supreme commander 2 review

[texas pete]

I was a really big fan of the Total annihaltion games and the original supreme comamnder so I thought this would make a good game for me to test my new PC build on.

 

I really enjoyed the original Supreme commander becasuse of the huge scale battles between land air and sea units all with vastly different abilities spread over 3 tech levels. However in the sequal they have made alot of significant changes to the gameplay that has in my opinion killed the fun of the original.

 

The factions and story

In the fist game you could choose between the UEF (humans) the illuminate or the Cybrans, each with thier own types of units and preferred fighting style. The story would progess from the view point of which ever faction you had chosen to play as. So for example, the last battle, if you were playing as the bad guys, you have to protect the doomsday device while it charges. If you are playing as the good guys, you have to destroy it before the time runs out. With supreme commander 2, however, the main story progesses across all 3 campaigns. If done correctly, it could have been quite good, but the story became so convoluted and confusing I had no idea who was still on my side and who was the enemy!

 

Build build build!

The trick to the game is to capture as many mass points as possible so your economy will never stop. This is the key to producing as many units and buildings as possibble in the shortest space of time. or so you would think... There has been a small change to teh way the economy system works that has really damaged the pace of the game. With the previous encarnations, if you were building more than your metal (or mass) income, then it would trickle itsway to everything that was being produced. Everything would take forever to be completed, but at least you knew that eventually the buildings and units you had queued up would be constructed and all would be well. In this game, the units will not start contructing untill you actually have enough materials to start construction. It may only seem minor, but it took me hours to get used to this fact. For example you send your construction bot to start a shield generator on your frontline defences, while constructing a steady stream of tanks and anti air bots. As the bots use less resourses to build, they always take priority so you end up with loads of units with no defence structures and lots of construction bots waiting around for enough materials to start production. Anoter major gripe I had was that you cannot aid with building to speed up production time. again, not that it has no consequence... as i will describe later. So now you should have a new base and can start churning out those units of mass destruction!

 

Units, balance and reserch

And now it all starts to fall apart. I was really looking forward to churning out all these great units and see which combination worked the best. I used to love swarming with loads of cheap bots while the long range missiles would rain down from afar all while my bombers would joint strike with a strategic bomber sneaking in through the carnage to take out the important structures!

ohh....

3 units....

you start off with 3 land units - tank, anti air, missiles.... this is all that you have through out the game. unless you decide to unlock the bot in the research tree which is completely useless. They have even done away with the tech levels. so the tank you get in the first level is the same tank you will keep unitll the end oif the game. They said it was becasue people were saying that onec you unlocked the experimental weapons (massive machines of ultimate death!) that the tech 1 units became redundant. The only trouble now is that ALL the units are now redundant once you get the experimental units. They tried to even it out by adding a research tree in game. You aquire research points in the game (you can build research centres to get more points faster) allowing you to unlock upgrades for your units and buildings. For the most part they are useless, for example "jump jets" for your land units. So do you want jump jets or do you want to unlock troop transports ?! I think they just ran out of ideas... all you have to do is research shield generators and the experimental units and you win the game. In the later levels of the game you start with 20 research points to start you off. Naturally you get the shield generator and the cheapest experimental unit and then you can build everything you need to claim victory. For the price and build time the experimentals are far too strong. You can build mabe 10 normal tanks or 1 experimantal unit in the same time period for the same resources but the experimental will make mince meat of them!

 

Strategy and level design

There is none really. Every level is the same and can be won by following the same routine. build line of ground and air defence in a line across where the enemy forces always come. grind research points to unlock experimental. build 4 or 5 experimentals and roll over their base. I found this was the case for all of the levels. I never even bothered to build any of the buildings like the nuke factory or the long range batteries becasue there was no need. Another major gripe I have is that the maps are completey static. In Supreme commander 1 the nicest part of the campaign was that once you had completed an ojective, the map would expand revealing more bases and units, meaning you were never too sure where the next might come from. So naturally I would be cautios and build up a huge defence force, reserve force, and over estimate their numbers ready for the map to expand. *Mission accomplished* ohh already ? maybe the next one will expand... *Mission accomplished* ohh.... i see where this is going...

 

AI and multiplayer

Ok, Maybe I am being a bit too hard on the single player, I think they made the game with more multiplayer action in mind. So after I loaded up a skirmish map I was quite supprised and horrified! The AI was completely different! I had selected a "normal" player with the same resources as me. I selected a map with a definatel bottleneck so i could rush there and setup a nice wall of defences and be safe! but it didnt take long for me to realise the computer had other intentions... I was sat all smug in my base with all my production facilities churning out all types of experimental weapons when i heard the warning for a nuclear launch... and another one... and another one... and another one. It wasnt long before half of my bace and all my defences were dust. hmmm.... didnt see that one coming! so I had to restat and change my tactics quite alot ! However, it is still quite annoying to have your commander sat there spining round in circles becasue the order you gave him confused him where to travel !

 

So all in all, I was quite disapointed in it. Yes, I do regret buying it but I was keen to test my computer out. It does look good, it runs really smooth and the loading times are quite good. The single player campaign can be finished in a couple of evenings after work with absolutley nor replay value what so ever. If I would do it again, I would have just stuck with supreme commander 1 and avoided the senond one like the plague!

[Frost]

i bought this the other day for 7.99, and what a waste of money. uninstalled the next day.

 

try warzone 2100 - totally free, quite old scool but massively replayable and addictive. well worth a gander

[texas pete]

i bought this the other day for 7.99, and what a waste of money. uninstalled the next day.

 

try warzone 2100 - totally free, quite old scool but massively replayable and addictive. well worth a gander

 

Id have been auite happy paying that for the game, but over here in rediculous price land it cost mme 50 quid. It pushed me over the edge and signed up for steam, which i was really reluctant to do.

[Frost]

£50!? thats insane.

 

i've just bought shogun 2: total war. and that was only £25. can't wait til it arrives, goodbye social life!