While most games are platform independent, there have always been genres of games that have been traditionally seen as exclusive to the PC. Up until recently, first person shooters were seen that way, until Goldeneye opened the door for console shooters, followed by Halo which busted the door wide open. However, while FPS games have successfully crossed the border to consoles, real time strategy (RTS) games have remained firmly on the PC. Sure, there have been attempts to port RTS games over, most notably Starcraft and Command & Conquer for the Nintendo 64, but the games never fared well as a result of the translation. The interfaces were too complex to map to the gamepad’s limited buttons, the analog stick was simply not precise enough for the kinds of actions the games required, and the resolution of standard televisions created a gamespace that was too cramped to show everything that a player needed to see all at once.
That didn’t stop Jaleco from giving the console RTS another try, however. The difference here is that, instead of taking a PC RTS and trying to shoehorn it into a console setting, they built a brand new RTS specifically for the console, with both the limitations and action-oriented audience of the console in mind. The fruit of their labor is Goblin Commander: Unleash the Horde.
The basic premise of Goblin Commander is that you play Grommel, one of five brothers who lead the Goblin clans. The Goblins exist solely to serve their human master, Fraziel, who is employing the Goblins to build a Great Machine. All is well until Fraziel is found murdered, and war erupts as all the clans suspect one another of the dastardly act. The story is advanced through cutscenes and dialogue as the game progresses (mostly consisting of Grommel being shocked repeatedly that yet another of his brothers is attacking him), and it’s decent enough to keep the player interested, but not nearly to the caliber of, say, Starcraft or Warcraft III.
Of course, that stands true for the game as a whole, and deliberately so. If you’re expecting a hardcore RTS experience on the console, Goblin Commander is going to disappoint you. However, that’s not its purpose; the game is intended to be a scaled-down RTS. As such, you can control up to three clans at one time, each with a maximum of ten units apiece. The clans generally specialize in either ranged or melee combat, and have only five unit types apiece, most of which are just stronger versions of the basic unit, for simplicity’s sake. Each clan is assigned either square, circle, or X, and those buttons set waypoints for the clans to move toward. Since the clans attack automatically upon seeing enemy soldiers, and can’t do anything aside from moving and either attacking or providing a support ability (which is also done automatically, like auto-casting in Warcraft III), the one button does everything you need to get a clan to abide by your wishes.
One interesting aspect that Goblin Commander brings to the table is the ability to directly control your units. By pressing triangle over one of your units, you can direct his (and the rest of his clan’s) movements, attack in real-time, etc. Given the occasional stretches of waiting around that are inevitable in RTS games, this is an interesting twist that allows the player to be involved at all times, even if not much is going on. Taking this mechanic even further are special units called Titans which must be directly controlled, and have several attacks at their disposal which are devastating, to say the least. While it is a bit frustrating to need to be in direct control of a Titan in order to use it, it is a decent trade-off given the power and sheer interactive fun that the Titans provide.
Also worth noting is the way that the designers streamlined resource management, often one of the most difficult aspects of an RTS for console gamers to deal with. There are only two resources in Goblin Commander, being souls and gold. Souls are used primarily to build units, and are obtained by defeating enemies in battle (“Got your soul!”) and by capturing soul fountains, which provide a steady stream of souls. Gold is used for purchasing upgrades and unlocking unit types, and is obtained by destroying buildings and debris along the way. What’s interesting is that, while collecting resources can be tedious (especially because it can be difficult to differentiate debris from the scenery), it’s always an active experience; very rarely is the player sitting around, waiting for resources to accumulate.
However, not all translated well to the console, and Goblin Commander does have its share of problems. The worst, by far, is the unit AI. Pathfinding is hit-or-miss at best; sometimes, telling two clans to go from the same place to the same waypoint will result in the clans taking two separate paths, which is simply mind-boggling. The fact that units auto-engage in battle also has the unfortunate side effect that they refuse to stop when you issue another waypoint elsewhere. What this means is that, if your army is getting slaughtered and you want them to fall back, you have to take direct control of them and lead them by the hand out of harm’s way, when you’d really rather be building reinforcements elsewhere. Worse, your units can apparently see through walls, so there was one particular mission where I’d given up on one clan completely because they’d rather shoot their arrows at an enemy behind a wall too tall for them to shoot over than join in a real battle elsewhere. Again, this is something that can be corrected with direct control, but it makes the game more frustrating than it really needs to be.
Another problem stems from the game’s simplicity, and that is simply that it really doesn’t take a whole lot of strategy to win, more often than not. Most of the time, if you just keep looking for gold and upgrade your troops, you’ll be at the top of the tech tree in no time, and if your army gets wiped out, them you build ten more guys and start again. There are different elements like Titans and one-time area effect spells you can cast that add some extra elements to your planning, but generally, the best strategy is just a mass rush with everything you’ve got. The game does mix things up every so often by separating one clan from the rest and forcing you to use only them, but those are few are far between. Even one mission that I thought had a lot of promise, in which you are given a only limited number of troops with which to reach your objective, was reduced to a simple formality once I realized that reinforcements would miraculously arrive just as the last member of one of my clans was killed.
The fact that the single player campaign gets tedious normally wouldn’t be a big deal one way or the other, since multiplayer mode is often the focus of most RTS games. However, the modes outside the campaign in Goblin Commander are anemic at best. There is a Skirmish mode, but that requires two players on a split screen, and playing an RTS on a split screen is about as natural as trying to talk into an N-Gage. Online capability would make the two-player requirement a non-issue, but that was not meant to be, sadly. What’s more shocking, though, is that there is absolutely no way to Skirmish against the computer, which is arguably the heart of most RTS games aside from online play. As a result, the replay value of Goblin Commander suffers greatly, as the campaign will likely take a rental period or so to finish, and after that there’s nothing left unless you like to squint at half a screen with a buddy.
Graphically, Goblin Commander is average, but can be difficult on the eyes at times. The view can be zoomed in and out, but often doesn’t go out as often as one would like, so a lot of scrolling around is required. A lot of the game’s areas are extremely dark, as a result of the combination of the palette and the fog of war, so it can be difficult to see where your army should go or what debris can be pummeled along the way. Also, since the units’ damage meters are represented as colored circles by their feet, when zoomed out, it can be difficult to see which units are hurt, or even to tell them apart adequately. Slowdown becomes an issue as well, especially during large battles. Basically, Goblin Commander is far from a feast on the eyes, but it gets the job done most of the time.
Sound is a little better. The sound effects are distinctive and do a good job conveying, along with on-screen prompts, what is happening elsewhere on the screen. Music is present and not particularly offensive, but not memorable, either. Voice acting abounds, though it is all in the goblin’s native tongue with subtitles. A lot of it sounds very alike, but it does add a bit of a nice touch to the game’s flavor. The only problem here is that you have to wait for the game to decide you’ve had long enough to read the subtitles to continue on, and for fast (or even average) readers, this can mean a lot of waiting around, especially if you’re restarting a mission, because there’s no way to skip by them. It’s a minor complaint, but it really adds to the tedium level where just being able to blow by them would have made a huge difference.
Overall, Goblin Commander is an admirable first attempt at a true console RTS, but, based on this game, the genre still has quite a ways to go before it is really viable outside the realm of PCs. If you’re new to the genre and want a light game to slowly introduce you to the genre, go ahead and rent this one, as it does have enough depth to the campaign to at least get you familiar enough with the style of game to be able to move up to something along the lines of Warcraft III or the Age of Empires games. However, if you’ve already been playing those games for years, you should just pass by this one; you’ll either get frustrated or bored very quickly, and then you’ll go right back to your mouse and keyboard. The real shame is that the lack of single-player or online Skirmish mode really destroyed any chance of me being able to recommend this game as a purchase; the lack of replay value really hurts the overall package tremendously. While it does try very hard, much like the goblins themselves, Goblin Commander just is too awkward to be able to take it seriously.
