I just got gifted a copy of Tempest Rising from a friend's Humble Choice. No money was harmed in the making of this story.
I was looking forward to giving it a spin; classic Command and Conquer vibes, base building, single player campaign - all that good nostalgia stuff.
And yet.
The controls are just so frustrating. All the units just move to where you click. All of them. Then if there's an enemy nearby some of them will just run off to fight on their own. You can't line your infantry up in front of your tanks without ordering each guy individually to stand in a particular spot, and then once an enemy turns up they'll just go running off anyway!
This lack of fine control is compounded by there being multiple units even in the early campaign that do area damage. Have fun individually ordering your infantry to avoid rubbing into that flamethrower! Oh, and of course, units can only move OR shoot.
Oh, and per-unit abilities. Man. I do not miss those! Am I playing a MOBA or an RTS? Every damn unit has a special ability or combat mode, which just compounds how unwieldy everything is.
The UI is also frustrating. No range indicators on anything, except for some abilities - but only when you mouse over the ability button when you have selected that particular unit - or for when you're placing turrets. But once they are placed? Nah. No indicators of enemy ranges at all.
The resource model and base building are just different, and that's fine - but BAR's UI and control interface has made it so hard to enjoy other RTS games no matter what else the game might offer D:
Has anyone managed to overcome this pain to enjoy other RTS titles?