Nolan Bushnell, creator of Pong and founder of Atari, returns to game development with Battleswarm: Field of Honor, a real-time strategy / first-person shooter hybrid he describes as "a mash-up between StarCraft and Starship Troopers."
Bushnell has been out of the game making business for quite awhile, but he's coming back with Battleswarm, an online PC game that allows players to switch between the roles of strategic commander and front line fighter, much like S2 Games' Savage. Instead of having different roles on the same team, however, one side plays the RTS-controlled alien bugs, while the other team is tasked with their extermination in first-person format.
The inspiration for the genre-mixing title comes from wanting to play games with his five sons.
They're all avid gamers and like first-person shooters. The problem is, as you get older, you lose some reaction time, and as a result, I'm getting slaughtered by them. A real-time strategy [RTS] game, however, is more my [preference], a good resource game is what I love. Battleswarm is both an RTS and a shooter, a mash-up between StarCraft and Starship Troopers, if you will. You can switch sides, too, if you feel like an RTS instead of a shooter, or vice-versa.
It actually sounds like an interesting solution to bridging the age gap, giving those of us slowly losing our reflexes a fighting chance against our young nephews...or whatever. Not that I am losing my edge or anything. It's just that kids these days can see forever, and might have psychic powers.
'Father of electronic games' on his next project, the state of the industry [USA Today]