Obviously my previous post was intended as a joke, when I read that my mind somehow formed the image of somebody frowning at the chaos of battle and executing maneuvers with mouse and keyboard, but then the music suddenly changes, the game zooms in and the guy drops the PC stuff, picks up a gamepad and starts bashing out combos.

Incidentally, this interview came out a few minutes ago and is worth a look. While the screenshots certainly look very nice, the accompaning blurb with comments like "...designed to appeal to all gamers, not just hardcore strategy fans" inclined me to a certain cynicism about how the game would play. But this interview makes me feel a little better about it. It confirms that the talk of combos is an aesthetic innovation intended to make the battles look better, as against a surreal platform-jumping genre-blurring synthesis of real time strategy and beat-em-up. Also the faction list, they have Venice and Milan instead of "The Italians" and also appear to be featuring a nation I've never even heard of, which surprises me.

My main hope is still for increased modability though, since it's unlikely to be the game I really want to play in it's original form.

Antagonist