Welcome to Respawning’s Games Club! The purpose of this is to get a bunch of us together every Monday to allow us the chance to chat shit about whatever takes our fancy in the world of video games and discuss what we’re currently playing!
In anticipation of the next Civilization expansion releasing this week we’re talking about our thoughts on, and favourite, RTS games.
Salman
I have a weird hate/love relationship with RTS games. I used to watch my cousins and my brother play them loads and I know a few people who are way into Starcraft but I only ever played Age of Empires and Command and Conquer: Generals. I don’t even like Generals that much but it’s pretty fun if you have a bunch of lads around ya talking mad shit. Same with Age of Empires but I genuinely like those games and, I like Age of Empires III over II just because of how much you can farm and build up resources. Since I like to play the game more like FarmVille more than anything else. I can’t wait for Age of Empires IV that was surprisingly announced a while back but we haven’t really heard of anything on it besides that announcement. Other than that I think I don’t want to get into any other RTS and I feel like its a bit of a dying genre these days cause you don’t hear them as much as before. Still though, getting a group of friends together to play some AoE III will always produce some mad hype.
Josef
My step brother used to play the shit out of Age of Empires on my old laptop. However, I, an intellectual only play Star Wars related video games. Star Wars Empire at War was a great in between for me to be in love with Star Wars while also being fairly new to the whole RTS genre. It combined everything I liked Star Wars, being these large-scale cinematic battles, with an intricate and focused win condition. This wasn’t going to be like the Sims 2, I had to actually play the game to win the game. The more time I spent with it the more fun I had, I’d arrange two giant armies to attack each other and just press the cinematic camera button. Taking you in closely to the individual squads as they battle it out. The camera moves around like it’s a Star Wars movie and it just feels right. There are also some really great mods out there for it, taking you to different eras and regions of the galaxy.
Will
I still like Starcraft II, alright? Ever since it went free-to-play a few months ago, I’ve settled right back into it. Being poor as all shit, I never bought the original, and instead learned it by playing alongside my friend who had the full version and a fucking encyclopedic knowledge of Starcraft and Warcraft lore.
I’m a Terran main, for the sole purpose that I still have no fucking idea how to play Zerg. None. Besides, when your choice is between a Space Hillbilly, a man with no mouth, and a fucking beetle, who do you play as? The one with the biggest guns, of course.
Yeah, Starcraft II is a dead eSport. Nah, I don’t care. I finally have an excuse to reclaim my crown as the king of Reaper rushes. Meet me in Unranked, scrub.
William
The be all and end all of RTS games is and always will be Command & Conquer Red Alert 2. Me and brother used to sink HOURS into this and that’s not an overstatement. There isn’t a lot out there as satisfying as calling in paratroopers non stop in a quiet area of the map before swarming your enemy will literally hundreds of G.Is or conscripts! and with an entertaining what if story line and some straight up wacky unit designs you had the makings of tight and hilarious time sink! Even up until less than a year ago me and a few friends could be found loading this classic up and beasting each other in player controlled servers. I mean I never won but I had fun getting my ass kicked! It’s ‘ll sign off with a simple phrase that we should all remember…KIROV READY!
