Halo Wars Controls Better Than PC RTS, DLC Already Done
A lead designer on Halo Wars has come out with some statements that will inspire disbelief in some and ire in others. Graeme Devine of the recently closed Ensemble studios said in an interview that the RTS will be truly crafted for a console and not the ‘halfway-hybrids’ that most console RTS games have been. He goes on to say that the control scheme on the Xbox 360 is even better than the classic PC mouse/keyboard format. An incredibly boastful statement given the number of buttons on a keyboard that allow for quick access of the various commands and shortcuts needed to coordinate the actions of a vast army. Even with context-sensitive buttons on the Xbox 360 controller there will be a huge number of controls that will need to be mapped out effectively.
What will get many annoyed, especially those who are anti-Halo and anti-Microsoft, is that Devine has said that they have been working on the DLC that will be released after the game has come out to ‘continue interest’ since the very start of the game. Sadly in this case their desire to ‘continue interest’ sounds very close to greed. The need to continue interest is understandable in the case of titles like World of Warcraft and MMOs that have continual updates and a high cost of maintenance. DLC doesn’t keep people playing a game they’ve lost interest in. DLC keeps people playing a game they’re already playing and a quality game gets people buying DLC to improve their already enjoyable experience.