Supreme Commander 2 Review - New Game Network

Supreme Commander 2 has been greatly reduced in size from its predecessor. The scale of the original is just no longer present even though structurally it does behave much the same way as the original. The presence of more experimental units and research specialisations take over from the multi-tiered unit types of the previous game. In many ways it’s a lot simpler perhaps demonstrated by the change in resource management. The single player campaign starts badly with some pretty poor missions and bad story dialogue that does nothing to boost confidence. Thankfully once the campaign progresses it gets a bit more interesting. Rather than repeating tutorials for each race, the game gradually increases the difficulty throughout the three campaigns. Online the game brings together a smooth competitive playing field marred by some laggy matches.

I do get a little excited over good formations

The original Supreme Commander had huge maps and it took literally 5 or 10 minutes for speedy land vehicles to move across them. With the sequel however even for large slow experimentals this time is generally measured in seconds. Is this a good move for the franchise to reduce the scale so much? On one hand you genuinely have less travel times, less time spent ferrying an army only to have them completely wiped out. During the main campaign I used the air transports to ferry units maybe twice as opposed to hundreds of times in Supreme Commander. There was also very few aircraft ferrying units online. Matches are over faster which also means the campaign is roughly half the length of the original even if you turtle up and save up a huge wave of units. The one thing Supreme Commander had over all RTS rivals was primarily the huge scale of the worlds, and with no map editor you unfortunately can’t make very large levels.

The change to the resource system came perhaps to reduce the frustration of having your build order stalling. In the first game you could literally queue up hundreds of units and buildings with the understanding that you would acquire the mass and energy by the time that order was undertaken. This time you can only queue what you can actually afford and as soon as you queue that item the funds are immediately credited from your resources. It’s almost like a typical resource system but this time you are actually spending the money on a unit well before the factories start to build it.

It’s a bird, it’s a plane – no it’s my Darkenoid Giant Saucer

The change is no doubt in direct response to situations where your build order would simply grind to a halt because you ran out of mass or energy. Instead here you will need to hop back and forth between factories to queue up continuous streams of units as well as maintaining the resource system. In practice this eliminates the situation where your whole base shuts down production forcing cancellation of queues but it also means you will be paying excessive attention to the build queues.

The next change from the prequel favours a research tree over a series of tiered unit levels. Research points, gained from doing damage, resource crates or from your research buildings can be spent on upgrades for you units and buildings. Broken into groups these branching upgrade paths will eventually lead you to unlocking the heavy hitting experimentals or perhaps a nuclear silo. To unlock the experimental units you will almost need to become specialized in that group – land, air, naval, structure and ACU. You will need to wait some time to unlock more experimentals for other groups because of the cost involved in getting to the bigger units.

Supreme Commander 2: Jurassic Park

This unlock system replaces the tiered unit system in the first game. You can add shields, health, more damage, extra vision or range and other bonuses to units as you require – greatly increasing their potential in a battle. Unfortunately aside from a few obvious upgrades many are simply invisible to the opposing commanders. And in some cases you’d need to zoom in very closely to see any of the visual upgrades that have been unlocked. Unlike a tiered unit system you may have to guess if your units will match your opponents. Aside from normal units the large brutal experimentals are back better than ever.

Thankfully experimentals that were so iconic in the original game return. Broken into the various unlock groups these experimentals tend to have obvious weaknesses that will need to be protected with basic units or other experimental types. No question they still generate fear when lumbering or flying toward your base as you call all units in the area to assist in taking them down. Controlling several of these big units still brings satisfaction when you progress through an enemy base crushing the opposition. Old favourites like the Aeon Colossus return and some of the new experimentals are also pretty enjoyable to use. They have done a good job of balancing rare and powerful units with the research system. You can’t build experimentals with your engineers anymore though; you must construct a huge experimental factory and build them like a normal unit. These huge factories make the production and presence of experimental more obvious.

Excuse me while I shoot a dozen units into your base

Many of the levels are now more than just land and sea geography. They might be intertwined with specific structures including platforms or spaceships – something trickier to implement than with standard level editors. The campaign proceeds in a linear fashion and you cannot start each faction without completing the previous. It works a bit better this way because you don’t spend the first two levels of each faction campaign completing tutorial like missions. The game does feature some in-game cut scenes and the bad news is they cannot be skipped so saving after you get passed these openings is advised. You can save at anytime but try to name the saves appropriately as there is no timestamp or mission association. Path finding has been improved although units still get stuck in a loop or in between buildings. Generally navigation is better because they push through multiple units during the campaign and online.

For multiplayer it’s fairly easy to get a game against ranked and unranked opponents. The game will search using Steam for players of similar skill level and the process is very smooth. Interestingly enough you start with a neutral rank of 1500 and will lose rank points for losing matches against other opponents. The problem is the game lets you play against higher ranks with the click of a button if no matches can be found. In this way it can be even more demoralizing to keep losing because your points will just go down. Theoretically you should start playing against players of similar skill level but more often than not the good players tend to stick around, not the bad ones. Multiplayer maps, like the single player campaign, are small and usually very open some taken from the campaign. Defending your base with point defences wasn’t viable when units can be constructed so quickly. I came up against a few particular tactics that worked well pummelling me into the ground after I had set up a base.

Multiplayer – an ACU tries to run but finds a water hazard

Quickly capturing and controlling mass resource locations around the map became fairly crucial to success early. Combine this with the need to push your base forward make turtling hard to pull off. In one situation I set my defences up well enough to stop many attacks only to have my opposition set up dozens of long range artillery buildings to slowly destroy my base from way across the map. Unranked matches pit you against a player of any skill level but there seemed to be fewer players using that system. There is no 2v2 matchmaking at the moment so you’ll need to learn the skills on your own to move up or down the ranks.

The barrier of entry is very high and skills learnt during the campaign will barely help you during online battles. Occasionally finding a match may take a bit longer but load times and connections were pretty good. Naturally a progression of skirmish without predictable AI the multiplayer can provide a good time sink for those good enough to compete. For those afraid to play online by yourself you can always join a match set up by others. I found this much more enjoyable because it felt like a fairer playing field and when you mix the various factions it started to become rather enjoyable. Match length varied from five to sixty minutes really depending on play style. Games with higher player counts had a tendency to lag causing intermittent pauses that made things difficult.

The reduction in the tremendous scale of the original and the simplification of some things is ultimately a negative for the sequel. The uniqueness is reduced and the shorter campaign takes a good while to become enjoyable. The game gets points from me simply because it has base building and feels a bit more like the RTS games of old. I still enjoyed powering my huge Darkenoid saucer over an enemy base while aircraft circled around it for protection. Walking some Monolith bots through a base with shield units and anti-air for protection as red lasers cut the buildings to pieces was pretty awesome. If you don’t really enjoy new non-base building RTS games then Supreme Commander 2 may provide some fun. It does take a while to get into gear and at times playing it may feel like a chore.

Needs more lasers!

It’s unfortunate that the multiplayer is difficult to get into due to the skill difference but co-operative modes are enjoyable. Online matches do seem to be the focus for the game and a good amount of work has been put into making sure it works. The multiplayer will offer you some extended playtime as the matches can last quite a while depending on the tactics employed. Supreme Commander 2 lacks a certain amount of soul the first game seemed to capture and exploit. The campaign is certainly poorer than the original but the multiplayer and skirmishes are worth checking out.