Gaming Supreme Commander 2 Demo Impressions

Supreme Commander 2 absolutely disgusts me. If they had given it a different name (perhaps "Lowest Common Denominator 2"?) and design, then it could conceivably be an adequate RTS, but under the name "Supreme Commander" it is a disgrace. I feel ashamed for GPG. Of all the companies, I thought that they would be the very last to desert me.

And before anyone tries to tell me that I need to play the full game; Unless the core game mechanics are entirely overhauled purely for Skirmish (which they won't be), then I have every right to judge now.

 

I kind of agree with the above, except replace "disgusted with" with "disappointed by"....


I've played the demo a couple of times over the weekend and the more I do the more I realise how much they've cut out or changed that just didn't need to be.

Why improve the path finding then remove all the formations? Why make the resource/economy "more streamlined" then make ordering engineers about a complete faff by not being able to multi-select? Why make all those cool experimental's so easy to kill? Why remove half the structures and put them into stupid "upgrades"? Why pay Square Enix to sit on their arses all day and do nothing (at least, if those 2 missions were anything to go by)?



Arghh, maybe it's just because Chris Taylor's enthusiasm during every interview and the fact I loved the first game so much my expectations were higher than SupCom2 could ever live up to.... I'll still buy it, definitely not for the campaigns, but in the hope that with the right maps and game setup (and possibly a few mods) the skirmish mode will keep me amused as much as SupCom still does to this day.


EDIT:

Is multi-monitor support in the sequel? If they removed that too i'm gonna FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUU

 

Enjoyed the demo, dam it ran on my laptop.

 

Yes multi monitor was still in the demo thankfully

 

Just bought a new monitor and as much as I try to say it's because my current 19" is too small... I know in my heart it's for having two screens in SupCom

I still see hope yet! Multiplayer seems like it's gonna be boat loads of fun with experimentals all about and factories shooting people and elite veteran tanks from the start of the game decimating all in their path!

 

worried...very worried!!

 

I've not tried the demo yet but I desperately want this to live up to SupCom standards, but the reports are mostly worrying. I've got my finger perched on the pre-order button but cant bring myself to press it what with the never ending Q4.

Would not alot of the problems be solved by:

a) Debit the resources once the build starts rather then on time of request? That way you still need the resources 'up-front' but can still have build ques much like SC1.

b) T3.5 'minor-experimentals' that are not as balls out as T4 and adjust T4 a little higher to compensate?

 

Well I'll be buying it but will wait for the price to drop, being out three weeks before Easter I'm hoping for a snap deal that puts it down to 20 quid. On looking at the resources system, I couldn't see anything like efficiency bonuses for having the energy/power station next to a factory, I just saw this single bar counting up my research points once I'd built the right buildings almost anywhere I liked, and that was it.

The sole improvement over the fist two games was better AI on my engineers, unless you wanted to give them a long set of queued orders to reclaim mass, it grabbed the nearest set of mass from dead hulks just by leaving it there among friendly forces. That's much better than the micromanagement needed in the first two games.

Lastly I hope they haven't restricted Jeremy Soule to just the one piece of music, at least in the last two games there were three distinct themes, one for each race, that were improved upon in Forged Alliance. Just this one piece in the demo will get dull very quickly if it's the only track.

 

I've really enjoyed the demo, I was only looking forward to Mafia 2, I don't want to buy another game, but I might just have too >_<

 

Apparently in builds of the game beyond what the demo is, the colors are a bit better:

http://www.1up.com/do/slideshow?pager.offset=3&cId=3170983

 

Well, I've played the demo, and I am completely unimpressed. The 'experimental' units were a joke, 8 submarines took out an experimental sub without 1 loss, and 4 gunships killed a fatboy. WTF. There is no T1, T2, T3, T4 in SupCom2, you build a research generator (or several, they are like power stations) and pay research points for better units, experimental units, unit improvements, (health, vision, damage, ect) structure upgrades, and ACU upgrades.

The unit models are poor, and the color scheme is worse. The mass extractor doesn't seem upgradeable (though it may be in the full version IDK) and it's animation looks foolish next to the SupCom extractors.

What you in the article said was "...you’ll need to pay for them all now. This is a military campaign after all, not a DFS sofa-sale. No credit. No pay later." The old situation was more of a pay-as-you-go/cash-on-delivery, while the new system is pay as you order.

Also, the new building animations are an abomination. Seriously. We went from cutting a working factory from a block of light, lasering it into reality, or forging it from liquid metal; to instant scaffolding with lights and the building popping out of the ground. Then the apparently finished structure is shot at with cutting beams.

Guard towers are called 'heavy', as if that made them better. Their range is significantly reduced and they aren't very powerful. Actually all unit ranges seem very small.

But the worst part of all, worse than anything previous, they've destroyed the sense of epic scale that SupCom has. In the first mission (not tutorial) the Cybran is hiding in a small lagoon that is surrounded by FRIKIN HUEG ROCKS. Stones that must be 500' tall. I felt like my ACU and army were a micromachines army in someone's backyard. In SupCom the distance from me to him would be nothing. I wouldn't be able to make a base because we'd be too close together.

The full game may be better than SC or SC:FA. But if I made my decision based on the demo I would never buy SupCom2. I will have to torrent it to be sure, but I'm not paying for this trash.

 

I was originally going to buy this game for the sheer fact that I am a huge fan of Chris Taylor's work. After playing the demo I felt that too much of the core game play has changed, the economy system is almost like every other RTS game out there and the variety of units is lacking now. The whole game just feels dumb down to suit casual gamers.

 

There is still multi-mon, but unless it is just on my system, it doesn't work as well as in SC1/FA. In order to change the zoom on the other screen, one first needs to click somewhere on the screen one wants to zoom in. Drove me batty. Oh, and I couldn't work out how to change the view to a topological view? I assume this feature is gone given the new 3D as apposed to simpler height-mappped maps? Finally, I preferred the old camera system - IMO, they got that just wright - the only times I ever rotated the cam was when I wanted to kick back and enjoy the show - while actually playing I only ever zoomed in/out, never need to rotate. I can't say the same for the new camera system, and nor does it automatically rotate back to the default angle. Grrrr.

SC/FA was epic - what ever happened to that?

 

i just wanted to asked about one thing .. i heard the square enix would be involved in the making of this game is that true ? and if it is what was their contribute?

 

Square Enix is the publisher. So they may not have contributed much at all.

If I had to guess (at something they had contributed), it would be the extra storyline.