Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 97
 Similar to C&C but better July 2, 2010
Duane Landon (Seattle, WA USA)
In the same genre as Command & Conquer but the user interface and ability to control and manipulate your units is better. They did a good job of ensuring that there is NO ultimate weapon for which there is no defense AKA "the kill all" weapon, this means each level is fare more balanced. All levels are generally the same format of build an army and destroy but the maps are sufficiently different that the exact strategy is always different. You can play the campaign for any of the three factions at one time as opposed to being forced to go through one campaign before playing another. The scrimmage mode is a fun way to just play against opponents either AI or real.
I experienced some visual glitches where things would sort of disappear but that may have been related to my minimal dedicated graphics memory. Otherwise I had no operating issues with the game on a Dell laptop, Core2Duo, Windows 7.
Fun but a little repetitive June 26, 2010
Andrew Cunningham
This game really is fun rally fun and a great in depth rts. But after a time you will find your strategy and stick with that almost 100% of the time. But that is the only bad thing i can say about it. Its just a great thinking game and really fun.
Supreme scale, hardcore RTS June 11, 2010
Patrcia Kugel
Now, I'm typically a FPS kind of gamer but everyone once and a while I like to go back to a sports, racing, or maybe even a RTS. I enjoyed strategy and wanted to get away from the most small-scaled FPS world. I was looking up online and the new game Supreme Commander came up (this was a couple of years ago) that was suppose to be of huge scale. Before I knew it, I had it downloaded onto my computer and booted it up.
First thing you'll notice is that this game is power hungry. If you have a wonderful gaming computer, you'll be in awe as explosions and lasers race across your screen. If you have an old computer that barely works, you'll be whimpering every time a nuke goes off or ANOTHER swarm charges your defenses. Thankfully, you can turn down the settings quite low to make it at least playable, but considering that there can be thousands of units on the map at one time, it's better to have a recent computer.
Now the single-player is horrible. The plot is paper thin, voice acting as emotional as vegetable, and it's just flat out terrible. Once you learn how to play and get your ducks in a row, you'll just want to stop and go strait to "custom games". The AI is decent and adjustable. You can work your way up from easy to veteran, which won't take that much. I guess that they suspect if you can beat the AI, you go online which uses this GasPowered browser crap. Very cumbersome and painful to use. They do match you up with players your same skill in "Ranked Games" (games for 'real'), but you can play with your friends in the online custom games.
When you start picking up the game, you'll realize how important the economy system (econ sys) is in this game. It is based on mass and energy. Mass can be gathered by building mass extractors at the mass sites (green squares around the map) or by mass fabricators which converts energy to mass. To get energy, all you do is build power generators. While this may seem relatively simple, it's another group to manage while you're attacking. Also, if your econ sys gets slightly poked by the enemy, you will completely start to fall apart. Shields and artillery guns depends upon energy to work and the more you expand, the more you depend on mass fabricators. Not only that, the center piece of your attacking force called "Experimental units" are extremely resource heavy and you must keep your econ's head above the water to keep churning these out, alone with your shields, AA guns, raid groups, scouts, interceptors, etc.
On a more positive note, the place where Supreme Commander shines is the units, the variety and sheer numbers. There are 3 tech levels that you upgrade throughout the game via your unit building structures. Tech 1, although weak and mostly useless during the ending parts of the game, are helpful in doing early damage that may help in later in the game. With each fraction having a scouts, light assault bots, mobile AA and artillery, interceptors, light bombers, and subs, there's plenty to choose from. Tech 2 is basically the same, just bigger and badder. On fast paced maps, these will be your bread and butter as they're easy to upgrade to and easy to mass produce. If your on one of the many massive maps that this game has to offer, you'll get to Tech 3 which is the few and the powerful. T3 has it's siege bots, heavy mobile artillery, heavy bombers and interceptors, and a few more special ones, these are the games that'll you'll be stocking up to do your dirty work. Now with your T3 builders, you can build Experimental Units which are massive, resource-eating units that wreck havoc simple by their presence. With each fraction having 3 unique units, it always makes you smile like a father looking at his new born child when one finally comes to life. Now I mentioned sheer numbers in the beginning. Let me just keep it quick, unit cap is 1000. Yup, that's a lot.
Another great aspect of this game is the seamless transition from bird's eye view to the tiniest robot's height. It's key in controlling your bases set up all over the map while getting attacked and juggling your econ. In the biggest view, your units are marked by your color and their special units symbol. If for some crazy reason you have 2 monitors they have dual-monitor support so you can have one in bird's eye view all the time and one "down-to-earth".
In the title I mentioned "hardcore RTS" and that's because if you even want to play online and are just casual about it, I at least got utterly destroyed. You really have to keep your econ balance to keep pumping out units while teching up and harass your enemy. It's really a handful and your always busy, never really giving you too many moments to watch your Experiemtals slowly and painful annihilate defenses or the gunships that are picking him off.
The massive amount of diverse units and maps that can be played really sets it apart, but to be able to play those units you have to keep track or your economy to keep up with the competition. Overall, this game is great if you love RTS or great if you want to mess around offline or with friends.
 Hardcore RTS Masterpiece. June 2, 2010
S. Norquist (Earth?)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Unfortunately, I am only a softcore RTS gamer, as I try to dabble a little bit in all genres, but it is painfully obvious that this game was designed and developed from the ground up aiming for the highest quality experience. In fact, the variety of units alone overwhelms me when I attempt to relearn the basic strategy after dusting off the box. This preventing me from knowing the full potential of play. If you are new to RTS games, or video games altogether, then be prepared for a steep learning curve. I suggest playing through all three of the single player campaigns first and then mess around in the tutorial/sandbox mode for a few hours/days, just so you can learn what everything is and what to do with it all.
If that's too lonely for you, then get a friend of yours to play online with you one on one.... without the intent of actually destroying one another. Just play around for a good while, figure out how you should build your base, how units perform against each other, and most importantly: how to manage your economy (half the game right there).
In summary, absolutely fantastic game (holding myself back from using the word "perfect") but it is a DEEP game. Expect to play for a good 50 hours before you can honestly say that you really know how to play the strategies effectively, and that's if you're already an experienced gamer.
Mod-worthy June 2, 2010
John Miner
While this game is not as polished as it seems at first, it has a lot of good points, including a decent story, a very nice tactical interface, and support for multiple displays. And although it will take some modding to draw out this games' true potential, it is an excellent purchase.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 97
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