Customer Reviews

Supreme Commander 2

5 star:		(48)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(19)
1 star:		(68)

 

 

WARNING: It has come to my attention that there is an organized campaign to manipulate the review scores for this game, with posters on the official forums attempting to recruit others to create multiple accounts and write 5 star reviews. Obviously it hasn't been very effective, but be aware that the review scores have been slightly increased by this shilling. I highly encourage you to download the demo and find out the truth.

Supreme Commander 2 is the latest game in a disturbing trend gripping the gaming industry: more and more developers simply have no regard at all for the fans who put them on the map. If you enjoyed Supreme Commander and Forged Alliance for everything that made them unique, DO NOT BUY THIS GAME. It is complete and utter rubbish, in essence a parody of the masterful original. The game has been dumbed down to be almost unrecognizable, although some of the good elements like extreme map zooming and a good unit patrol interface remain. Those who prefer more micro-heavy games like Command and Conquer may still get some enjoyment out of it, but if you want a small scale RTS there are many of them better than Supreme Commander 2.

The problems start with Tiers. In Supreme Commander 1, there were three tiers of units, plus experimental units. The first tier units were like little ants, useful for little other than early game harassment but incapable of dealing any real damage. Second tier units were capable fighters, and third tier units were pretty powerful. By the end of the game, you could have hundreds upon hundreds of units out, yet it was still possible for a single experimental unit to slice through your entire army and kill your commander. It was thrilling to devote your entire economy for a protracted period of time just to get that experimental out, and you would cheer for it as it completely shifted the battle. Supreme Commander 2 throws all of that away. The units now fall roughly along the lines of the dozens of C&C style RTS games, with experimental units being roughly as powerful as Mammoth Tanks. I saw an experimental unit get taken down by five gunships. FIVE. Now there is no longer any strategy in deciding what to build. Whereas before, you would need to make hard choices about whether to devote significant resources to tech up and devote a large portion of your economy to build single units or structures, now you can pump out experimental units in under 5 minutes from the start of a game. In other words, Supreme Commander 2 is now just your standard RTS, but with units far more generic than most. The macro has been scaled back dramatically, yet most units are still one-dimensional so there is little need for micromanagement since you won't affect the outcome of a skirmish.

As for resources, the great system where you used mass to build things and power to, well, power them is gone. Structures and units no longer use up power by being in play. Instead, power is just like mass. When you build something, power is deducted from your cache and that's it. In other words, you can build shield generators and artillery all over the place with no consequence since it costs nothing to support them. This means even more incentive to turtle since a surgical strike on any one area of your base isn't going to damage anything you can't easily replace. In Supreme Commander 1, it was at least a possibility that your generators would be taken out, rendering you defenseless as the shields and turrets shut down. To make matters worse, the old system where resources were deducted as units and structures were built is GONE. Now resources are deducted immediately when you queue up unit production or structures, which means you can no longer queue up a massive base and then let an engineer do his thing. This was one of the two or three most important aspects of Supreme Commander and it is completely ruined.

Now there is a third resource: research. Points are produced by buildings and can be spent in one of five overly convoluted tech trees. This is a terrible system that replaces the tiers from Supreme Commander. Unlocking the best units is too easy, and the pace of the game is killed by having to constantly open up the tech menu to unlock things. It also discourages adapting your tactics to the situation because there are so many minor upgrades that you'll need to choose between specializing in ground, air,or naval units since it will take a very long match to power up all three. It was just flat out stupid to have a menu-based system instead of tying upgrades to buildings. Some games like Battle for Middle Earth make it work because they don't have as many upgrades and don't require constantly accessing the menu, but it doesn't work here.

Normally a sequel is supposed to be bigger, badder, and better in every way. Supreme Commander 2 takes a step back in almost every aspect. The graphics are scaled back. There are far less unit types and the unit cap is far lower. The maps are much smaller. They aren't small just in comparison to the original, they're actually some of the smallest maps I've seen in a RTS. The campaign is very short, with 18 missions that take around 10-30 minutes each. Normally a RTS with such a low mission number will at least have 1-2 hour missions. And as for the much vaunted "story" and "cinematic experience" that was supposedly added? It's terrible. The CG is just video of the normal in-game assets, so it actually looks worse than the gameplay if you have a decent computer. The characters are insufferable, the dialogue terrible, and the story paper thin. The only positive thing I can say is that the art design of the maps is improved.

There is very little to recommend Supreme Commander 2. If you like the original, you're better off playing that, and if you didn't, there are many better RTS to spend your time and money on. To add insult to injury though, once you own this terrible game, you OWN it. That's right, Steam is required for this game, and it will be tied to your account forever. I look at this as a shrewd and cynical move by a developer that knows the market would otherwise be flooded with used copies because most who buy this game will not want to keep it.
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Addendum: If I could revise my score down to 0 stars after what I've seen of the online play after writing the original review, I would. Matches end one of two ways almost every time. In a 2 v 2 or larger match, multiple players will rush with their commanders at the start and kill one of the enemy commanders 2 on 1. Then repeat with the other players. Total match time is around 5 minutes. Otherwise, the match will end in a swarm of gunships due to the weak anti air options. There is no reason to build anything else because there aren't any units or structures in the game that, for the same resource cost, can kill a swarm of gunships faster than they can kill a commander. Also, to clarify something I said earlier, in SINGLE player it is very easy to unlock the best experimental units and pump them out in mass quantities. In online play however, they barely play any role at all. Anyone who tries to build them will probably lose because they are not as effective as normal units, dollar for dollar. There is no point in trying different strategies. Online play is ruled by basic units and whoever has the bigger blob of them wins.

i have never been more let down in a game than i was with supreme commander 2. most of what i feel about it has also been posted here, but i want to add just a few things.

first off this game is not just a step backwards from supreme commander: it was also a step back from TA which came out well over 10 years ago now and is STILL a great game. supreme commander 2 has slightly better graphics than TA, but that is about it... in terms of game play, it lacks almost all of the things that made TA and supreme commander great and most importantly DIFFERENT than every other game.

i wanted this game to be great. i wanted this game to be fun. i wanted this game to expand on the things that made supreme commander and TA before it the greatest games i had ever played.

instead what I got is garbage... i got C&C without the high quality movies and plot. if you really want to play a game like this, play the latest command and conquer game. it may be the same thing as C&C 1, and red alert and generals and on and on and on. but at least because they had practice, they did a good job at it. supreme commander 2 tried to make C&C too but since they were abandoning what they were good at to copy something else what came out was crap.

If you liked the intricate economy and extreme scale of Supreme Commander and Supreme Commander:Forged Alliance, you probably won't like this game.

Years ago, I heard about Total Annihilation. It was similar to other RTS games, but on an absolutely massive scale. I loved carrying on coordinated assaults of multiple groups of hundreds of units each. It redefined how I looked at all RTS games.

In 2007, I got Supreme Commander expecting more of the same. I couldn't have been more pleased. Incredibly huge maps, beautiful graphics, an unbelievable difference in the size and power of units - everything I could hope for in a large-scale RTS. Some maps were so big, that it could take slower units 10-15 minutes to cross it. Some units took so long to build that it could take an hour for a single low level engineer to complete them. After you completed this massive unit (they were called "Experimentals"), it was always a pleasure to watch it slowly plod across the map and take down hundreds of units and half of the enemy base. Economy and assault required substantial planning and coordination. These were all possible because the game had an excellent interface, and a lot of thought was put into streamlining economy and mobilizing assaults. All of this worked together to provide an extremely rewarding experience. I can say without hesitation that Supreme Commander provided you with the most satisfaction of any RTS when carrying out a successful assault.

Supreme Commander:Forged Alliance was more of the same, but better. They added to the game, optimized and improved it.

Chris Taylor (the creator of these games) had outdone himself each time, so it never even occurred to me that Supreme Commander 2 would be anything less than magnificent. I preordered it without hesitation. The best way to describe the changes from the last game is its been massively "dumbed down". Economic planning is less significant because you must have all of the required resources before you can begin building. Maps are positively tiny compared to the old game. Not nearly as many units to choose from (even if you ignore the lower tech levels in the previous games). Experimentals aren't nearly as powerful or daunting. They only take a couple of minutes to build, and they aren't nearly as satisfying to use. There's less variation in power and size of all units. Almost all of the sense of scale from the old games has been eliminated.

The game feels like it was simplified in every way (graphics, concept, scale, complexity, and multiplayer), so that it could run on the Xbox 360.


Gameplay aside, there are other problems with it - especially for people with poor internet connections. Chris Taylor has always been a proponent of LAN play. Both Supreme Commanders were LAN playable with one copy of the game. His previous RTS, Demigod, was also LAN playable with one copy, and the instruction manual even joked about it. Supreme Commander 2 has no LAN play.

Steam (the digital distribution platform) was, unexpectedly, also a problem. Steam has its problems, but overall, I love it. I use Steam every day. But less than half of the game was actually included on the disk. The disk install was a little over than 2GB, and the "update" was more than the install. I'm sorry, but I don't consider a 2.5GB "update" on the day of release acceptable. I couldn't play it at all on release day. I had to wait till I went to another place with a good internet connection, download it, back it up on a USB drive, and restore the backup on my computer.


Positives
- Excellent game interface - slightly more refined than the previous games
- Glassy smooth graphics on middle of the road hardware.
- Good campaign (so far)
- Not possible to bring your production speed to a halt

Negatives
- Overall lack of large scale
- Substantially fewer units
- Simplistic economy requires more maintenance
- Steam can be a problem for some
- No LAN play

If you haven't played Supreme Commander:Forged Alliance, I would recommend it over Supreme Commander 2. I will not be buying any more Supreme Commander games unless there are some MAJOR changes.

This is a good RTS, but it just doesn't deserve the name "Supreme Commander".


UPDATE 10-7-2010: Against every expectation, 7 months after release, they've addressed at least one of my major complaints about this game - the economy. Now, you can queue up as many units as you like in advance without worrying about having the resources at that moment. From the update description, it seems that it still deducts the full amount immediately upon the start of construction. The old games had a pay-as-it-was-built system. Between, the two, each has its positives and negatives, but this update is a MASSIVE improvement over what the game shipped with.. I'm going to have to play this game again.

Supreme Commander 2 may well be the most disappointing PC game I've ever played. The original Supreme Commander, spiritual successor to Cavedog's fantastic Total Annihilation, allowed players a depth and complexity far beyond any other strategy game of its day. Massive unit variety, stunningly well-made interface and epic scale combined to create incredible tactical and strategic diversity. Unfortunately, it seems that the sequel has lost its way. Worse is the fact that many clever improvements made their way into this game, only to be overshadowed by the game's serious flaws.

Graphics: First, the good: units, structures and effects look incredible. Animations are likewise very impressive indeed. Missiles trail believable contrails, fighters swoop around, cannons recoil. Visually stunning; this game is by far the best-looking strategy game out there, especially when its scope is taken into consideration. Faction units are distinct and cleverly designed. Experimental units look suitably enormous and powerful. Lighting and shadows are top-notch.

Sound: Here we have the first serious issue. As strange as this sounds, the voice acting of all things is one of the deal-breakers. The writing and acting is possibly the worst I've heard in a video game. It may be hard to believe that voice acting can make a difference one way or the other, but if you have any plans to play the campaign, I recommend having the mute button handy. It is incredible to me that this game made it to the public with its current script. Think Star Wars Episode 1 Jar-Jar Binks. Unbelievable. Sound effects and music are fine, but the (non-skippable, impossible to disable) voices are just awful.

Gameplay: First, the good - SC2 makes a few seemingly minor but clever and helpful tweaks to the SC1 formula. For those familiar with SupCom: engineers can now repair aircraft in flight, aircraft fuel has been removed, and pathfinding is immensely improved. The game sports "flow-field" coding for its group pathfinding, improving upon a serious flaw in early versions of the original. Groups of land units will smoothly navigate around obstacles without breaking formation and will attempt to form up when possible. Units work better together and are much more able to navigate the complex terrain of the battlefield. Customizable buildings are a great decision and are one of the features that would have been wonderful in the original. On the other hand, unit variety has taken a serious hit. In an effort to "streamline" the game, many units have been removed entirely. Gone are the days of hundreds of structure and unit choices. The economy has been completely reworked. The streaming economy that made TA and SupCom unique and interesting has been replaced by a standard pre-pay for units concept. In theory, this was meant to reduce players' need for micromanaging. In my experience, it results in far more micro throughout the course of the game. Factories can no longer be set to pump out endless hordes of tanks and planes. Now every purchase must be weighed individually, resulting in smaller armies and a greater focus on factories instead of formations. UI tweaks include a group icon for multiple units given the same order, which mainly has the effect of stopping the player from clicking on a few of his units without accidentally selecting the whole group. The research concept is interesting and fairly well implemented, although it is very easy for new players to get badly bogged down in poor research choices and lose because of their confusion.

Overall, the game seems to have been designed with a "Supreme Commander Lite" theme squarely in mind. Experimentals are everywhere, and are not particularly epic any more. The grand strategic picture of large battles will still confuse new players, and the lack of tactical diversity and the serious economic simplifications have driven away veterans of the series. Somehow Chris Taylor managed a game simultaneously too complicated for new players and too simplified for experienced players. Very disappointed.

I give this game a 2 stars out 5. Its no longer a PC game it clearly sold its soul to the Console Devil. Boy, a real let down! Chris Taylor you missed the mark on this one! I was really excited about a sequel but saw the red flags as soon I read the interview with Chris Taylor by PC Gamer. I had a sinking feeling when I read in his interview that he jettisoned the economy management and the tech tree to make it more palatable for the masses. Bad move you were listening to the marketers and not your instincts. The marketers are destroying any real hope for good PC gaming anymore. Essentially, this is just another run of the mill game for hyperactive console gamers.

Bottom line they took a very innovative and interesting stratgetic game and watered it down so it looks like every other game on the market right now. Frenetic, fast-paced, smash and destroy game play. No thinking just visceral gut reacting to your mouse or game controller. Supposedly the research tree was to make it better but it just took the heart out of the original game. Unfortunately the game consoles are killing anything worthy for the PC anymore. This game is geared towards the 8-12 year old crowd who wants to play a game for about 10 minutes and then move on to something else. I personally loved Supreme Commander 1 and Forged Alliance.

Graphics --One word
Cartoonish!!!

I think I saw one review refer to it as "Lego Commander." That title describes it best. This game was really geared towards a much younger audience 8-12 years old. The bright colors just dont work. The orginal had more precise renderings and muted colors that seemed to me to be more believeable and grown up. I feel like I am watching a Sat morning cartoon.

Story Line --One word
Cartoonish!!!

The dialogue sounds like it was written by a 5th grader. I would rather have no story and a better game.

Game Play
Boring and over before you can say Supreme Commander 2 sucks!!

I give it 2 stars because it does play without crashing, which I cant say for the first game. However, to achieve that they had to gut the essence of the original game. I will go back to playing Forged Alliance.

Purely from a multi player perspective. Save your money this isn't worth it.

Having never played the earlier versions i was extremely pleased at first impression with this game. The graphics were great and the the game play was very nice. However after a few hours the game losses all appeal as there is simply not enough content to warrant more time. For starters there is no custom maps to be created or downloaded. This wouldn't be a deal breaker if the game had actually included more then one single eight player map, and a handful of smaller (very small) maps. After two or three multi player games on the games one and only eight player map you will have pretty much seen and used every variations available. Now that i have already played this map a few times any more is the same as watching a replay.

I have only played the one eight player map as the few smaller ones seemed to small to be interesting for anything more than a 15 min rush game.

I'm a huge TotalA and SupCom1 fan so I was so excited to hear that SupCom2 was coming out. I couldn't wait to get my hands on this game. I pre-ordered it and was waiting anxiously for it to arrive.

But then I played the demo...and all that changed.

One of the first things I noticed was the economy changes. And they are most definitely not for the better. In SupCom1, you could effectively queue up an infinite number of buildings and units. Of course, when you queued up a lot of stuff, they would all build slower, but managing the economy was the fun of it. If you wanted something to be built faster, you could always throw a couple of engineers on it and essentially increase its priority. Man, that was just a great concept and made the game so much fun! But in SupCom2, they for some reason decided to just throw that great concept out the window and replace it with the "so easy a caveman could do it" system where you can't even start building something until you have ALL of the resources collected already. And say goodbye to queuing up a bunch of buildings or units. Now you'll spend most of your time just sitting there waiting impatiently for the unit cost indicator to turn from red to green instead of performing more important tasks. All I want to say over and over again is "Why"? Why would they get rid of one of the coolest features of Total A and SupCom1? WHY!!!!??? While this new economy system may be easier for elementary school kids to understand, it is now only fun for elementary school kids. I'm so frustrated!!

The next thing I noticed was the research tree. Instead of there being 3 levels of factories, you now upgrade all of your units via the research tree. Once again, a new feature that changed a system that worked just fine to begin with. I actually really enjoyed the old way of upgrading units (by building higher tech factories) and building better buildings (with the higher tech engineers that come out of those higher tech factories). Wow..again another total fail.

Also, as was said in the other posts, the fog of war seems to be gone, which was pretty fun in the older games. And the unit/structure line-of-sight seems really strange. Some of the map seems to be revealed and visible, but other parts are shaded just a tiny bit, which makes it very difficult to be able to tell where your units can "see". Most of the combat occurs when the enemy units are just radar blips (but I guess is why they add the line-of-sight upgrades to the research tree, but it's really annoying nonetheless). And who knows the actual range of the radar structures, as the radar line-of-sight marker doesn't seem to match up with what's actually being displayed. It's all very awkward.

Needless to say, after I played the Demo for a few hours, I was so turned off by these so called "improvements" that I went and cancelled my pre-order. I'm sorry, but I can't support this terrible remake of what used to be a great game. I really love Total A and SupCom1 and I'm really disappointed with these new changes. Other than the fact that it contains an ACU and lots of explosions, this game should not be allowed to take the name "Supreme Commander".

I'm going back to play SupCom1 and I recommend you skip this game and do the same.

Is Supreme Commander 2 a good console RTS? Yes, I would say SupCom2 is the best Xbox 360 RTS ever made. However, for long time fans of the series and for most PC users, beware! Let me explain:

The Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander series always catered to a pro gamer audience that wanted the ultimate RTS game. No, the game was never easy for a neophyte to step into, however half the fun was learning how to master the game and slowly reach the upper echelons of pro tournaments and teamplay.

Unfortunately, after playing Supreme Commander 2 for over 20 hours, I can fairly say that it was a complete and supreme let down.

They took away the root aspects of the game such as the real time economy and resource management. No longer will your shields fail when the enemy blows up your power reactors. No longer will you waste mass if you aren't properly using your resources. The whole economy has been revamped to be just like any other plain old RTS out there.

There were very specific reasons why I never played C&C and Starcraft more than a few months. That is because they got bland and did not challenge me any further. Everything was based on the "Zerg Rush", and with the original TA and SC Forged Alliance games, you could only rush if you knew how to manage your eco and take out your opponent early in the game. Otherwise, you had a plethora of other tactical options to win. However, now with the revisions made to Supreme Commander 2, you no longer have that enjoyment or feeling of "I outsmarted you triumph" when you play. The game is just another clone of C&C and Warcraft and is uninspired, yet it's imaginative I will give it that. On the other hand, the artwork is too cartoonish compared to Forged Alliance. I honestly feel like the graphics in many ways are worse, but I do like the new 3D style maps.

Supreme Commander 2 has less of an epic scope when compared to it's predecessor Forged Alliance. For starters, the maps in Supreme Commander 2 are very small, and the amount of units you can control at once as been reduced from 1000 to 500. Also, the number of unit types has been halved. Now, the reasons for this are specifically because the xbox 360 does not have the memory or processing power of most gamer PC's. However, if this was the case, I would've appreciated that they makers of the game went with a different title, instead of the award winning franchise name of Supreme Commander. This game ultimately trashes the good name of a great series in my humble opinion.

Will I be playing this for years like I did with Forged Alliance? No, I doubt it unless they can return back to the roots that made the original series unique and fun to play for gamers looking for a little challenge and fun times with their friends.

I played this game from start to finish. It was a let down to say the least but I'm not going to say the least. I'm going to give it to you straight. This game was a complete betrayal to all the Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander fans. If you are a console gamer and have never played an RTS before or experienced Total Annihilation or Supreme Commander then this title might be just tolerable enough to play. If you are a fan of Total Annihilation, Supreme Commander, and Supreme Commander Forged Alliance then this betrayal cuts deep. Chris Taylor had long been credited for the previous successes I mentioned above. They were seminal titles that changed gaming forever. I saw an interview with Chris Taylor where he sung the praises of Supreme Commander 2. He rattled off many new features and said this is how RTS will be played from this point on. That was all I needed to hear. I ran down and purchased it. I didn't even read a review. I mean, It was Chris Taylor. The force behind Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander. The original games are still played daily and are the games in which all other RTS's are judged. Sadly either he knew it was bad and was just putting lipstick on this pig to sell it or he is just a completely clueless figurehead and was never truly the force behind the original games we loved so much. This game is nothing more then a multi platform cash in. Shame on you Chris Taylor. You are either a lying dog or you are about as technically astute as a tree stump. Your betrayal will not be soon forgotten by the fans of the original series.

The only possible hope that you have to actually enjoy the game is if you've never played the original. Everything about this game has been scaled down and cut back, amazingly, even the graphics are inferior to the original supreme commander. Maps are smaller, units are less diverse, experimentals are useless, and the story is so weak it hurts. Just listen to it, half the lines in there are just yanked out of trash. "Kill him with extreme prejudice" really, where they even trying on this or where they hoping the momentum on the original would get them enough sales before everyone realized what garbage this was? That got me for darn sure and now I'm out fifty bucks, game isn't even worth that any more. This game was trashed so bad you'd think EA got a hold of it after they where done destroying the C&C series.