RTS on the sofa
A friend in one of my Blood Bowl groups mentioned that he had got Age of Empires IV on his PS5. Somehow I had completely missed that AoE had come to consoles. Probably because I don’t really play many video games, and definitely don’t keep up with any releases. The thought of playing an RTS of AoE’s scale on a controller is quite daunting!
I much prefer playing games on my Xbox, because I can sit on the sofa and I feel more comfortable with a controller than a keyboard and mouse for most games. Despite a decently stocked Steam library, I barely touch my laptop anymore. There are some games that I make an exception for, especially RTS games. The last games I played on my laptop were Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth and Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War.1 These are old games by this point, but are still some of my favourite RTS games. My first proper PC game was Total Annihilation, the granddaddy of sci-fi RTS games. Me and my older brother played the game very badly, and even had several save files called Hulk in the making. Hulk was a ship that could be made in the boat yard, but we didn’t have enough metal to make it, so it took ages to construct. We were so excited to see what it was, as we’d not seen a unit take so many resources before. When it finally finished, imagine our disappointment when it turned out to be a transport ship with no weapons!
I played all these on PC, but I definitely played a couple of RTS games on console. I remember playing LOTR BFME II on the Xbox 360, but it never clicked for me in the same way the first one did. I also played Tom Clancy’ EndWar, using either a headset or the Kinect to use voice commands! I can’t remember how well it worked, but it would be interesting to see the concept tried today with better tech. I also have vague memories of trying Halo Wars.
Other than those games, way back on the Xbox 360, I haven’t really tried RTS games with a t on console. I don’t know why though. I have never been very competitive or particularly good at any RTS, so the inconveniences and slower pace of a controller won’t be holding me back. So I downloaded Halo Wars 2 on my Xbox, as it is included in Game Pass Essentials.2 I played the tutorial missions last night, and played a couple of skirmishes against the AI3, and I am definitely enjoying it. This game was made for console, so the controls are all well thought out, and the scale and pace of the game has clearly been designed with console in mind. I’ll try a few more games against the AI, and then see if I can find someone to either do comp stomps with or try some 1v1s.
Most of all though, I’ve enjoyed being able to play the game on my sofa! It will be interesting to try games not specifically designed for console, but now I am aware they are there I will definitely give them a go.
Quack
The first one. I have played the second, which is different but good, I never played the third, but I am intrigued by the upcoming fourth.↩
I had to uninstall Space Marine 2, the Xbox Series S really doesn’t have enough storage for modern games…↩
Do we still call computer controlled players AI in the age of LLMs?↩