Supreme Commander

[JugglerX]

Supreme Commander, I returned this game in disgust.

After buying into the hype from a number of sources I trusted I am truly disappointed with this game. I have a veteran RTS gamer and like many others I long for innovation and complexity in the next big thing.

It was promised as the next big thing by many credible game journalists, it's not even close. Is nothing for sale anymore?

Game company THQ had gained my trust slowly but surely with each title it had released until this point. Warhammer 10k and Company of Hero's, while not CLASSIC games have been progressivly innovative and satisfactory games.

Supreme Commander is exactly the same as the game from the 90's: Total Annihilation
All 3 races are the same with different skins... bravo.

Even more Unbelievable, the online service is a 3rd party browser application (Gas powered games) which forces you to start and close the acutal game each time you match a game..... is it just me, or is this medievil?

THQ had finnaly created the foundations for a strong online service ( and community ) with Warhammer 10k and COH which could compete with b.net and they go and destroy support by allowing this backyard gas powered piece of junk to power the mulitplayer service. You god damn arseholes.

I tried this game about 30 times online and can concede it may have a unique play style at higher skill levels. It is extremely macro management orientated, focusing on automated production and rally points using zoomed out map levels. There may be something in this, but I just didn't dig it.

What did you guys think?

Rob

 

[Alch]

Even more Unbelievable, the online service is a 3rd party browser application (Gas powered games) which forces you to start and close the acutal game each time you match a game..... is it just me, or is this medievil?

Rob

That is pretty shocking to hear. I have yet to hear my RTS friends complain about it. They all seem to love the game.

 

[Shannon Drake]

It irked me. It was a nice RTS, but way too time-intensive for me, and the first campaign mission in the demo just kept popping up "SURPRISE! Now we have another base you need to attack!"-type things.

 

[Capo Taco]

"Attack that base." "Play these enemies out against each other" "Attack that base" "Look here's a doctor. He's brilliant. You'll be taking commands from me AND him from now on." "You see that base there. Yeah? Attack it"

It's like having the worst micromanaging boss, who's very effort goes into not allowing you to use your brain. Playing the Demo made me wonder who the supreme commander really was, because I certainly wasn't it.

 

[Landslide]

Yeah, I wasn't a fan either. Felt like a reflex based RTS. Click as fast as you possibly can, to build as fast as possible, so you can overwhelm the enemy with a crushing amount of units. I quit the game, after I painstakingly maneuvered 3 small armies around a bigger force, and attacked from three sides (I had just finished Total War2). They got annihilated. I only won when I built one huge force, selected them all, and just moved them to the enemy base, and walked away. Completely uninspiring.

 

[Russ Pitts]

I need to try this one to see what the fuss is about. I really enjoyed Total Annihilation when it was out and like everyone else, really wanted more of that experience. It sounds like they delivered exactly that, and ironically, it's not what we really wanted. Which wouldn't eb a first, I suppose.

 

[Tarmanydyn]

Wow, I mirror these sentiments mostly. I've gotten kind of tired of hearing in most podcasts how "SupCom is fucking incredible", I personally found it incredibly mediocre. And as iterated by the OP, all 3 races are fairly identical, which is what irked me most about the game, possibly more so than the fact that you need a juggernaut of a PC to run the game smoothly, and the fact that the majority of the missions are completely inane.

Until modders kick it into overdrive with the game, spiritual successor to TA, it is not... IMO anyways, it was the custom units that totally made TA so long lasting for me. Krogoth killers!

 

[RST]

TA spring is vastly superior.

 

[Hengst2404]

I have always felt that Total Annihilation and TA: Kingdoms were overrated games, well at least TA was. I think it is an example of a game with rabid fans whom are easily willing to overlook its faults, kind of like and Chris Taylor RTS is better than no RTS.

Also its Warhammer 40k, unless they have gone back in time by 30k years.

 

[Slycne]

I got this game free with some computer part that I ordered from newegg, guess I can uninstall it. Never did get around to playing it.

 

[Lightsabers of Paradise]

Wait just a damn minute! I can't believe i'm reading this, you people are talking about Supreme Commander, right? I have been discusted with RTS games for a long time now, my main problem being that everything always comes down to who can build up faster and certain unbalanced advantages of factions constantly being exploited, SupCom is the first RTS in a while that ovrcame these problems and got me into the genre again.
The factions are far from being the same only in different color, if you actually take the time to look at the details, you will see they greatly differ in both playing style and capabilities. The campaign isn't the greatest i'll give you that but MP matches are some of the most intense and satisfying i've ever played.
Warhammer & CoH (i played both games, finished the campaigns and played MP) were two pretty average RTSs imo, hearing you praise them and bash SupCom is just plain wrong.

And Slycne, don't uninstall the game just yet, try it out first and i'm sure you'll see what i'm talking about.

 

[Ixus Illwrath]

Remember when everyone agreed RTSs were good, like Age of Mythology and C&C Generals?

That wasn't very long ago, actually.

IMO it's a decent game, but with the onslaught of complaints about Tiberium wars (It was EA, but it was a good game) and the general neglect of games like Medieval 2 and Kingdoms, what are people complaining about?

Have any of you played a perfect game yet? You may have thought so in '91 when Mario 3 came out if you're old enough to remember The Wizard. But they just don't make them ahead of the curve anymore. SC has it's flaws, as do all the previously mentioned games. But you're all going to have to deal with it, since never in history has SO MANY PLAYSTYLES been addressed. Going back to Mario 3. It was without a doubt the most influential game in history until about the release of FF7 or maybe GTA3. But what else was there for you? Back in 91, MUDs were first being implemented, text adventures still roamed your Apple IIGS (Or IIE in my case) Sega master system was a ghost. And we still all loved games the same.

I think we're just spoiled fucking rotten now. All the way to the core.

If there's one viable complaint that gamers face today, it's you're not safe on consoles anymore. You WILL be buying unfinished products, you will be patching, and you had better damn well hope you have an internet connection if you even so much as want to INSTALL games. Used to be you bought a console so you didn't have to keep up with the Jones' and buy new video cards, RAM, whatever. You're just not safe from that no matter where you go now. WII, go buy one of them, so far I haven't heard to much complaining about their unfinished biz.

 

[GrowlersAtSea]

I was a giant fan of Total Annihilation for literally years (played it on and off for four or five years) so when I heard about Supreme Commander I got really excited. I loved the sheer variety of ways it was possible to win, it wasn't just the inevitable tank rush at the end of a game, it could tanks, hovercraft, air, sea, artillery, nukes or if you got sloppy even a defense creep into you.

Supreme Commander I found to be very similar, but ultimately flawed. I had some games that were wonderful experiences, with a constant tug of war between active players, ACU's right on the front battling it out when one army began to falter and a progression through the tech right up until T3 or T4 until things were decided. But this type of thing was sadly kind of rare.

To me, the biggest drawback was the economy, the management of which was central to the game. On many maps in multiplayer you could use inferior tactics and still come out on top if you were a very good economy manager (never play Isis, ever). Once you hit T2 (which in some matches was under four minutes, and basically always under 10), it was time to spam mass fabricators and T2 generators, which were superior in all ways to actually building mass extractors. So once you hit T2 there was no cause to contest territory, it was just a matter of who could better manage their economy, produce the most units (Cybran T2 was very fierce too) and overwhelm the other player.

There were patches that helped some, but last Summer they patched in several units, which seemed like good news, but brought on a lot of problems. They added the Janus and Corsair to UEF and Cybran respectively, which were fairly decent T2 bomber/ground attackers. And they gave Aeon the Mercy, a beastly suicide air unit. They could be produced just 5 to 10 minutes into a game, were fast, difficult to hit with AA and worst of all, it took just four to kill an ACU and win the game.

Around this time too on the Gas Powered Garage forums, a lot of the concerns that were raised about units, balance and economy were answered by 'it will be fixed in Forged Alliance.'

And that turned me off totally. I don't want to pay forty dollars for things to be fixed and improved when there are serious issues with the game I purchased. It might sound silly, but it hurt. I was a big fan of Total Annihilation for so long, looked forward to this game for so long, and it was even one of the reasons I got a new PC last year (not the only reason mind you, that's never a good idea). But it hurt, I felt abandoned the company who I had invested so much hope into. Yea, I could by Forged Alliance for the fixes to the game, but what if there are serious problems there, will they make me buy another expansion to fix those? I kept thinking back to all the units and patches that were added after the release of Total Annihilation, but times, as all things, change.

I haven't bought Forged Alliance and will not. I still think the original is good, but it lost me.

 

[H0ncho]

I think we're just spoiled fucking rotten now. All the way to the core.

QFT

Anyways. Since I downl.. Bought the game I have loved it. The story was great, the universe even better. The pathfinding problems annoyed me a lot but it was addressed in the expansion I think. Although the races are a bit too similar there are subtle, but important differences.

What I like the best about it, however, is that it is an RTS which is not a micro-control fetishists wet dream (Warcraft, company of heroes, I am looking at you). They put the "strategy" in "real time strategy"

 

[Lightsabers of Paradise]

Economy menagement is not a drawback at all imo, it's what makes the game even more fun to play. I'm sick & tired of gathering resources on the map and fighting to protect them. This way you get to build a solid economy and focus on what's really important, combat! And i love Isis.

 

[Nugoo]

I agree with H0ncho, it's refreshing to see an rts that isn't just a contest of how fast you are with a mouse and how well you've memorized the hotkeys (not that I don't enjoy those). The only problem I've come across is that I don't have the five hours necessary to sink into a six player game.

 

[DeadMG]

I held a top100 account on the online ladder for a long time.

Having GPGNet in a window as opposed to in-game is a godsend. Tried browsing and playing battle.net? Youll happily automatch and lose while busy browsing. The modern gamer and I parcticularly prefer to multitask while waiting for my auto matchup and it also makes finding a game less CPU intensive. The game launches pretty quickly anyway. And its not 3rd party, it was developed by the same company specifically for Supreme Commander.
A lot of the differences between factions are much more subtle than you might first recognize. For example, you can say that every faction is the same because they all have T2 shields and artillery, but when you play at a top level you realize that actually all of the shields and artillery are very different in strengths and weaknesses.
Yes, the campaign sucks, but why the hell did you buy a modern RTS for the campaign?

To add to what someone said earlier. Yes, GPG did basically promise the earth with FA, but they pretty much delivered. I wouldn't recommend purchasing Supreme Commander because there are numerous issues such as the fabricator based economy which makes online play not especially fun much of the time, and you can buy and play FA separately (although you need SupCom vanilla to play all factions online, like CoH:OF or DoW exp packs).

In summary, yes, it isn't perfect, but the other offerings on the market like C&C3 are pretty dismal. It was impossible to control properly, the units and buildings seemed ridiculously small and not having any form of radar or even minimap without certain units and upgrades was completely retarded. I read on the forums a lot that it was tank spam but the game was so horrendous to control I didnt play it more than a couple of times.

 

[SilentHunter7]

IMO, Supreme Commander is probably one of the best RTSs out there (But not THE best. That place in my heart is reserved for the Close Combat series of the late 90's). I might just be weird, but I love the fact that you need to think outside of the quickest way you can get enough units to topple an enemy base with a frontal suicide assault.

 

[Wolves]

I love supreme commander, it's my favourite game along with those of the Orange box. Some of your complaints seem a bit off with FA, if not regular supcom. For instance, the mass fabricators have been heavily nerfed, so much that it is now almost impossible to turtle in the same way. Lots of balance issues have been resolved, as well. And the meat of the game lies in online play. even I don't like the campaigns. Some of you should check out FA.