3/5, 7/10, umm, 2.5 stars out of 4 – whatever scale you want it’s about a C
So I acquired Supreme Commander and played through one of the single player campaigns and also started another. I have not tried multiplayer yet so this re-review is based entirely on single player experience. With all that said, now that I’ve played the game a bit more – it sucks. Don’t believe all the sites giving it a 90% or 9/10 or whatever. The people reviewing the game have never played an RTS before. I will very quickly list the good points.
The battlefields are big. There can be a lot of units. The waypoint system is quite good. Mass production is easy. The single player campaign has the neat trick of zooming the map out instead of starting a new game entirely. I think that’s about it though.
So, what’s wrong with it? All the things I said in the previous review have just magnified themselves for me and also old problems I had with Total Annihilation are still alive and well. This really is just a mocked up sequel to the game from the 90s, there isn’t much new there. Never ending resources and thus never ending units can induce the most horrendous stalemates. I should have been clued off to this by their idea of the “Infinite War” being a brilliant story mechanic. Does anyone play trench warfare ala World War One? No, because it’s boring as shit.
Just in case you missed warcraft two, Supreme Commander has reintroduced the carbon copy “other side”. Do you remember the footman who was the exact same as the orc grunt? Yeah, it’s like that except there is also an elf fighter too! They have differences later up the tech tree but the differences are negligible.
The game is huge, but it has a cumbersome interface and boring units. The game is so huge that for you to play at all you must zoom out so far that all you wind up doing is staring at a bunch of shapes just moving around slowly. The touted “ferry” system is totally broken and with this your main hope to transport large numbers of troops quickly. When you try to use multiple transports with multiple units instead of your selected grouping of units intelligently going to transports it only has one go to a transport. If you then issue another order while that one unit is loading up then that one unit that is currently attempting to load up will go to the new transport – it has no intelligent system for quickly loading up transports, you must micro manage this most hellacious of tasks. Can you imagine my frustration in loading up thirty transports with a bunch of tanks and other crap only to have them shot out of the sky by the unstoppable enemy fighters? You might say “you should have had more anti-aircraft guns”. I had about twenty or thirty not counting mobile anti-aircraft platforms but because of the targeting system in this they almost never hit! Gah!
The issue of micro management is non-existent here. There is no micro-management. This may be music to some people’s ears but to any serious RTS player that is like handing them a dead puppy and saying – it’ll grow up to be just like you one day! It makes no sense! Instead of getting to play with a puppy, you get to try to ferry units with their crap system – it’s like beating the puppy with a really lame stick.
The game hasn’t brought anything new to the table in fact it has taken several steps back. Sure it’s big, but bigger isn’t always better if you don’t know how to use it.
Personally, I had the problem that I was expecting the units to be even bigger. That sized units in a normal RTS would have been great, gigantic and huge! But in this game, with how far you can zoom out, even the experimental spider bots and bigass ships become little circles on your map.
If only Blizzard would get off their WoW-diseased arses and make Starcraft 2…
I have reached the point where I wonder if the big review sites even play the same games that we do. I’ve read so many reviews that are far off the mark when “professionally” reviewed, while at the same time have found that random people’s impressions on their blogs or on messageboards tend to tell it like it is. It’s really getting crazy.
The hype machine around Supreme Commander was pretty effective. So, when dealing with the whole “people don’t like to be wrong” thing it’s easy to see why reviewer’s are soft on games which they proclaimed would be awesome which then turn out to be mediocre. As I said, I haven’t tried the multiplayer which may be an entirely different experience then what I expect – but I’m basing my judgement on that from my somewhat extensive knowledge of RTS games.
What this game really lends itself to would be cool new multiplayer designs. One supreme commander who deals with the strategic level combat while tactical commanders deal with lower level arenas of combat. That’s just a quick random idea which would make this game better – not sure how hard it would be to implement though.
There is a huge base of RTS veterans that want Starcraft 2 simply because WC-III is so micro oriented, that a lot of people don’t even consider it a RTS.
Bigger is not always better, but I think because Blizzard has been the only real company making RTS’s since the 90’s (with dawn of War and the recent COH as exceptions), People think that Micro is the only way to go.
Starcraft had a blend of macro/micro and the threat of your opponent expoing and you sending every last goon in a suicide run to his expo, so your reavers can get the drop on his backyard was priceless, thats macro, and I love it.
Supreme commander seems to me like a focus on macro, and I liked the review but I think I’ll still pick a copy up or atleast try out the demo soon.
Also i just wanted to say that even though I haven’t played the game, I’ve read some forum posts and it seems the tutorial addresses some of the problems you are having with automation.
You have to use waypoints to automate engineers in collecting mass/repairing/building, just set a circular waypoint which marks patrol. I don’t know about transports but i would assume its the same thing.
Also, a patch came out with a minimalized interface. I think you should give it another try. I personally can’t wait to play it and hopefully won’t be as disappointed.
Count me as a part of that huge base of people who want SC2, I just hope they won’t go the route of Warcraft III and force heroes into the gameplay. That’s just not what Starcraft is about!
Will, I definitely recommend picking up the demo, it will give you a great idea of what you will like/dislike about the game before you buy it.
Hate to go against the grain here, but having bought and played the game, I have to say that I LIKE it. Micro, yes, is lacking, save for the very early stages of the game. But to be brutally honest, did you seriously expect the focus of a game with gigantic battlefields, map-sweeping artillery, and devastating, map-deforming nuklear weapons to be about micromanagement? Are you on crack?
Your comment about all the sides being roughly equivalent isn’t accurate, either. Yes, many of the units are all the same, such as the building units, and the submarines. I lost the impression that all sides were the same the moment I played the Cybran: trust me, the strategic value of the unique cybran destroyer, which can pop out legs and crawl onto land, is enormous. A mobile factory doesn’t have much similarity to a Sacred Assault Bot, either.
I would also say that if you’re used to Warcraft 3, which is all micro and a marginal amount of macro, this sort of game will feel painfully different.
Personally, I’m a bit tired of all of my RTS games having started and finished in ten minutes. It’s like sex, you can either get off a lot for a little satisfaction each time, or you can hold off on your orgasm for a while, so that it’s better in the end. Not that I don’t look for instant gratification now and then.
It’s not StarCraft: it’s not both micromanagement and macromanagement. It won’t please everyone.
If you thought WarCraft 3 was an improvement on StarCraft, you will utterly hate this game.
I do, however, agree that targeting systems should take the acceleration of their targets into account. It is annoying that my anti-air defenses can’t seem to hit aircraft that fly in circles.
Everyone’s going to have their own opinion regardless.
I liked Supreme Commander because of the scale. It might be big and boring for some, but in this game, unit combinations are a big part of it.
Tech 2 isn’t always better than Tech 1, etc. etc.
The Experimental Units are where the big differences come in to play. Defense placement is a big thing too in Supreme Commander.
It reminds me somewhat of C&C Generals, except with infinite resources. I remember bunkering in with the Chinese and their gatling turrets, and bnukers full of rocket soldiers, and using hackers to get cash. I could fend off anything with the Chinese, and still retaliate.
This game really does focus more on strategy rather than tactics.
And yes, I do want there to be a StarCraft 2.
I fully agree with you that supcom is CRAP!
1. Resource Hog.
2. Even at the High Setting – Units looks dull.
3. Seen this, done that, same old stuff just make it look like many.
Thankfully C&C3 is coming out next month!
So, I doubt anyone will read this reply but here it is anyway.
To teichou: I think that the differences of a race should be apparent at an early stage not at the final tech levels of the game. That’s just my opinion however.
To crotchfire: What I meant by my comments on micro is that it doesn’t seem to have much effect on the outcome of a battle. I understand the scope of the game but if I focus my efforts on a key battle then I should be rewarded for it. The lack of unit control does not really help contribute to this. Also, if automation is decent as it should be for a game of such scale then you should be able to focus on individual battles and make a difference, so I disagree that micro isn’t important. In games such as Starcraft macro was the way most games were won. The strategic effect of the destroyer is rather marginal since it is by far the slowest moving ground unit in the game, but yes it is a neat idea and does have some effect on the game. My main complaint is that sides aren’t different enough which I sort of said in my reply to tei.
I appreciate your guys’ comments and will keep trying to make my video game reviews more cohesive and sensible and maybe even entertaining.