No gameplay shown, though I hope I’ll have some words from E3 next week on SupCom 2. Still, I would probably watch this if it were a movie since the voiceover hits every action movie cliche except “It was a time of war…”
Supreme Commander 2 Trailer
May 29th, 2009 by Troy Goodfellow · 6 Comments · Gas Powered Games, RTS
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I’ve been hearing that the scope of the game is being drastically reduced. The in game screenshot recently released seems to hint at that.
The justification for this is because the game is an XBOX360 + PC release, memory requirements are being reduced to fit the consoles memory limitation.
Well, that’s guesswork from some sites and worried fans, since there will still be hundred units on screen I think the only thing we might have to fear for is the map size if (and that’s a BIG if) GPG wants both versions to be exactly the same. SupCom on Xbox360 already had some maps/features cut because that machine couldn’t handle it (and even then it still didn’t deliver good performance :) ).
The PC Gamer UK article was scarce on the details and only provided some select quotes, the PC Gamer US coverage has the full interview with Chris Taylor (and another screenshot that showed some depth to the maps, in Demigod style) and I can’t say I see anything wrong with the changes he is implementing: less but more useful unit types, early units that are still viable late in the game, a much easier to manage economy, more UI tools, etcetera.
The Fatboy doesn’t look as good as the original imo but I am looking forward to the rest.
Chris Taylor and GPG needs to take a long, hard look at what makes Sins Of A Solar Empire such a great game. It did so many things right that Supreme Commander should have.
Unfortunately, early blurbs about the game seem to indicate that they’re giving in, and just re-tooling the game into a more standard RTS. That would be a real shame.
“I’ve been hearing that the scope of the game is being drastically reduced.”
It depends on how you define scope. More doesn’t always mean better.
The early screens were zoomed in because there was no lighting in place, so the environments looked bad.
“The justification for this is because the game is an XBOX360 + PC release, memory requirements are being reduced to fit the consoles memory limitation.”
Well, that’s not true at all. The 360 does have less CPU power and RAM than a modern PC, but lower memory footprints with a significant visual quality improvement is a win for both platforms.
(And let’s not forget that the original SC brought almost every PC to its knees; should it really be going down that path again?)
“Chris Taylor and GPG needs to take a long, hard look at what makes Sins Of A Solar Empire such a great game. It did so many things right that Supreme Commander should have.”
They’re very different games, so I’m not sure what exactly the takeaway would be.
“They’re very different games, so I’m not sure what exactly the takeaway would be.”
Pacing. The problem with Supreme Commander is that its a game built for 2-hour long slugfests with thousands of units and battleships and gigantic fuck-off flying saucers, but it can easily be decided in 10 minutes with tier 1 units.
Sins, on the other had, pulls the pacing off. There is research, capital ships that can level to be absurdly powerful, nasty end-game units and numerous superweapons. And players actually get to use them as part of a good strategy because winning the game in under half an hour isn’t really feasible.
Well, you are comparing a pure planet warfare game with one that emulates a galactic war which features more neutral factors and some 4X stuff. The scale is just different, Sins is a lot more automated as well because of that (which is fine). And oh yeah, I can’t wait till someone gets the idea again to combine these concepts (in Imperium Galactica III or so :) ).
While T1 units can win you a game on a small SupCom map in a short time, they won’t save you on a large map (as in: they’re totally useless there). I think it’s nice to know that SupCom 2 will try to fix that issue by making every unit type count, how hard that may even sound to balance out.
Also, activating the “no rush” mode in SupCom/FA might be handy if you don’t want too short games. :)