The Princess is in another Castle

I just downloaded the Halo-Wars Demo for the XBox 360. RTS really isnt my kind of genre. I actually hate those games. Still, I was curious : is it possible to make a RTS-Game on a console?

Okay, there have been some, e.g. Dune on the MegaDrive or the latest Command n Conquer for the XBox. I havent really played them, usually I was playing a RTS with a mouse primary, and the arrow keys to navigate the map. Shouldnt be to hard to port, right?

Right. The controls are, after a few minutes of “getting used to this crap”, really fluent. You cant move the pointer, what is, in my opinion, a two-edged Sword. Of course, youll allways know where your pointer is, but in the heat of battle you will find yourselves rushing around the battlefield with it to give commands, what gives a slightly impression of what some would call “a nice game with a pinball machine”.

You move your pointer/screen with the left analogue stick, while the right one controls your camera. LB selects every Unit avaliable, a selects a single unit. B cancels the selection, and X and Y are the specific commands. Normally, you can move your units around with X. If you point the pointer over an enemy, X makes them attack regulary, while Y initiates a “special attack”. The special attacks depend on the Unit selected, e.g. Soldiers throw grenades which are strong against buildings.

The controls are rather easy to learn and after some time, you will be commanding your units fast enough to do real battles.

I just played through the first level of the demo, and I have to admit, this game is catchy. I have never been a HALO-Fan, nor do I like RTS, as mentioned before. Im not going to buy it, though, as it is not that interesting to me. But RTS-Fans will have their fun.