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Write-Up:

Alright, to conclude my latest run-in with the Real Time Strategy games, I spent this week playing the PC version of Gas Powered Games’ Supreme Commander 2. Having just played Command & Conquer 4 and daily matches of Starcraft 2, I’m getting my fair share of these bastards. Luckily, each one has unique game-play mechanics that keep everything really interesting. I’d like to thank the publisher, Square-Enix, for providing me with a copy of the game to review for you because, after I spent a few hours in it, it actually got quite fun. I’ve got a ton of HD game-play footage that I captured up on my other channel, ZeitgeistOther, and make sure to follow me on Twitter to stay up to date with all of my game reviews! Released on March 2nd for the Xbox 360 and PC, here’s Supreme Commander 2

Essentially, the peaceful relations of the United Earth Federation, The Illuminate and the Cybran are breaking down and war is amuck. Each of the three factions of humans have their own campaign that will eventually all tie together in the end. In the United Earth Federation campaign, you play as Dominic Maddox who is fighting off invading Cybran and eventually goes rogue to defend his family. In the Illuminate campaign, you play as Thalia Kael and she will fight to restore the former glory of the once mighty Illuminate when something horrible happens and she quickly becomes an outlaw. In the Cybran campaign you play as Ivan Brackman and are essentially defending planets and hunting down the villain who has been present throughout all three campaigns. Eventually everything comes together as the end goal is to stop the villain from obtaining and using a planet-killing weapon.

Really, the story is quite interesting, but I couldn’t get into it because I didn’t really care about any of the characters. I liked how the three stories came together at the end as you discover what is really going on, who the primary villain is, and what you’ve got to do to stop him, but the way the characters tell the story just really didn’t draw me in.

There are a total of 18 missions spread across the three campaigns and from start to finish, the entire game took me around 14 hours to complete on the normal difficulty setting. In addition, you have the ability to set up skirmishes with multiple AI opponents and actually specify how you want them to play. Like most Real Time Strategy games, the real fun comes from the online multiplayer matches. All in all, the ranked and unranked matches are pretty fun as you can set up 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4, but like any RTS, it’s going to take a lot of practice to get any good. There is also a replay feature, though not as good as the one included with Starcraft 2 as it simply shows the game and doesn’t provide information as to what is being built, and unit counts; but it does let you control the speed of your previous matches to see how your opponent beat you or how you decimated your foes.

The PC version of the game has built in support for dual monitors so you can actually see two views of the battlefield at once, but I found that I wasn’t skilled enough to fully utilize this feature.

The game-play of Supreme Commander 2 takes a unique spin on the traditional gather resources and build your base techniques utilized in most RTS games. All units and buildings require both mass and energy to create. Mass may only be collected from certain areas on the map, and energy may be collected anywhere, but once you build the collectors, they will collect indefinitely as the resources never run out. Combine this with the ability of your factories to repeat a queue of units and you essentially can let your base run on auto-pilot as you battle your opponents.

Most RTS games have you panning the camera around the map and clicking the mini-map to quickly navigate from Point A to Point B. Supreme Commander 2 takes a different approach simply because you have to control so many units at a time. While you can still pan the camera, the most effective way to navigate is to zoom out into a tactical view of the map that lets you see everything that’s going on at once, and then quickly zoom into the area you want to focus your attention.

Each match has you piloting a giant robot called an ACU that has the ability to fight and build your base; and to win the match, you’ve got to destroy your opponent’s ACU. Your base will begin to pump out tons of units to take your battles to the ground, air and water, but being that you control so many at once, you don’t feel personal with any of them like you might with other RTS games. Essentially you’re just pumping out cannon fodder, that is, until you gain access to the games true stars, the over-the-top experimentals. These massive units take a while to make, but each has unique abilities and strengths and truly turn the tide of battle. Along the same lines, all units and buildings may be upgraded with features like anti-air missiles and personal shields that really increase their effectiveness. There is also a huge tech tree that may be researched as you play to give you access to all kinds of powerful things.

Now, with all of this said, the game is actually extremely boring for the first few hours. You basically get your butt whooped up on for the first several missions until you are allowed access to use the experimental units and are able to properly defend your base. Once you gain access to the goods though, the game becomes a hell of a lot more fun.

The presentation of this game is actually pretty weird. The units and buildings are actually highly detailed, but it looks like they were then filled in with the bucket tool in windows paint. I have no idea why the developers went this route as it really makes everything look generic. Now, while the units are highly detailed, the environments are extremely lackluster. Everything is very bland and not interesting to look at one bit. Likely the environments were designed like this to support high frame-rates when you are controlling a hundred units, but it certainly did not bedazzle me. In addition, I thought that everything looked too bright. There isn’t a good usage of shadows in the game to really add depth to the picture. So I don’t know what to say about the graphics besides, they’re just weird.

Like Command & Conquer 4, there is a great soundtrack that really gets you in the mood to kick some ass. The music is very heroic and battle inspiring. The voice acting is pretty decent, but the script was very dry.

So, the first few hours of the game are extremely boring, as to me, everything kind of seemed like it was on autopilot. Once your research tree allows you access to the experimentals, things start to get a lot more interesting and a hell of a lot more fun. Overall, the story is pretty good, but the way that it is presented failed to draw me in. The graphics are extremely odd as the units are highly detailed, but the colorization and shadows are pretty bland. I don’t know how the Xbox 360 version of the game played, but the zoom-in zoom-out mechanics of the PC version is very interesting and really helps you to control the hundreds of units that you’re going to be sending to multiple fronts on the battlefield. All in all, this game is pretty fun to play once you get into it, and if you’re willing to learn some good strategies, you’ll likely have a bunch of fun playing the multiplayer matches online as well. So, of the Real Time Strategy games that I’ve reviewed lately, which ones look the most interesting to you? Leave your questions and answers below!