The game has only been out for a little over a week so I'm going to say this is first impressions.
First I'd like to mention that I've been a fan of Chris Taylor's past work. I liked the whole Dungeon Siege series and first fallout, and Total Annihilation and all its expansions I couldn't stop playing. Supreme Commander felt like Total Annihilation 2 to me. That couldn't have been better. I was downloading the beta the very second it was available.
Supreme Commander 2 is sadly not Total Annihilation 3. This doesn't necessarily cause me to hate it immediately. I had my suspicions but was willing to give it a fair shot. Supreme Commander 2 turned out to be Demi-Commander.
The first clue that the game was going to disappoint me was that it was coming out for 360 right off the bat. Other games have been hurt severely by an oversimplified interface because of dumbing it down to six buttons and a joystick (universe at war, Oblivion, Fallout 3, etc.). Chris explained, "People are like, 'Oh did the 360 mean that we had to dumb down the PC?' and I said, 'No, it was the opposite.' The 360 version has made a better PC game, in so many ways." I have yet to see any of these ways and already see multitudes of design choices that would benefit the 360 and hurt the computer. (The replay interface, the snapping of building locations, , etc.)This problem is exaserbated by as Taylor puts it, "we've been thinking about that [making it for consoles] right from day one."
There is the claim being parroted by reporters and GPG . Instead of having around 100 units per faction we are reduced to 30 that can have various upgrades. No upgrades apply to the experimental except for unlocking them. Research on the battlefield never made sense to me. Why wouldn't you bring your best research to the battlefield? It made sense in 4x games like Civ4, MOO3, and HOI but never in Starcraft, Command and Conquer, and now Supreme Commander. If it was as Chris said "a way to customize your army" it would be interesting, but it is really just an upgrade tree.
Expansion is extremely discouraged. Mass extractors cost about 200 mass which is extremely expensive. There's very little reason to expand when you can build ten units for the same cost.
I've got plenty of other criticism for the game, but I've already said the limit of what most people are willing to read. What are your thoughts?
First I'd like to mention that I've been a fan of Chris Taylor's past work. I liked the whole Dungeon Siege series and first fallout, and Total Annihilation and all its expansions I couldn't stop playing. Supreme Commander felt like Total Annihilation 2 to me. That couldn't have been better. I was downloading the beta the very second it was available.
Supreme Commander 2 is sadly not Total Annihilation 3. This doesn't necessarily cause me to hate it immediately. I had my suspicions but was willing to give it a fair shot. Supreme Commander 2 turned out to be Demi-Commander.
The first clue that the game was going to disappoint me was that it was coming out for 360 right off the bat. Other games have been hurt severely by an oversimplified interface because of dumbing it down to six buttons and a joystick (universe at war, Oblivion, Fallout 3, etc.). Chris explained, "People are like, 'Oh did the 360 mean that we had to dumb down the PC?' and I said, 'No, it was the opposite.' The 360 version has made a better PC game, in so many ways." I have yet to see any of these ways and already see multitudes of design choices that would benefit the 360 and hurt the computer. (The replay interface, the snapping of building locations, , etc.)This problem is exaserbated by as Taylor puts it, "we've been thinking about that [making it for consoles] right from day one."
There is the claim being parroted by reporters and GPG . Instead of having around 100 units per faction we are reduced to 30 that can have various upgrades. No upgrades apply to the experimental except for unlocking them. Research on the battlefield never made sense to me. Why wouldn't you bring your best research to the battlefield? It made sense in 4x games like Civ4, MOO3, and HOI but never in Starcraft, Command and Conquer, and now Supreme Commander. If it was as Chris said "a way to customize your army" it would be interesting, but it is really just an upgrade tree.
Expansion is extremely discouraged. Mass extractors cost about 200 mass which is extremely expensive. There's very little reason to expand when you can build ten units for the same cost.
I've got plenty of other criticism for the game, but I've already said the limit of what most people are willing to read. What are your thoughts?
