Supreme Commander 2 demo (review)

Well the demo’s finally out (I pre-ordered anyway) and I’ve been bashing it around to get an idea about how the full game might ‘feel’. Here is a list of Tops and Flops from my very early and highly presumptuous initial gameplay test drive (bearing in mind how limited the demo actually is):

Flow-field Tricks

Notice how the Cybran Megalith here reacts to getting caught on a rock, then being pushed by the larger Cybranosaurus unit. Remarkable path-finding/animation tricks going on here I think:

Supreme Commander 2 is released for PC on March 2nd.

SupCom 2 Speculation

I have high hopes for Supreme Commander 2, and as entertaining as the original was, it lacked the lasting appeal of its spiritual predecessor, TA. Luke already went over the problems with SupCom thoroughly and I must say he’s absolutely correct on all counts.  Before starting in about what SupCom 2 might be like, I would like to add that possibly the biggest failing of the original was it wanted to be playable by casual strategy gamers. It could be said it failed, but it tried. 

I understand that there are more casual strategy gamers than the “hardcore” RTS nuts, and to some extent it is necessary to cater to them to sell enough games to make it worth making. However TA was not a casual game, and it was the depth of play that turned its players from casual RTS gamers into hardcore players. 

Sure, you lose a lot at first, but consider the extremes. Is a game better where the strong and the weak player have equal opportunity to win, or where the stronger player will win 100% of the time? I am of the opinion that the more skilled player should win to the degree of their skill – with the situation where one player will simply crush the other in every case is possible but rare (i.e. Starcraft pro vs player new to the genre). So as much effort as possible should be spent in making the game fun and interesting to play again and again, even at the expense of complexity and being difficult to learn. For those of you who play Dwarf Fortress, you know what I mean when I say more depth is better, even at the expense of graphics, and even if that depth will make you lose time and again. Indeed, in Dwarf Fortress you eventually lose every single game, but it’s still fun to play.

Top 5 Things GPG Must NOT Screw Up in Supreme Commander 2!

I’m rarely critical of Supcom/FA and Chris Taylor’s work. So I figured it’s time to put my ugly cynical hat on…

Here are the items I believe are essential; seriously I mean absolutely critical, that Gas Powered Games do not screw-up upon release of the highly anticipated Supreme Commander 2, around March 2010…

SupCom 2 Updates

Hey everyone! Please use the following thread for the latest screens, videos, pics, news, articles and discussion about Supreme Commander 2 (which is looking very very tasty btw!): http://forums.gaspowered.com/viewtopic.php?t=37297
Thanks to Ryuken for a fine effort in maintaining this.