Video Game
Real-Time Strategy
Jaleco Entertainment
Goblin Commander is a story of five clans of goblins dealing with a major civil war after the death of their leader. With all of these clans fighting each other, no one truly sees the evil standing among them.
The game has quite a short history. Released in 2003, it went by rather unnoticed. The game contains a rather simple premise, seen within all RTS games: build units to eliminate the enemy. This common mechanic is not added upon, as many would suggest, but rather subtracted from, to make the game simpler and all around easier to use. Resources are reduced to two needs, gold and souls. The gameplay is shifted from a focus on resource management to a focus on direct combat and player interaction. This new type of gameplay adds more to the cinematic experience in the game, and makes it less focused on micromanagement.
In terms of innovation, Goblin Commander is rife with it. First off, it is one of the first RTS games for a console that wasn't a direct port, and its resource system made it rather easy to grasp. The game appealed to playtesters with this simplistic approach and simpler controls. It is really a toned down version of a realtime strategy, which could more easily convince gamers used to non-RTS games to become fans. The fact that it was released to a completely untapped market would have made it a big success if it hadn't been overlooked by said market.
Goblin Commander is a game that changes the perspective of the player, rather than using a tried-and-true formula. By releasing on consoles, using a simplified play system and basic controls, it turns itself into a game that is both easy to grasp, and an intermediate between action games and Real-Time Strategy.
Source: "Goblin Commander: Unleash the Horde Online Image." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 16 Sept. 2010. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goblin_Commander:_Unleash_the_Horde>.
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