RTS (Real Time Strategy) games were once one of my most favoured genres. I’ve never been close to the top tier of players, and was often quite handily beaten in most LAN events. I still enjoyed the games, but I think more for the city-building and was the sort of player that “turtles” (builds large defensive structures rather than being on the offensive).

I was quite excited to hear that Starcraft 2 is in development and due out later this year, but I can’t help but think I won’t really enjoy it. The last few RTS games I’ve played have been almost exactly the same as the others, with minor changes cosmetic such as character units and setting. The missions are usually quite similar and generic, and the whole thing gets pretty old, pretty fast.

Supreme Commander was the last such game I installed, and although I haven’t played it a great deal, I just can’t find myself getting excited by what seems to be a “been there, done that” experience. The whole strategy in these sorts of games seems to lie in finding the fastest way to crank out as many units as possible. There doesn’t ever seem to be a huge amount of tactics involved.

Sure, you can make two or three groups of units and send them off in different directions to pincer the enemy in multiple fronts, but once the units are together the AI is not particularly intelligent and micromanaging each unit seems more a chore than interesting part of the game.

One game I did play and enjoy a while back is Company of Heroes (I haven’t gotten into the second yet, but plan to) as even though it’s an RTS it was focused on missions with smaller units and less on churning out as many units in as short a time as possible. This is, I think, the direction that the games need to take (even though it is a well-done rehash of the Commandos games).

Starcraft 2, on the other hand, will be a massive, micromanaging clickfest. And it will sell millions. Mostly because I’m not the intended target audience (one, I’m not Korean and two I’m obviously not a hardcore RTS gamer). I’d really like to see more RTS games with no or limited bases with a focus on different style of gaming. What? I’m not sure, anything I could think of has probably been thought up before and already failed. I just think the current style of game needs to evolve. Shooters have; RPGs have. Why not RTS?