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Wednesday 5 March, 2008
GAMEPLAY
Continuing to play Supreme Commander I'm still impressed by its massive scale, no other RTS has ever come close to implementing battles this large. Though on the downside this makes the game an enormous system hog, even my dual core system with a 512 mb video card occasionally slows down.
Multiplayer is quite a bit of fun, but as stated before its quite a time hog. I do enjoy the subtle maneuvering and jockeying for position mixed with all out head on combat. Occasionally I do feel though that sometimes all strategy and though goes out the window and it becomes a matter of who can fling more guys faster at his opponent.
On the social side of gaming, because multiplayer games take a long time, it does make for some interesting joint strategies and or backstabbing in these longer and larger games.
In playing I've also found it can be difficult to effectively use navies and aircraft. They are extremely vulnerable , and for the higher powered units require very high time and resource investments.
It is also worth mentioning the “experimental” units. These are what make the individual sides unique. For the most part each side is a clone of each other, but these units are extraordinarily large and powerful. One of the cybran's for example is a large walking robot with missile launchers and an enormous laser, that takes the combined firepower of 40-50 tanks to destroy, and still takes a large amount of time, or for the UEF side you can build a mobile factory or submarine aircraft carrier. These units add flavour and a nice goal to reach for in playing what would otherwise be extremely similar sides.
DESIGN
The Good:
HUGE scale never done before as well or effectively.
Zooming feature is new and intuitive, allows for easy navigation of the battlefield. You can quickly zoom out to view the whole map just with the mouse wheel, and then position the cursor on the map, use the wheel again and zoom in on where the cursor is focused.
Unit and building queuing also new and intuitive, and VERY useful and time saving. You don't have to constantly tend your builder units, but instead can give a series of orders telling them where and what to build in one go.
Experimental units are a blast to play with, visually stunning, and impact playing styles.
Ferry system for transporting large numbers of units. You can set up two points on the maps and your transports will automatically move your units between these two points with a minimum of fuss.
The Bad:
System hog, the large scale of the game can kill some systems.
Limited field of view due to the large interface.
The 3 sides you can play are basically clones of one another with only a few distinguishing units, as opposed to warcraft III or starcraft with very unique sides lending themselves to very different styles of play.
Can be overwhelming to play at times trying to keep track of ten zillion units wandering around.
The formations for units kind of suck, very limited.
Bottom Line:
A blast to play, if a bit intimidating in its scale initially.
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