That last line about clashing genres -- what's Portal if not a combination of FPS and puzzle adventure?
On RTS Games
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
I'm glad you realized little hiccup in logic too. Is he saying there's no 'experience' in the SP for SC2?Stilton said:
I'm disappointed in Yahtzee not reviewing Starcraft 2. Just because the genre is not his cup of tea doesn't mean he should not voice his opinion on it.
He's a critic!
He reviewed Halo Wars, and he also reviewed FFVIII. I used to like all genres but now I like only a few. If a game comes out that everyone is raving about I usually try it anyways. Burnout Paradise was an example of a game that I really liked despite not liking the genre. CODMW2 was a game I didn't care for even though I generally like FPSs.
Even if his review ends up in him not liking the game, he can just admit he's not familiar/dislikes the genre in general, give his suggestions, crack his jokes, etc. I like his reviews and I find them very entertaining. Even though I don't agree with all of them, theres usually some truth to his criticisms.
I love Starcraft 2, but I still want to hear what he thinks of it.
I played through StarCraft II. I liked it.. A bit short though. I liked the extra punctuation too, That kind of thing could be custom made with the Editor/Map creator. Only it would be limited to eight people playing. If two or them are the warring teams.. Only six left to be solo mercs, which could still work but then it wouldn't be quite as Yahtzee described. They wouldn't spawn right in, they'd already be there.. Still, could be cool. StarCraft couldn't turn into a World of StarCraft though the idea could give a chuckle or two. "character creation: Zergling. --- Level 80 Zergling destroys Protoss city by itself!"
Doesn't he never play multiplayer anyway? He should just play the goddamn campaign. It teaches you all the controls at an easy to understand pace. Even somebody who has never played an rts could learn easily how to play. I think Yahtzee is being closed-minded for assuming he's not going to enjoy it.
Mew thinks Yahtzee needs more bran and less caffeine in his diet, that or detached from the advertiser tit his rants are getting less entertaining and more "mad money" fou mad mundane....
I would buy that game Yahtzee describes, if it was made, almost no matter what the price was. It sounds awesome.
The closest I've seen in a mixture of FPS and RTS so far is a Half Life 2 multi-player mod called "Empires" which is pretty fun and cool. You start off choosing a team and a class, then picking a "Commander" on your team. The commander gets a special upgraded interface that helps out with commanding everyone. Everyone else has the standard FPS interface. You start out at a Barracks (spawn point) and go from there. Scouts and other players are offensive, and the Engineers help build and repair stuff, though they're not too shabby fighting, either. (The Engineer class is the quickest to pick up for newbies.) Engineers can build Resource Processors (which slowly build your economy, more Barracks, Vehicle Yards (which allows your team to build vehicles, which can be driven), Repair Yards (repairs vehicles) walls, sentries, and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting. There's also some RPG elements to it, in that you can level up and choose different skills to help you out, and you can customize vehicles built. The Commander has an interface that can do some simple ordering, like "Attack here," "Move here," "Defend here," "Build Walls here," etc. and the stuff pops up on the players' minimaps. Players can also self-segregate into squads, and the Commander can order specific squads to do different things. The Commander also gets his own special Commander Vehicle at the start, which is an upgraded version of the most advanced tank available. The Commander can also do research with the resources you're collecting, to upgrade vehicles. You start out with just being able to build a Jeep. The Commander can then research various things, like various sizes of tanks, or this thing I forget the name of, but looks like a Hummer with machine guns on it. The Commander can research different weapons and armor, like Bio-Weapons or Anti-Radiation Armor, or even engines with better performance.
Now, here's where the fun comes in. You can do what you want, really. You can steal the Commander Vehicle and drive it around. You can disregard orders and do your own thing. I remember one game where this guy decided to go into the Vehicle Yard, build a Jeep, drive it out over a ramp, jump out in mid-air, and run back and do the same thing over again, slowly creating a makeshift wall out of them. The Commander of that round said over voice, "STOP SPAMMING JEEPS! Just BUILD a REGULAR WALL!" The game format keeps you grounded in team-based tactics, though, because if you all of your team's Vehicle Yards are destroyed, you can't build any more vehicles. If you don't protect the Barracks, you can't spawn anywhere once you die. (Multiple Barracks can be built, as well, and you can choose your spawn point, if so.) If your Radar Dish gets destroyed, all you're left with on the mini-map is what you can see in your field-of-view, which is pretty much pointless. If your Resource Processors get destroyed, no more research can be done and no more vehicles can be built once the current amount dries up. Plus, the enemy can go build their own Processors, Yards, Barracks, etc. on the same spot after a few minutes to deny you from rebuilding.
One memorable game will explain pretty fully how this all works together beautifully. The game was pretty much at a stalemate, with my team owning slightly less than half the board. Each team owned half the Processors, and both teams were at a stalemate along 3 different bridges connecting the two sides of the map, and the island in the middle. (It's a hard layout to describe, really.) Anyway, the Commander was ordering me to defend the northern bridge, which I did for a while. His strategy was working, because we had the technological advantage, but it was going very slowly. We'd kill some of them. We'd push in. We'd hit their sentries. We'd get slaughtered. While we're respawning, they'd push in, killing the rest of our guys. They'd hit our sentries. They'd get slaughtered, just in time for us to show up and wipe the rest of their guys out before we hit their sentries, and so on. I got tired of this after three or so rounds, so instead of making the medium-sized tanks that everyone on my team was getting, I grabbed the lightweight Jeep (which has no weapons, mind, though I did trick it out with some armor) and zoomed out onto the field. I zoomed through their offensive line with only a few hits. My Commander got pissed, because the enemy started pushing our troops back a little bit each time they pushed, since we had one less defender. I didn't care, though, and I zoomed down to their two nearly-undefended Processors. I took out the low-level sentry guns they had in place. Then, I threw some grenades at the first Processor, and when I ran out, I ran up and banged on it with my wrench until it was destroyed. The second the enemies saw this, they realized something was up, and sent a guy in a tank to get rid of me. This turned the northern battle back into a stalemate. I zoomed over to the other Processor, took out its sentry, and did the same thing, beating the crap out of it. By this point, the tank arrived, and I was running around the Processor, hiding behind it all the way while the tank chased me, continuing to take pot-shots at the Processor until it was destroyed. It was at this point that my team realized it was going to win, because the other team, even though they eventually took me out, had to rebuild their Processors, and I had gained our team enough time to win by going rogue and crippling the enemy's economy to the point where they couldn't build vehicles QUITE fast enough to keep up with us, and every delay cost them ground.
So, I think there's a combination of RTS and FPS at its finest. While it is an example of what Yahtzee said where the commander simply offers "helpful suggestions," it works well at keeping you working as a team, and following the commander's orders is usually a pretty good idea, since he sees just that little bit more than you do. True, games can devolve into chaos, with no one working together, but can't every multi-player team game do that?
The closest I've seen in a mixture of FPS and RTS so far is a Half Life 2 multi-player mod called "Empires" which is pretty fun and cool. You start off choosing a team and a class, then picking a "Commander" on your team. The commander gets a special upgraded interface that helps out with commanding everyone. Everyone else has the standard FPS interface. You start out at a Barracks (spawn point) and go from there. Scouts and other players are offensive, and the Engineers help build and repair stuff, though they're not too shabby fighting, either. (The Engineer class is the quickest to pick up for newbies.) Engineers can build Resource Processors (which slowly build your economy, more Barracks, Vehicle Yards (which allows your team to build vehicles, which can be driven), Repair Yards (repairs vehicles) walls, sentries, and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting. There's also some RPG elements to it, in that you can level up and choose different skills to help you out, and you can customize vehicles built. The Commander has an interface that can do some simple ordering, like "Attack here," "Move here," "Defend here," "Build Walls here," etc. and the stuff pops up on the players' minimaps. Players can also self-segregate into squads, and the Commander can order specific squads to do different things. The Commander also gets his own special Commander Vehicle at the start, which is an upgraded version of the most advanced tank available. The Commander can also do research with the resources you're collecting, to upgrade vehicles. You start out with just being able to build a Jeep. The Commander can then research various things, like various sizes of tanks, or this thing I forget the name of, but looks like a Hummer with machine guns on it. The Commander can research different weapons and armor, like Bio-Weapons or Anti-Radiation Armor, or even engines with better performance.
Now, here's where the fun comes in. You can do what you want, really. You can steal the Commander Vehicle and drive it around. You can disregard orders and do your own thing. I remember one game where this guy decided to go into the Vehicle Yard, build a Jeep, drive it out over a ramp, jump out in mid-air, and run back and do the same thing over again, slowly creating a makeshift wall out of them. The Commander of that round said over voice, "STOP SPAMMING JEEPS! Just BUILD a REGULAR WALL!" The game format keeps you grounded in team-based tactics, though, because if you all of your team's Vehicle Yards are destroyed, you can't build any more vehicles. If you don't protect the Barracks, you can't spawn anywhere once you die. (Multiple Barracks can be built, as well, and you can choose your spawn point, if so.) If your Radar Dish gets destroyed, all you're left with on the mini-map is what you can see in your field-of-view, which is pretty much pointless. If your Resource Processors get destroyed, no more research can be done and no more vehicles can be built once the current amount dries up. Plus, the enemy can go build their own Processors, Yards, Barracks, etc. on the same spot after a few minutes to deny you from rebuilding.
One memorable game will explain pretty fully how this all works together beautifully. The game was pretty much at a stalemate, with my team owning slightly less than half the board. Each team owned half the Processors, and both teams were at a stalemate along 3 different bridges connecting the two sides of the map, and the island in the middle. (It's a hard layout to describe, really.) Anyway, the Commander was ordering me to defend the northern bridge, which I did for a while. His strategy was working, because we had the technological advantage, but it was going very slowly. We'd kill some of them. We'd push in. We'd hit their sentries. We'd get slaughtered. While we're respawning, they'd push in, killing the rest of our guys. They'd hit our sentries. They'd get slaughtered, just in time for us to show up and wipe the rest of their guys out before we hit their sentries, and so on. I got tired of this after three or so rounds, so instead of making the medium-sized tanks that everyone on my team was getting, I grabbed the lightweight Jeep (which has no weapons, mind, though I did trick it out with some armor) and zoomed out onto the field. I zoomed through their offensive line with only a few hits. My Commander got pissed, because the enemy started pushing our troops back a little bit each time they pushed, since we had one less defender. I didn't care, though, and I zoomed down to their two nearly-undefended Processors. I took out the low-level sentry guns they had in place. Then, I threw some grenades at the first Processor, and when I ran out, I ran up and banged on it with my wrench until it was destroyed. The second the enemies saw this, they realized something was up, and sent a guy in a tank to get rid of me. This turned the northern battle back into a stalemate. I zoomed over to the other Processor, took out its sentry, and did the same thing, beating the crap out of it. By this point, the tank arrived, and I was running around the Processor, hiding behind it all the way while the tank chased me, continuing to take pot-shots at the Processor until it was destroyed. It was at this point that my team realized it was going to win, because the other team, even though they eventually took me out, had to rebuild their Processors, and I had gained our team enough time to win by going rogue and crippling the enemy's economy to the point where they couldn't build vehicles QUITE fast enough to keep up with us, and every delay cost them ground.
So, I think there's a combination of RTS and FPS at its finest. While it is an example of what Yahtzee said where the commander simply offers "helpful suggestions," it works well at keeping you working as a team, and following the commander's orders is usually a pretty good idea, since he sees just that little bit more than you do. True, games can devolve into chaos, with no one working together, but can't every multi-player team game do that?
I know Mr. Croshaw probably will not read this particular viewers comment but from what I read about MAG on the PS3, they attempted to pull off the omni-game he invisioned in his extra combining the f.p.s. the r.t.s. and the a.s.s. (you know who you are you dirty tea bagging whores).
Why don't you try zombie masters?
One person is controlling the zombie horde, and the others are running round shooting the zombies brains out.
http://www.zombiemaster.org/
One person is controlling the zombie horde, and the others are running round shooting the zombies brains out.
http://www.zombiemaster.org/
The reason StarCraft II is the best game ever is because you could make that stuff in it.
People have already made FPS mods of it, there's nothing at all standing in the way of making the exact game he described. In fact, someone dedicated to it could probably do it in a few weeks.
Heck, you could add in flight combat sim and covert operations as well.
No need for a controlling general either. Have 6 players on each side, each side has an "Army" that will obey any of the players that want to play from an RTS perspective. Or, they can hop out of the command center, sneak into the enemy base, and drop a nuke themselves. Or, they could build themselves a personalized Banshee and do go do strafing runs. Throw on a reaper suit and jetpack around.
People have already made FPS mods of it, there's nothing at all standing in the way of making the exact game he described. In fact, someone dedicated to it could probably do it in a few weeks.
Heck, you could add in flight combat sim and covert operations as well.
No need for a controlling general either. Have 6 players on each side, each side has an "Army" that will obey any of the players that want to play from an RTS perspective. Or, they can hop out of the command center, sneak into the enemy base, and drop a nuke themselves. Or, they could build themselves a personalized Banshee and do go do strafing runs. Throw on a reaper suit and jetpack around.
The RTS/FPS genre has been attempted several times and it seems to have worked pretty good as most players where pretty commited to winning the game. It just meant the RTS person could focus more on building structures and providing weapons and structures to the FPS players. The commander would build structures that allowed players to spawn closer to enemy territory.
My favorite game of this genre was SAVAGE. It really got the formula down right and it was alot of fun.
My favorite game of this genre was SAVAGE. It really got the formula down right and it was alot of fun.
If you want to play a game just like the one Yhatzee is describing, head over to http://www.freeallegiance.com. It's completely free to play. You can read about it here on the Escapist as well: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_146/4815-Allegiance
Hope to see some of you over there in game!
-BT
Hope to see some of you over there in game!
-BT
Surprised no one has mentioned Jane's World War yet. Idea was never realised as far as I know, but basically you could use any of the Jane's products to join in large battles in a persistant world, and the product would dictate what you're restricted to (e.g. combat flight sim = planes, submarine sim = subs etc). I'm pretty sure the preview I read way back when mentioned a commander too, but I'm not sure.
I see IGN and gamespy have some old articles on it.
I see IGN and gamespy have some old articles on it.
i see i was wondering or he was gonna review starcraft 2 and im happy he gave it a extra punctuation episode to explain why he wasent goning to do it instead of yust saying that the he dousent care in some zero punctuation episode.i kind of agree that rts games are somhting you get or dont get i get them and like them.he says he dousent care instead of calling it a bad game which im pretty sure it isent.
Few things to address
1. If you're basing your opinion on some stupid conversion of halo onto a rts platform (for those who live under a rock, i'm refering to Halo Wars), your opinion is extremely poorly based.
2. There is no "best unit" in SC2 and if you think you can just mass units and win you are either ignorant or terrible at sc2 or a combination
3. Turn based games are turned based which means oyou have so much time to think about your next move, in RTS you have to be quick fast and cunning making sure your strategy can come to flourish while keeping your oppenent off his feet.
4. Just because you don't have the patience and intelligence to create and use a strategy (or use known effective ones) doesn't give anyone the right to call the genre or SC2 trash
You have every right to not like a game, but to say SC2 isn't a well made and polished game just makes you look like such a dumb***. It's not a game for everyone but it's ceritanly worth every cent if you like that sort of game. I think racing games are more boring then watching paint dry, but that's my opinion and plent ofr racing games are very well done.
Goes out the Yahtzee and everyone else
1. If you're basing your opinion on some stupid conversion of halo onto a rts platform (for those who live under a rock, i'm refering to Halo Wars), your opinion is extremely poorly based.
2. There is no "best unit" in SC2 and if you think you can just mass units and win you are either ignorant or terrible at sc2 or a combination
3. Turn based games are turned based which means oyou have so much time to think about your next move, in RTS you have to be quick fast and cunning making sure your strategy can come to flourish while keeping your oppenent off his feet.
4. Just because you don't have the patience and intelligence to create and use a strategy (or use known effective ones) doesn't give anyone the right to call the genre or SC2 trash
You have every right to not like a game, but to say SC2 isn't a well made and polished game just makes you look like such a dumb***. It's not a game for everyone but it's ceritanly worth every cent if you like that sort of game. I think racing games are more boring then watching paint dry, but that's my opinion and plent ofr racing games are very well done.
Goes out the Yahtzee and everyone else
i reckon half the problem with reviewing rts's is that unless you are talking to a crowd of people who play rts's reguarly a lot of the terms will fly over peoples heads also if the person reviewing the game have no experience in rts's then it can be frustrating for those that do.
rts's have also advanced to the point where you cant just spam basic units and expect to win since each rts has its own quirks and lots of them and so it would take a long time to learn them.
one more problem is that if you havnt noticed yahtzee only tends to review games for the single player mode and since most rts's single player just plain sucks (maybe SC2 could stand a chance) it isnt worth reviewing it the game based solely on that.
so to sum it up yahtzee most likely wont review it because he probably isnt a dedicated rts player and wont enjoy it(i would love SC2 to have the shit ripped out of it)on the basis that it is an rts of which some people find boring. then theres the lack of single player content which is what most of his reviews hinge upon and only in some truly awesome games has he adventured into the multiplayer like tf2. Also i just dont think the reviews would be that good about rts's unless the rts in question was hilariously shit. i mean in other games which focus on teh single player there will always be one or two game mechanics that annoy the shit out of people but as long as it isnt game breaking it wont be patched generally however since rts's are multiplayer if it isnt patched soon the problems will mount losing player base until the game dies
rts's have also advanced to the point where you cant just spam basic units and expect to win since each rts has its own quirks and lots of them and so it would take a long time to learn them.
one more problem is that if you havnt noticed yahtzee only tends to review games for the single player mode and since most rts's single player just plain sucks (maybe SC2 could stand a chance) it isnt worth reviewing it the game based solely on that.
so to sum it up yahtzee most likely wont review it because he probably isnt a dedicated rts player and wont enjoy it(i would love SC2 to have the shit ripped out of it)on the basis that it is an rts of which some people find boring. then theres the lack of single player content which is what most of his reviews hinge upon and only in some truly awesome games has he adventured into the multiplayer like tf2. Also i just dont think the reviews would be that good about rts's unless the rts in question was hilariously shit. i mean in other games which focus on teh single player there will always be one or two game mechanics that annoy the shit out of people but as long as it isnt game breaking it wont be patched generally however since rts's are multiplayer if it isnt patched soon the problems will mount losing player base until the game dies
1. TrueCrossF1re said:
2. True.
3. Partially true
4. My problem with StarCraft 2 is that in order to become good you HAVE to memorize strategies. After you've perfected them each game simply becomes tic tac toe with the ability to sometimes peak and see what your opponent might be doing. The game becomes boring once you realize every match is just a test to see if your ability to memorize something and have the patience to apply it game after game after game. I personally DON'T have the patience to do that. I find that once every game boils down to tic tac toe and the excitement from discovering something new boils down it just becomes boring. There are those rare ocassions when an opponent forces me to improvise and usually those games are amazing. They're fun and exciting and if every game was like that I'd love StarCraft 2.
I'm not disagreeing with your claim that StarCraft 2 is a polished game. Much care went into the campaign and the multiplayer as evidenced by the 7 month beta and the amount of radical changes that occurred during the Alpha version. I'm disagreeing with your claim that people are dumb fucks for calling something you enjoy crap.