Supreme Commander (PC) (gamespy)
- gamespy -
When I heard from Chris Taylor that he was going to be developing another RTS that would be the spiritual successor to Total Annihilation, I knew it was going to be big. I never realized how big Supreme Commander was shaping up to be, however, until I recently visited THQ headquarters to play against Taylor and a few of THQ's personnel. The units are big, the maps are big, the strategy is big … all coming together from Taylor's big idea. None of this should be surprising, however, since Taylor never does anything in a small way.
To start, jumping right into multiplayer was overwhelming. I consider myself a good RTS player, but even with a firm understanding of Taylor's RTS style and a solid (if not fanatical), grasp of Total Annihilation, I literally spent an hour trying to get my head around what I was seeing on the screen., I'd already played the beta, but there's a heavy learning curve to the tech trees, resource management and queuing necessary to create a strong and efficient fighting force. And I lost all four games rather handily.
That is not a criticism, mind you, as much as a warning. Supreme Commander has all the flair of the Chris Taylor original, but now with technology and features that are almost 10 years advanced. Taylor jokes that he is including most of the things in this game he wanted to do back in 1997. But these advancements may take the average RTS player a while to get used to. This game is not for the faint of heart or the casual player.
When I heard from Chris Taylor that he was going to be developing another RTS that would be the spiritual successor to Total Annihilation, I knew it was going to be big. I never realized how big Supreme Commander was shaping up to be, however, until I recently visited THQ headquarters to play against Taylor and a few of THQ's personnel. The units are big, the maps are big, the strategy is big … all coming together from Taylor's big idea. None of this should be surprising, however, since Taylor never does anything in a small way.
To start, jumping right into multiplayer was overwhelming. I consider myself a good RTS player, but even with a firm understanding of Taylor's RTS style and a solid (if not fanatical), grasp of Total Annihilation, I literally spent an hour trying to get my head around what I was seeing on the screen., I'd already played the beta, but there's a heavy learning curve to the tech trees, resource management and queuing necessary to create a strong and efficient fighting force. And I lost all four games rather handily.
That is not a criticism, mind you, as much as a warning. Supreme Commander has all the flair of the Chris Taylor original, but now with technology and features that are almost 10 years advanced. Taylor jokes that he is including most of the things in this game he wanted to do back in 1997. But these advancements may take the average RTS player a while to get used to. This game is not for the faint of heart or the casual player.
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My army of choice in these matches was the Cybrans, the part human, part machine force in the game. As with any RTS, the key is getting your resources pumping early, so I used the big overview map to plot out a path for my commander to build mass extractors and power plants. Once I had a few of those cranking, I built a land unit facility and an air facility, followed by tech 1 engineers to fan out and build more power plants and mass extractors. A third engineer helped the commander build some early defenses. We were playing on a fairly large map, so I also created an air scout to search through the fog of war for more mass sites.
Taylor chose the Aeons, and while I couldn't see his build progression, I was able to keep track of his progress through a score counter built into the game. He was always a few hundred points ahead of me, until our first skirmish. Using my air units as scouts, I was able to spot an engineer sneaking behind my lines to build on my mass sites. It wasn't long before the engineer and the extractors were reclaimable rubble.
On a side note: I was able to play the game using dual screens. The game supports a second screen for an overhead tactical view that allows the player to see the whole battlefield at a glance. However, the main screen is capable of doing that as well, allowing you to zoom out to a world tactical view, or zoom in to ground level to see individual units in combat. While the second screen is a nice thought, it was sometimes a distraction that took a little time to get used to.
It also took a little while to get used to the map zoom feature. The mouse wheel allows you to zoom in and out on the map. Holding the wheel down allows you to change the angle. What made it tricky is that the zoom is tied to the mouse pointer, with the pointer being the center when you zoom in. A very cool feature once I got the hang of it.
We continued with little skirmishes, and Taylor continued to ease ahead in points. He sent a land assault here, and air assault there … mostly just feeling out my position and doing what damage he could. I was doing the same, trying to build more resources and push for the next tier of units.
One of the nice advances from Total Annihilation is being able to upgrade units and facilities. In the original game, a metal extractor had to be reclaimed or destroyed to add an upgraded metal extractor. Now, a simple click of the button will upgrade mass extractors to tier 2 and then tier 3. You can even select all of units at the same tier and upgrade them all at once, although I don't recommend it until you have a huge reserve. Doing that before you are ready can grind your production to a halt.
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The same process also applies to land, air, and sea production plants. A simple click will upgrade them to tier 2 and then tier 3. There is also a nice feature that allows the player to click on a tab for the structure in the interface that will allow the player to build earlier tier units after the production plants are upgraded.
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Another welcome addition is the elimination of several engineer type units. In the original game, you could build air, land, kbot (TA's version of mechs) and sea engineer units. Now there is only one type of engineer that can be created at all production facilities. So players will only have to worry about three types of engineer units, one for each tier of production. There is also an idle engineer button that will alert you when your engineers have nothing to do.
The game has progressed slowly to this point as we build our resources. I send out a larger land force supported by air to the center of the map and find he is building a small resource base. It is only a matter of time before I am able to destroy the base, but I lose about 3/4 of my force in the process. The tier 1 defenses are pretty potent, designed to stop the old "Flash rush" if enough of them are built.
As my units limp back toward base, I find a few of his tier 2 land and air units attacking me from the side. I tend to be a porcupine by nature, so I thought I had a good defensive perimeter, but Taylor showed the importance of a good mix of units by pounding my defenses with long-range artillery before moving in with his land and air units. It was at this point that I found out another of the hazards of this new game: The big maps are so huge that you can have 8-10 battles going on and not be able to see how you won or lost. If you focus on what is going on in one or two battles, you miss the rest. The game is really tactical in nature and forces you to rely on your skill in defensive placements or offensive battalion compositions to win the battles you won't be able to watch.
I was able to fend off his assault, but it was at this point that I committed a fatal error. I upgrade my mass extractors to tier 3. Not just one or two … all of them. My mass production plummeted as the new extractors began to be created, literally slowing all of my unit production to a crawl. It wasn't long after that military faux pas that Taylor over ran my base with tier 2 and 3 units while I was barely producing tier 2s.
Taylor and I joined forces in the next game to play against three of the computer AI. This game was a bit more fun as I could count on him to press some of the assault while I continued to learn the nuances of the game. By the end of the day, I felt I had a good grasp of play, and was joining in the annihilation of the computer opponents.
The game has progressed slowly to this point as we build our resources. I send out a larger land force supported by air to the center of the map and find he is building a small resource base. It is only a matter of time before I am able to destroy the base, but I lose about 3/4 of my force in the process. The tier 1 defenses are pretty potent, designed to stop the old "Flash rush" if enough of them are built.
As my units limp back toward base, I find a few of his tier 2 land and air units attacking me from the side. I tend to be a porcupine by nature, so I thought I had a good defensive perimeter, but Taylor showed the importance of a good mix of units by pounding my defenses with long-range artillery before moving in with his land and air units. It was at this point that I found out another of the hazards of this new game: The big maps are so huge that you can have 8-10 battles going on and not be able to see how you won or lost. If you focus on what is going on in one or two battles, you miss the rest. The game is really tactical in nature and forces you to rely on your skill in defensive placements or offensive battalion compositions to win the battles you won't be able to watch.
I was able to fend off his assault, but it was at this point that I committed a fatal error. I upgrade my mass extractors to tier 3. Not just one or two … all of them. My mass production plummeted as the new extractors began to be created, literally slowing all of my unit production to a crawl. It wasn't long after that military faux pas that Taylor over ran my base with tier 2 and 3 units while I was barely producing tier 2s.
Taylor and I joined forces in the next game to play against three of the computer AI. This game was a bit more fun as I could count on him to press some of the assault while I continued to learn the nuances of the game. By the end of the day, I felt I had a good grasp of play, and was joining in the annihilation of the computer opponents.
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Unfortunately, the games were too short to get into the production of some of the really cool experimental units. Each side has three experimental units they can build, each with some pretty intense firepower and defensive capabilities. I got to see all nine of them in action, and hopefully I'll be able to go into more detail about them at a later time.
The game still needs to go through optimization as it can chug on some lower end machines, but the sheer grandeur of what the Gas Powered Games team is putting together should have RTS fans salivating to play the final version. The game is planned for Q1 of 2007. In my eyes, the ship date can't come soon enough.
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