTS campaign, although I’d disagree about Sacrifice. I really enjoyed those characters, and when I did one mission for Persephone and got stuck doing her campaign, I went back and restarted the whole thing to end up with Charnel, because I hate that bitch.
Myth and Myth2: Soulbighter had some of the best atmospheric storytelling in any RTS I’ve played. Now that someone pointed out the similarities to Black Company I can’t quite call it original, but it really set the mood and completely broke away from the conventional tolkien fantasy tripe.
I completely forgot the Myth games, because I generally don’t look at them as your typical RTS games, but I absolutely agree that the storytelling in those games was fantastic.
I know it’s fashionable to knock Blizzard these days (“If you see me getting mighty, if you see me getting high, knock me down…”) but I thought the story in Warcraft III was terrific. Having the hero of the first chapter (Arthas) become undead and the hero again for the second chapter was a great twist.
I also second the nomination for the Myth series. Thankfully, all they cribbed from The Black Company was the idea of fantasy grunts: the story linkages in the games are much better written than that piece of tripe novel.
Bungie improved on every element they borrowed.
I thought WC3’s story was good, but not as good as Starcrafts. Something about Starcraft just drew me in to the characters more.
I liked how they brought back the wizard (upon whose ass you busted a cap) from the first one as the great and ominous teller of bad tales.
Yeah, Blizzard does a really good job with RTS stories. It is a shame they are about the only company who does. For the most part stories are just a thinly veild excuse for everyone fighting in other RTS games.
I’m interested in how the campaign mode will turn out in Battlefront’s new CM game. The lack of context to the battles in CMBO and CMBB was a hurdle I had to get over to enjoy them.
Lack of context? You’re a Russian trying to kill Nazis. What more context do you need?
Of course, I spent most of my CM time with the random battle generator.
Troy
I was never sure which scenario to play next. So I would pick one and then be looking at a load of goofy looking units on the map. I would mess around for a while thinking about the puzzle the map presented, then decide the whole thing was too complicated and that I should be doing a different scenario. Then I would end up playing something else.
It’s probably just a flaw in the way my brain works. I like strategy games in the abstract, but it takes a kick in the pants to get me into one and enjoying it. I need someone to tell me what to do and to get me in the mood.
Move your mouse! CLICK IT!! CLICK IT!!
You’re not alone, I had the exact same problem. As much as I loved everything the game accomplished, I still found it difficult to get into. Similarly, I have trouble getting into sandbox flight-sims.
Gene Wars had a pretty fun premise. Lousy game, but the idea of the different factions fighting it out while pretending to be doing ecological work (stopping the battle while their alien overlords were around on pain of getting blatted, then getting back to it) was neat.
My comment is probably not going to be very helpful but anyways; I just wanted to mention that the KKND 2 cutscenes were total awesome.
I know it’s fashionable to knock Blizzard these days (“If you see me getting mighty, if you see me getting high, knock me down…”) but I thought the story in Warcraft III was terrific. Having the hero of the first chapter (Arthas) become undead and the hero again for the second chapter was a great twist.
You really liked that? I thought it was stupid and ridiculous, especially when I got to the level where I had to destroy my own ships in order to prevent my men from returning home. I remember at the time thinking to myself, “Why is the game railroading me into choosing an evil path?”
I think it would have been better if you only played as Arthas while he was still good, and then for the duration of the human campaign you saw his descent into madness and evil while playing as Uther and Jaina.