Go get it on steam! I'm downloading now as we speak and will report back after playing. Cheers
Does this mean that the full game requires steam as Medieval Total War does?
Anyways - Give us you first thoughts already
From other's impressions Im getting a little scared.
Yes, Steam is required for SupCom 2.
As for initial thoughts: MEH.
It's not a "bad" game, but they took out everything that made SupCom unique among other RTS games, other than the scale. Gone are tech levels, adjecency bonuses, building upgrades (like upgrading shields/radar). Resource system is more basic, mass extractors and energy generators just give you a flat amount of the resource and everything costs a flat amount to build - if you can't afford it you can't build it. So the very basic RTS resource model. This results in small, boring bases rather than the sprawling awesomeness of the original SupCom. You build research buildings to generate research points that you use to upgrade your crap, which is a nice touch but a poor replacement for tech levels. You can't even use multiple engineers to help build (though you can still buff a factory's production with an engineer).
Graphics wise, the models look more blocky and worse than SupCom, and the maps/arenas, though using the 3d style of Demigod, also look less detailed. It actually made me think of the difference in graphics between C&C3 and C&C4. The particle effects range from over the top (UEF fighters shooting blobs of energy instead of bullets? Since when?), to lazy (UEF Commander, Gunship, Anti-Air turret, and Anti-Air tank use the exact same particle effect for their weapons fire).
It's obvious that designing it for the 360 had a major influence in how simple it turned out.
Played the Demo this morning. Having played SC1+Forged Alliance, I quite like the changes made to the SC2. They dumbed down alot of unecessary things that made SC1 cribble even high end PC's. I was running SC2 maxxed out and it barely caused my PC any problems, admittedely i had no more then 300 units on screen at anytime. But u can clearly see they've changed the game engine so it doesnt break your PC when you go over the 1000+ unit mark
Gameplay wise i would say its alot more slick and refined. Unit pathfinding was a nightmare in SC1 but thats all fixed in SC2, i had some funny moments by placing my ACU on a bridge blocking my Fatboys (experimental Tanks) advancing, instead of just slamming into the ACU or simply ghosting through him, they actually just stopped behind him in a neat line and waited for me to move the ACU (i was shocked to say the least). This brings me to my next part..MAPS, Maps look slick and refined, during the demo campaign your pitted on a map miles into the sky with several fissures to build on and control with bridges connecting them all..it was choke point galour..although air supuriority was essential to win the campaign.
Graphics, like i said further up have been dumb downed alot from what i could tell, dont get me wrong though, there was still plently of detail to be had and drool over. but there was definantly a sense of cartoony-ness to the units.
Base building is the same but they changed the way you use Mass and energy. Mass and Energy are now used as normal resources. For example to build a Rockhead Tank costs 100 Mass and 100 energy. They've also added large research tree's which add an element of strategy. Depending on the maps you play the research tree will become your new best friend. Oh and tactical zoom out is still there and awesome as ever.
If you've played Demigod, you will see some influence of that game in SC2. For example, the change relating to tech trees, where you upgrade everything through increasing Research, reminds me of how Demigod characters and buildings and AI units get upgraded. On the plus side, this makes what we would normally think of as Tier 1 units still useful late into the game, because the first units you create get upgraded right along with everything else. This is nice. The possible concern is that (like Demigod) you'll eventually settle on a specific Research progression, and won't vary things much. Some months from now, this might make it feel repetitive. But I still like the general change in direction there. You will also see how the maps are constructed, and will see that they look/feel a lot like Demigod maps - not in specific layout, but ...it just feels similar. (Words fail, but you'll see in the demo.)
Aside from the gameplay impact, there appears to be some Demigod tech borrowed as well. For example, the world lighting reminds me of the overbright bloom (or HDR) used in Demigod, where both games have a very bright (slightly washed-out) look. It looks good, or at least different from other games, but it is something that won't sit well with everyone. I managed to get units stuck beyond recovery on the last demo campaign chapter. No matter what I did, even after clearing out what I thought the units were hanging on, I ended up ctrl+k'ing them to death. That one event instantly reminded me of Demigod AI on one of the maps, where the AI Demigods used to get hung up. It doesn't take very many instances of this to reduce the overall positive opinion, so I do hope such issues get fixed sooner, rather than later. On a more positive note re: Demigod tech, you'll see that SC2 performs better (they weren't lying) with a lot of units on screen, much like Demigod.
I think the game will be a hit out of the gate - it looks good and plays well aside from the dings I gave above. The revamped user interface is much better implemented, though I suspect having less information to provide to the user due to complexity changes compared to the original games gave them more freedom to provide a better layout and presention of the UI.
And that brings me to my larger criticism. SC/SC:FA are good games, and they're complex. And they have their own bugs that remain unpatched. But those games can still be played and enjoyed today, and I believe this is because they do have that additional layer of complexity relating to the economy and resource collection that provides for a player to spend that much more time learning about, and learning how to integrate into an overall tech progression and strategy. I never got a handle on SC2's resource model. It's supposed to be simpler, but I found that I was more confused. I also found that I had to try really hard to run out of resources. I just kept building and constructing and upgrading whatever/wherever I wanted and I didn't run out of resource capacity but for a few seconds. It was strange compared to SC/SC:FA.
I'll buy the game. It's a good game and I hope that despite the developer and publisher best efforts, the community will be able to put together a map making and custom content creation programme. Because that may help provide the fresh content and increase the longevity of the game that might otherwise be at risk for lack of its predecessor's economic model and base building model.
I probably won't play SC2 for a while. I haven't finished a campaign in SC1, largely because D2D can't even get their downloader working properly so I can't even download the game unless I use a webbrowser so I can't resume.
Lame. Lame. Lame. Never buying from them again.
So once I get my $15 copy of SC1 Gold from Amazon, and finish a campaign, and actually even get to PLAY Forged Alliance, I'll think about it.
Considering how GPG butchered the resource system, removed the tiering system, and screwed with map scale, I'm not getting this. SupCom2 was dumbed-down for the 360, and it really shows.
Just finished playing through the demo, and I'm gonna agree with Scopeh. The Streamlining of the game IMO makes it more enjoyable and less confusing. I was one of the players who could only kinda get into supcom 1, because alot of the over complication. That being said, the players who really loved all the intricate complexities of supcom 1 will not like this one as much, but the rest of us will like 2 more. I'll definetly be buying day 1.
And as for the graphics being worse, I don't think so. The maps are much more interesting (though thats not really graphics) and teh buildings and such are much more detailed and have all sorts of moving shadows and such going on as the parts of the structure move around. And the new ACU models are a HUGE improvement over the old IMO.
Steam-only. Won't buy. It's sad i didn't play Empire:TW for that, now supcom2
Played the demo for a couple hours this morning, and I'd agree with Annatar's impression of 'meh'. Units are somewhat visually appealing, but feel very blocky and almost made out of Legos themselves.
I'm not really sure why in this day of modern gaming there appeared to be no way to determine what your units were actually good at without building them and throwing them at enemy forces. No tooltip saying what they can fire on? Plus the first experimental you build in the campaign seems pretty confused as to what it can do. A submersible aircraft carrier that builds aircraft painfully slow. Perhaps you can load air factory created planes onto it, but I didn't think to try at the time. But instead of having the aircraft assigned to the ship and being able to dock and launch them with one button, it treats them like an APC of yesteryear where they're not owned units at all and it's just a big transport. Gets pretty muddled quick if you're trying to dock or launch in battle. The ship doesn't even tell you how many aircraft it can hold so you can queue up many more than its limit without knowing.
I'm not sure what's going on with the water effects as it looks like tech from at least a few years back. Instead of visualizing ocean waves, it's much more reminiscent of all ships skating around on an ice rink. Units of all sorts seem to have great trouble with pathfinding and end up bumping into and pushing each other around frequently. Just looks odd to see a battleship being shoved sideways.
I shut it off after some of the later mission banter. Don't think it's any sort of spoiler, but if anyone actually cares, skip:
The generic admiral says they're going to stick it to those damned Illuminates, whomever they are, we're not told. You from inside your ACU having just struck what seems to be a large victory against the Cybrans, whatever they are, pipes up that your wife is an Illuminate. In what can only be compared to a 'All Your Base Are Belong To Us' style moment, your commander yells demanding to find out how they didn't know about that. He then proceeds to order you to give up your command. The voice acting for all of this is unbearable. I was left sitting there wondering why they put some guy in charge of incredibly advanced military hardware without knowing he was married to their nebulous foes.
Yes. It gets worse in the next mission.
Story thing I'm not too worried about, there's the intro movie and I don't think the experimental carrier mission is actually the first in the campaign (judging by the mission pips on the launch screen).
The UEF, Cybran Nation, and Aeon Illuminate are the three main factions from the first game. The Seraphim are in the expansion.
So there's no reason you should have to be told.
Tried the demo out.
I still love and play TA sometimes.
SupCom 2? More like SuckCom 2.
(Aye, bad pun, but I don't like the new, dumbed down version at all. Also, even the cheesy campaign in old TA was better then what they're presenting here as missions... )
What? Annatar has a point that if it's a later mission we'll already know, but it's just poor game design to toss around faction names with no explanation and expect people to look up the first game.
Really? So in X-Men 2 they should've wasted my time for another hour to explain every character like they did in the first one?
Yes, explaining every character for an hour is the same as giving any sort of indication as to who an entire faction of people are. Thanks.
Anyway, it's already probably resolved as I'm guessing they reintroduce the groups in the earlier missions.
Makes two of us. Both games seem to have their problems (ETW - weak AI and SupCom2 dumbed down), so I can live with that.
BUT if CIV V is steam based, then my Steam allergy might have to be truly tested...
I'm just trying to imply that most people who play sequels do so because they've played the first one. And I've got a cold so forgive me for not being...all here. Heh.
Personally, i found the ingame videos for the dialogs to be the worst part of the game. This is where supcom2 is just _plainly_ worse than supcom1.
Next comes the rest of the story and story telling. Not to mention tha the missions were short and there seemed to be only a rather small number of them for a full game. This is especially disappointing since one would expect square enix produce some quality like in their many rpg titles.
Gameplaywise....they butchered alot of what made supcom1 a different from the ocean of starcraft style rts's. This is not supcom2. It may look like a cartoony one, but its not.
Actually, you can set an engineer to assist another one. I didnt test if it really does anything though. But you certainly cannot simply build something with multiple engineers.
Experimentals...yes there are alot weaker and but they come in greater quantitiy. They are more like higher tech units instead of adding another layer of gameplay.
No tooltips about units makes me sad.
Won't buy due to Steam. (Can you actually buy anything on Steam?)
I like blocky units so the graphics don't bother me, and I never really got a handle on the unit tier thing, but the resource system changes are simply unforgivable. That tricky balancing act that totally hoses your economy if when you get it wrong is part of the fun, and it's one of the things that really made the game something more than Generic Sci-Fi RTS: Kill Dudes With Lasers.
I was really looking forward to this game.
You can? I tried using my commander and another engineer to assist one when it was building, and I didn't see it do anything.
Pretty much agreeing. If it was the first entry in a genre, it'd stand for a pretty good game. But when compared to the original SupCom, it's a step back. I realize not everyone liked the complexity of the first, but it seems now they took *all* of it out, rather than finding a balance.
You can guard/assist each other, but they just treat it as a follow command and won't help with any constructions. Could be wrong, but I think that's what the button was labeled as.
I never played the original, so consider me 100% unbiased. The graphics are crappy. If this game came out in 2002, I'd be impressed. However, this is 2010, and the graphics need to be less blocky. The tutorial is painfully slow. It was obviously designed for eight year olds playing on their xbawks tree sitties. The supposedly helpful strategic mode does absolutely nothing for me. Instead of getting decent graphics you get some overlapping triangles. You can't see anything in strategic mode. Also, they made micro 99% impossible. You can't see the health bars or select damaged units easily. Plus, when you try to back them up they get stuck. I like the general idea of a commander unit that builds structures and supports the army instead of leading it into battle with super skills. I'm going to continue playing it this weekend unless something better comes along. (something that just to happens to have the same abbreviation as Supreme Commander 2)
The positives are outweighed by the negatives many times over. I still love FA so shall be sticking with that.
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