GH Review: Supreme Commander (PC)

Zardon

Read The Review Here
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Hype can be a games worst enemy. It creates expectations that are often blown out of proportion and are impossible to meet. And right up there with hype is having a popular predecessor. Unite both and you get a game that has to not only cater to the originals players but also bring enough to the table to convince the rest that the hype was not based on empty promises. Supreme Commander is in this exact situation and it is inevitable that somebody will be disappointed. The question is who.

bug77

At least the demo hints at something awesome...

Tipstaff

Great review overall, Peter. You pretty much summed up the game, and the way it plays. Mind you, there were 2 things that weren't touched on in the review that I wanted to mention.

The first is about the interface: SC has native independant dual monitor support. You can give orders, and what not on one monitor, while keeping track of the battlefield in another location on the other monitor. You can even give orders on that second monitor. Unfortunatly, the game only supports sound playback from whatever is on the main monitor, so anything happening on the second monitor, unless you are looking at it, you won't know it.

The second one is that SC has native multiprocessor support. Infact, from what I've read about gamers experiences with SC using single core processors (I've only played on a Core 2 E6800) indicates that you need a dual core, or at least a multi-threaded CPU for the game to play smoothly. Funny enough, I haven't been able to find any information on what the game does when it sees more than one processor. By that I mean there is no info on how exactly it takes advantage of them... just that it does.

I might wait a bit to pick this one up until I can get hold of a second monitor here.. at least one I can keep permanently. All my experience with the game has been on my friends supe'd up, tricked out machine with his multi monitor setup, so I have a feeling that playing on a 19", 1280x1024 screen might lower my ablitlity to enjoy the game. Having played on a multi monitor setup, I just don't think I could get used to playing split screen with this game. As you said, Peter, it would be clunky.

DudeBoyz

Perhaps the review doesn't emphasize just how complex and involved this game can be. I believe that it's a very intimidating game with a long learning curve, and the ideas are so "out there" compared to Company of Heroes, that it's hard to figure out exactly what to do.

The energy gathering is inconsistent. Some things limited to specific locations, others not. Finding a balance is elusive indeed.

I have got to find a way to eliminate the interface, at least temporarily. With BFME II you press F9 and it can toggle on and off. Is there something similar with this game?

The core interface seems klunky compared to BFME II, which does a lot of things that are context sensitive, thus eliminating the need to have many interface elements on screen all the time. Click on a builder, and a context menu pops up showing you only what is relevant to the builder. It's rather elegant by comparison.

Conceptually, I think many of the elements in the game are hard to grasp. Company of Heroes makes sense because I understand the "world" I'm playing in. You need Fuel, Weapons, Troops. All concepts I'm familiar with. Jeeps, Trucks, Tanks. Makes sense to me.

I'm just trying to see if I can progress beyond BFME II into something with a bit more depth, but I'm struggling mightily.

Maybe I'm more of a Diablo / Dungeon Siege kind of guy instead of a Baldurs Gate II kind of guy. Limited mental capacity and all that...

Erroneus

Nice info tipstaff!

Dual monitor support is an awesome feature, better check this game out.

Zardon

Yeah I cant say I ever noticed that either. great tip ! although I think I need a faster GFX as the X1800 mobility im using is having a hard enough time.....

Zardon

Yeah, unfortunately however from asking stuart to test on his quad core conroe, it doesnt seem to use all four cores efficiently, just two.....

Sandok

While my PC does literally die when I enable the dual moniter setup, it truly is awesome to witness... Me likey

OmegaRED

Good review and I'm glad you mentioned the sound as the weakest link in this game. I've read there are performance problems with Audigy cards and I've experienced all sorts of sound glitches and stuttering with my Audigy 2 and onboard sound. It's not horrible but it's there; compared to all these other recent games which let you configure EAX 2,3,4,5 and Direct Sound this game doesn't even have any sound options.

It's so odd that the developers went to great lengths to provide dual monitor and multi-core support but skimped on the sound.

bug77

On th other hand, it's only an RTS. Who would expect lengthy dialogs between various units done with professional voice acting. If you can hear units moving/fighting, some warnings when something terrible is about to happen is about enough for this genre. Some good background would be nice, but I wouldn't penalize an RTS for this; aside from Earth2160 anb maybe Starcraft, I think I always turn it off after a couple of missions anyway.

OmegaRED

RTS games require the best sound of nearly all games because they have to recreate the sounds of war and all that it entails. Just look at Company of Heroes it has some of the best sound effects in gaming as does Medieval 2: Total War; both have many sound options including X-fi support. Supreme Commander dwarfs both those games with its system requirements so its odd the sound wasn't considered.

bananaman

so far I am enjoying it, I agree that it is an intimidating game, especially compared to Company of Heoes, but it is something that everytime you play you discover a new little trick! Although my gut feel is that if I had to choose right now I would choose CoH, but lets give it some time

I must admit I havent had much time to play yet, and i only managed to have a few games in the beta (where i got whooped!), but I am hoing that it will be a game that lasts for a long time as it has so many possibilities.

Also, am I being dim or can you split one screen into two (split screen) if you want to - for some reason I thought you could and i cant see an option? I think it might work quite well on my monitor

nana

bananaman

damn work computer

WhO_KnOwS

Not sure about the key, but it's the home button I think. (for splitting the screen)

Tipstaff

Yep, Home is on, End is off.

BTW, you can even use split screen mode in a dual monitor setup, but only for the primary monitor, not the second one.

bananaman

legends

thanks for the tip

Warpy

Any chance we can have the reviews not auto play videos? You load a review page and Your waiting around for ages must be the slow connection the site has. I have a 24mbit ADSL2+ pipe and I'm still waiting for the videos to load and the backdrop for the review page....

Great review though - I really liked it. Nicely laid out and easy to understand too

FlameofTheWest

Attempting and failing to play this game is what prompted me to upgrade my system a few weeks back. I am a RTS fanatic, I love Dawn of War, CNC, BFME2 etc. I expect once i get my new rig working correctly i will be loving this game. Seems that it requires you to be a hardcore RTS guy or not even try.

DudeBoyz

The C&C 3 demo is a potential salvation for those of us without the huge machines to run this title well. It could buy us some time a the very least to wait on patches that will hopefully improve some performance.

As you said, this is a rather involved, hardcore title in addition to being resource intensive. It simply may be too much for some, from the hardware requirements to the gameplay.

Thank goodness for demos. At least we do not have to buy the whole thing before we realize that it may be beyond us.