There comes a time in every person’s life when their eyes are opened; they experience or discover something that changes their perceptions on life. Be it a sport, movie or a general life experience, at some stage, most people will become passionate about something. In my case that something was video games. I have loved video games for as long as I can remember but recently I thought pretty deeply about the catalyst for that love. I looked back into my past to pinpoint exactly when it was that I developed my passion and it was pretty clear that it was the moment I was introduced to the strategy genre. I’m a massive massive fan of real time strategy (RTS), in fact, it’s my favourite genre to this day. Not one other gaming genre has peaked my interest as much as RTS and it’s all because of one particular game (which is not technically RTS but I like to think of this game as the grandfather of RTS): Civilisation.
The year is 1995, I’m 6 years old and my family had just purchased our very first computer. This was a massive deal back in the day, our very own personal computer. If you were around then you may remember the huge
Look at this beauty!!
CPU/monitor combo and the absolutely terrible graphics that seemed like magic! Here in front of me was a TV that I could play with, I was excited to say the least. That excitement faded pretty quickly when I found out there wasn’t all that much you could actually do with the thing. It wasn’t until a few days later that my uncle came around with a few floppies (poor choice of words? Perhaps but I like it) that the magic of a PC was brought to light. The moment that three and a half inch was inserted into the slot and the game was booted on DOS was the beginning of my love for strategy. There was something about taking a civilisation from nomads to a modern superpower, controlling every aspect of success or failure. The anticipation of discovering new lands, peoples or treasures was immense and it’s something I have never really gotten over. To this day, there is something strangely satisfying about clicking a button, watching a digital man cut through the black and hoping for wonders beyond comprehension. Of course, in those days the functionality in video games was limited but it was still leaps and bounds ahead of anything I had thus experienced.
It wasn’t too much longer after my first delicious taste of strategy that I was able to wrap my eyeholes around the second (and in my opinion, best) instalment of Civilisation. Civ II is an absolute wonder to behold. It has terrible graphics, it’s pretty jumpy and it never seems to work completely the way you want it to but it is near on one of my favourite games ever. I say this not because of the game itself but the memories I have playing this game. Sure, playing it when I was young was great but the real memories I’m talking about have mostly been over the last 5-10 years. I am extremely lucky to have awesome cousins who love to game as much as me (DYEGB’s very own Aza is one such coozin) and even more lucky that they enjoy spending an entire night drinking beers, eating salt and vinegar chips and playing Civ II. I’m not sure we’ve ever actually had a winner in any game thus far but it’s more about the journey than the destination (right?!). In any case I’m pretty sure I’d win every game if we actually played to a conclusion because I’m better than them at all games, always (honest).
So basic but so great!!
Whilst I really love Civ for introducing me to strategy, as I mentioned earlier, my real love is Real Time Strategy (RTS). The first RTS game I really remember playing was Warcraft: Orcs & Humans shortly followed by Command and Conquer and not forgetting the Dune series. These three games were the beginning of something special in my life and I will always look upon them fondly. Many an afternoon after a hard day at school I would be back in my room (For some reason mum thought it would be a good idea to have the computer in my room. I think because she thought I’d study…how wrong she was) playing one of these games, wondering why I even did life at all when I could just game. I was in the middle of the RTS boom of the mid to late 90’s and life had never been better.
Some of my best memories in life are of playing RTS with friends and whenever I’ve felt sad, alone or just generally down I’ve always had the joy of RTS to turn to. I moved around a lot as a kid and part of doing that is entering
What an absolute gem!
established school environments and trying to fit in. As some of you will know, it’s harder than it seems just writing it on paper. The one constant in all the change has been my love of RTS as an escape from reality. As a teenager in the early 00’s I spent a lot of time playing Warcraft II and Starcraft, which are, in my opinion, still two of the greatest RTS games ever made. Perhaps I’m biased in that view because of the deep nostalgia I feel towards them but the same could be said for any game ever; everything is subjective.
With all of the above said and done I want to talk about my favourite RTS game. This game is certainly not one of the best made; it’s not even one of the best RTS games ever made but it is my favourite. There are a number of reasons for this, one such being that this game is the only time I ever really connected with my dad, but the biggest is that I am still playing it to this day! This game is Age of Empires 3. Let’s be clear from the outset, this game is no masterpiece, it’s lacking a lot of basic features that RTS games of the time had (think advanced formations and better economy-based strategy) and the game itself was not overly original (apart from the home cities concept). What it lacks in those areas it more than makes up for in complete fun. It’s just a really really fun game that can entertain for hours with games over different maps and opponents.
I’ve mentioned a number of games in this article that some will love, others will despise. Rather than ramble on about my life any more (which is kinda the point of this article but kinda not) I’m going to finish up with my top 5 all-time favourite strategy games. I was going to make it a RTS list but then I couldn’t fit in my beloved Civilisation series.
My top 5 as follows:
- Age of Empires
- Civilisation
- Command and Conquer
- Starcraft
- Warcraft (not including that rubbish WoW game)
Let me know what’s on your list and any experiences you have that make RTS a favourite genre.
