2010/07/24

Supreme Commander II: Final Thoughts

So despite my previous post I ended up finishing Supreme Commander II. The thing about modern RTS is that they assume you're playing the campaign as a sort of training for your eventual online multiplayer annihilation. A completely false assumption in many cases, but nonetheless it means the single-player campaign is relatively short. So I played through it.

I don't hate Supreme Commander II as much as I did originally. It still has some of the ingredients that made Total Annihilation a classic and Supreme Commander I the last great RTS.

The physics-based movement and combat of Total, which even in 1997 made Starcraft look completely obsolete and even puts the as-of-yet-unreleased Starcraft II to shame, is still present.

The story is another positive. Although not as deep and intriguing as Total Annihilation: Kingdoms, is still leagues beyond the previous Supreme and Total before them.

Still, so many efforts were put to dumb down this series. Efforts like unit type reduction and the removal of the crucial factory automation process. Efforts that do nothing to deepen or streamline the experience, but just serve to increase the clicks-per-minute numbers to a pathetic Starcraftesque level.

Final thoughts? You can't win against Starcraft, as bad as that game was and as bad as the second one will be. The crowds will flock to it, buy it, love it. So why change course to match this mundane-magnet? You want their endless supply of money? You ain't getting it. And you're turning your niche against you.