Day Eight: Star Craft 64

Ah, Star Craft.  What PC or console gamer hasn't heard of this classic Real Time Strategy game set in outer space?  It's a wonderful story of Space Marines, Alienesque (like the movie series) creatures, and your typical "super-advanced" race of Predatoresque aliens.  The game is pure classic however you look at it, and a sequel came out just recently that mimics the great feel of the original and could be a candidate for one of the best RTS games of all time.

These types of games are best played with a mouse and a keyboard.  Not only do you need precise, tactical movements in a large-scale battlegrounds, but you need to be able to move quickly from squad to squad and fight to fight.  With a keyboard and mouse you can use single keystrokes to move to designated squads.  How in the love of fuck do you accomplish all of that with the N64 controller?  So obviously the controller doesn't have enough buttons to have up to ten squads simultaneously yet separately accessible.  Rather than assigning 1 to a squad and 2 to a squad and moving between them freely, the controller only really allows you to move between groups on a fixed basis, so from 1 to 2 to 3 to 4.

The other thing on my shitlist about this pile of crap is the movement.  An infrared mouse is difficult to beat, especially when you're attempting the same level of complexity with an analog stick.  It's like trying to play Halo with an Atari 2600 controller.  Okay, maybe not that bad, but it still sucks ass.  This isn't the only time that a PC game has been ported to a console an been a freaking pile.  The Command and Conquer series also put a game onto a console, but this time, it's for the Playstation.

So here we see the same limitations, but at a much higher rate of failure.  In this regard, again, it's the controller's fault.  The 64's controller is limited, yes, but the Playstation's is even more so, especially if you're looking at a controller that's not Dual Shock.  On a purely button vs. button comparison we see 11 on the 64 and only nine on the PS1.  Fans of C&C might love the adaptation, but at best, it's a butchered version of a mediocre RTS.  Even the expansion packs were released onto the PS1.  Now that's a desperate attempt to expand your game onto a new platform.  If you need a more recent example, there's Halo Wars, and that crap bombed out even though it's part of one of the most marketable franchises in recent gaming history, though it was more streamlined and optimized to be easier to handle with an Xbox 360 controller.  Bottom line, don't port your goddamn RTS onto a console, it just doesn't fucking work  Leave it where it belongs.