My Supreme Commander 2 Review

[CaptainHaplo]

A remake of the original Supreme Commander, Supcom 2 returns you to leading a robot army in search of victory. Anxiously awaited by many SupCom fans, the sequal offers new units and experimentals, building addons, a modified economic model and a research tree instead of the old style tech levels. Gameplay is fast and furious, with plenty of explosions and flying debris. But did these changes make the game....better? The answer to that question depends on your perspective.

SupCom2 was designed with graphics that were worse than the original. However, this was intentional. Less intensive graphics means more horsepower for the thousand + unit battles that are possible in this game. For some, the eye candy droppoff is a negative, while for others its an acceptable tradeoff. Personally, I did find the units a bit "cartoonish" for my tastes, but I can understand the reasoning, and it doesn't really affect gameplay negatively. I call this issue a wash, since some older machines struggled with larger battles in the original where SupCom2 seems to handle them easier.

The economy model has been revamped, and in doing so has made it easier to understand for the new player. If you don't have the resources RIGHT NOW to build something - you cannot que it up as you could before. No more running a negative income on resources while trying to balance the speed of your building and expansion. Gone are adjacency bonuses, storage buildings and the need balance energy and metal production. While I understand the why behind the reasoning, the economic juggling act necessary to build, attack and defend all at once was part of what made Supreme Commander (and its Fragile Alliance expansion) so tension filled and rewarding when you were successful. The current model means you can slap down six energy producers, build on every mass location close by, and pretty much forget about having to build your economy for the rest of the game. Just protect it. Making it easier for a new gamer to understand is one thing, making it become an afterthought to the entire game is another. As we will soon see, this economic style makes the game too easy in a number of ways. A new RTS player may find it nice, but for hardcore RTS players of all kinds, this design can only be viewed as a negative.

Research offers a twist to improving your units. Instead of getting new units as you move "up the tech tree" - research now allows you to simply improve basic models. Want more firepower? Research an extra gun on your tanks! Need better survivability for your air power, slap some sheilds on your fighters and bombers! Longer firing ranges, better training, stronger armor (more health) etc. are all items that can be researched. Research "points" come from two sources - actual fighting (destroying enemy units) and from research stations. Research has 5 areas, one each for the type of unit families (land, sea, air) as well as one for structures and the last for researching upgrades for your ACU. This does allow you to concentrate your research in a single area, insuring you can improve in ways that fit your tactical style. Experimental units are also gained through research. Since combat is one way to gain research points, this mechanic serves to entice players to engage in combat early and often. For the player that prefers to "tech up" first, its as easy as getting the economy going initially (as described above), and then building a number of research centers. Before you know it, everything is researched and the game falls back on who can produce more units faster....

Buildings now can have addons that provide them some defense. Shields, guns and missile launchers all make factories (and some buildings) more than just passive targets that must be protected. Generators that can heal nearby units also are nice things that can be researched.

The new experimental units really are game-enders. Correction... they WOULD be game enders - if it wasn't so easy to get them. Reseaching them does not really take long at all, and building them is quickly done. One change is that you now have an "experimental" factory from which to build them. This means you cannot use a Commander to build a new Experimental in the field once you secure an area. But since build times for everything are so quick, its not hard to put up the needed factory first. Not only do Experimentals produce quickly (and even faster if an engineer or 5 help) but so do all the other war machines you will use.

Every faction except the Seraphim returns, and one has to wonder what happened over the course of the 25 years since the Seraphim were defeated. Things like - the Aeon forgot how to build ships. Thats right - they have no navy - their land units hover and thus pull double duty. The UEF apparently developed an under-siege mentality, as their buildings, research and experimentals are best suited for turtling. Know what side your opponent chose, and your likely able to figure out what strategy they will be using - making countering them much easier.

The single player campaign is just there for window dressing. The tutorial is well done, though paced a little slow. Then the switch is flipped and your in the campaign battles - with no speed control. Unlike the original, game speed is locked in campaign missions - though in skirmish you can unlock it and adjust it to your hearts content. Why this decision was made is not clear, though I suspect it has to do with the desire to get the player acclimated to the faster pace of the game. Hopefully the next patch will allow adjustement in the campaign.

As I said at the beginning - Supcom2 offers fast and furious battles. Its designed to do exactly that. The changes made really make the game easy to jump into for a new player. (Overly) Simplified economics, super-fast research, quick building of units and experimentals, all make the game simple to learn. Unfortunately, it also makes the game simple to play. In the end, Supreme Commander 2 caters to the "rush" gamer, because whether you turtle or rush at the start, sooner or later the game comes down to who can overwhelm the other player. If your a console style gamer, then Supreme Commander 2 is a fun, explosion filled RTS in which you can play a match in 45 minutes or less. If you are a true strategy and tactics player, and especially a fan of the first game, Supreme Commander 2 is going to be a big letdown.

To the game's credit - it is stable and runs well on a wide variety of hardware. When a game does that - its worth noting. I did not run into any "game-breaking" bugs while playing.

As I said, depending on what you expect from this game determines what you think of it. With the name and theme the same, I expected an improvement over the original, which offered real challenges in strategy and a huge variety of units to play with. Thus, for this reviewer, SupCom2 ends up as a severly dumbed down experience. Yet I recognize the reasons behind the design, and for the purpose they are done. Given the reasoning, the changes were implemented very well. Its simply a question of was this the right direction to take the name?

Ultimately, trying to be accessible may be good for the bottom line of the developers and publishers. I cannot say I think its good for the gamer. Thus I have to give SupCom2 a final score of:

6/10