Nishimoto calls his game Fleet Commander. He began making it back in 2009, when he conceptualized it as a table top game based on the TacTile, a 52″ touchscreen. Nishimoto’s main goal was to create a strategy game with a touchscreen interface that was both intuitive and comprehensive. The trick? A radial menu that pops up around ships. Here’s the game running on the TacTile:

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Although Nishimoto created all of the art himself, they are exact recreations of Star Wars ships. There are fighters, bombers, capital ships and of course the Death Star. Turning the fandom knob up to 11, he also used music and sound effects from the movies. Last year, Nishimoto moved his project to a much larger system – the CyberCommons, the EVL’s 20-foot, 8160 x 2304 display:

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As you can see, the game lacks several basic elements of the RTS genre, like base-building and resource management, so for now it’s mostly Star Wars ships battling it out. Not that I’m complaining. Maybe in the future Nishimoto will have the opportunity to create an official game for tablets, but for now we’ll just have to keep watching that video over and over again. Check out Nishimoto’s website for more details on Fleet Commander as well as his other video game projects.

[via Topless Robot]

Like its predecessor, Planet M.U.L.E. centers around economics – maximizing resources, buying and selling goods, adapting to supply and demand. Fans of RTS games won’t have a hard time learning the ropes of Planet M.U.L.E., because games like StarCraft and Total Annihilation all have an economic aspect to them.

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Planet M.U.L.E. is a free download and is available for Windows, OS X and Linux. You’ll need an Internet connection to play with other players, although you can practice against the AI. Check out the How-to-play section on the game’s website for more details.

[via Download Squad]

It’s important to note that the rocks are an optional feature in maps, theoretically to give newbies more time to explore and test the game, or perhaps as an added challenge for veterans. So keep your cool, hardcore Starcraft fan. The rocks are optional.

The reactions of Ars commenters to the new add-on are varied; one said that the rocks caused a lot of matches to devolve into air versus air battles. Others said that the feature isn’t new at all, citing some maps in StarCraft 1 that had minerals blocking the paths. Still others cited rival RTS Total Annihilation, which not only had destructible walls that served the same function but also gave players a “No Rush” option; i.e. units are confined to their spawn points for a limited amount of time right after the battle starts.

I don’t really like RTS games, so all I know is that if this makes it to the final version of the game, “destructible rock” will be the perfect nickname for players who suck, like me: we only last the first few minutes, and are nothing but cannon fodder.

[via Ars Technica]

I think Red Alert and Tiberian Dawn have been free for some time now, and EA says the addition of Tiberian Sun and Firestorm to the list of free downloads is an early Valentine’s gift.

But with Red Alert 4 on the horizon – the game comes out on March 16 – we’d all be stupid to think that this isn’t a way to promote the aging series. Still, it’s free! Head on to Command & Conquer Classics to download the games. The Red Alert Soviet & Allied ISOs are 520 MB each, Tiberian Dawn’s GDI & NOD ISO’s are 600MB each, and the Tiberian Sun & Firestorm installer weighs in at 1.2GB.

[via CVG]

The game uses our expectations and past experience with RPGs and throws all of that – the 8-bit graphics, character portraits in dialogues, conventional plots, grinding, item buying, dialogue etc – in fast forward, which makes sense because if you’re not going to see anything new anyway, might as well zip through to the end right? And PerLee mentions repeatedly in his preview that the game is consistently funny and self-aware, and that’s a huge plus for me. Here’s a video of the gameplay from the Japanese release of the game. The video has spoilers (especially if you can read Japanese) towards the end but it also shows the 30 second system at work pretty well so… watch at least the first 3 minutes, then stop if you want.

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As you saw in the video the 30-second time limit can be extended in exchange for money, but the whole thing was still freakin frantic. Half-Minute Hero isn’t just an RPG; The RPG part is just one of the 4 gameplay modes in the game. There’s also a shmup, a survival/king of the hill mode and even an RTS (!) mode, with each mode assigned to a stereotypical character. The hero gets the RPG mode, a princess is in the shoot ‘em up, a knight defends a mage in the king of the hill mode, and an evil boss is the character in the RTS mode. Here’s a shaky and quite awkward interview by Unit of True Game Headz with Jimmy Soga of XSEED.

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This and Persona may just be the ones that will make me use my PSP again. Hopefully the humor is really present throughout the game. You can pre-order Half-Minute Hero at Amazon for $28 (USD). Check out Destructoid for the full article for more info.

Blizzard should hire the person who made this as their official baker. Or at least give the person a pat on the back. Check out the hi-res pic here to have your mind re-blown.

The study, published in Psychology & Aging, reports that the test group who played the real-time-strategy title Rise of Nations, showed some cognitive improvement after time with the title. While the subjects — all of whom were 60 or older — did not improve in all categories, the gaming group showed increased reasoning ability and were better able to swap between tasks. Clearly, they are spreading the ADD to our parents and grandparents now, but if it gets them into multiplayer Civilization on Wednesday nights, is it worth a complaint?

Arthur Kramer, the man behind the study, cautioned that spending hours building a nation is certainly not the only thing older adults should do to help stave off loss of cognitive function, but he pointed out the connection between managing resources in a strategy game and managing one’s real-life finances. Anything that can help with that, and which also happens to be fun, can’t be a bad idea.

[PhysOrg via Wonderland]

Halo Wars is expected to provide us with a unique take on the familiar Halo universe. In Halo Wars, you’ll take command of human UNSC armies against enemy Covenant forces into an all out war between the races.

The game is being developed by Ensemble Studios, rather than Bungie, who is busy putting the finishing touches on Halo 3. Ensemble Studios created the critically acclaimed Age of Empires RTS series, so they certainly have the pedigree to pull something good off here.

Trailer [High | Low]