Kevin's Watch

While I recently said I was a turn-based strategy convert, the following video (in two parts), is undoubtedly an amazing example of what real-time strategy can do.


E3 presentation of the game, narrated by project leader Chris Taylor

Part 1 - www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-FInhDCSjs&sea ... 0Commander
Part 2 - www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5jd7RCllZI&mod ... 0Commander

I hope I won't have to upgrade my comp for this sweet baby.

I've been following this game for a year now. Words fail me how great it seems. The naval battles have me very very excited.

I still think that Total Annihilation was the best RTS ever. It was so aptly named.

Supreme Commander looks like it will be even better.

Hopefully they have done the exact opposite of what the Warcraft mob did between WC2 and WC3.

Although I think I might have to get a new PC to handle it.

I've been thinking: my comp ran Company of Heroes at 30 FPS. Maybe it has a chance with Supreme Commander?

*gets dreamy look in eyes*

I dunno, though; a lot more action will be going on in SC. Then again, maybe SC will be more scaleable and generally less demanding on lesser comps. We'll see.

I've been offered the beta test of Supreme Commander. Should be downloading it soon.

Cool, Lore. I think your comp is more powerful than mine (though not sure by how much). Maybe you'll be a good indicator of how smooth this pup will run. Then again, betas tend to be pretty bug-ridden and sloppy--hardly representative of the final product.

I'm personally getting tired of the whole "let's make our games only playable on a supercomputer" design approach. Forces most of us to either upgrade (or pine for upgrades), which are generally more expensive than buying a new video game console every six to five years. And even then your gameplay experience on a PC will vary according to your machine's specs, which are always aging rapidly. Not easy being a PC gamer, nope.

That's because, at least as far as I can see (with cRPG games), the focus seems to be shifting more and more towards visuals, at the detriment of the story. Take Oblivion, for example: it is surely a great game, but the main plot is simply not as gripping as the Morrowind one. Other games suffer from the same syndrome, and it seems that computer developers are persuaded that as long as the game has great graphics, the story is less important. As a result, you end up being able to play these games only on a supercomputer, and then once you do and you stop being enthralled by the scenery and graphics, you realize that the story itself is lacking. At least, that's the impression I've had.

Xar wrote:then once you do and you stop being enthralled by the scenery and graphics, you realize that the story itself is lacking. At least, that's the impression I've had.

That's what happened with Oblivion, for me.

Xar wrote:That's because, at least as far as I can see (with cRPG games), the focus seems to be shifting more and more towards visuals, at the detriment of the story.

Exactly! Oblivion is the RPG standard for the industry now, and I don't think that's a good thing. I mean, it's not technically an RPG. Your dialogue choices are severely limited; in many quests your choices are already made. Yes: it is a great adventure game, a great dungeon crawl--but it is not an RPG. And yet I fear this is what an RPG is to developers now.

Intelligent CRPGs like Fallout or Planescape: Torment are no longer what is to be expected. Games where you can actually unravel depth and role-playing options have been relegated to a niche market. A developer is also a business; if they go off making a turn-based, tactical CRPG with 2D sprites and an isometric view, they can expect to sell 100,000 copies at most.

Like you said, Xar: the move is toward greater technology and more streamlining. For action fans, this is great news. For those of us who like authentic CRPGs, the future is basically playing old classics over and over or waiting for a new CRPG as if it were water in a desert.

Started playing the beta for this in the weekend, it is beautifull! I'm going to need to upgrade my pc to play it properly though.

Gil galad wrote:Started playing the beta for this in the weekend, it is beautifull! I'm going to need to upgrade my pc to play it properly though.

Fileplanet just emailed me the beta key an hour ago.

Okay, I have been playing the full game. My impressions:

Amazing scope, which allows for strategy and tactics. Wonderful battles - rather epic, with many unit types. But my main criticisms are that the sides are pretty much identical, and the campaign is too easy. Also, the game is full of star trek jargon - Quantum Gates, Quantum Virus, Quantum Wakes, Quantum weapons . . . . it's silly.

I have to agree with the not-RPG diagnosis. I think the last game I played that really felt like an RPG was KOTOR. Both Oblivion and World of Warcraft have RPG aspects, like levelling and a certain amount of character customisation, but the gameplay is deceptively linear, as your only real choices are to take a quest or not, the games don't contain any of the kind of ethical alignment issues I'd expect from a proper RPG.

I think WoW is especially guilty of this: when I first started playing and I was offered a quest that I thought that my character might not want to do, I wouldn't take it. Now I know that I'm only cheating myself out of money and xp, because there simply isn't that level of sophistication in the game. Now I hunt elephants and kill fairies whenever the urge takes me. Quest or don't quest, grind rep or don't, it doesn't actually affect your progress through the game either way.

I've read some very wide-ranging reviews on SC, including one which said you can only get the best out of it if you're running multiple monitors (I have a spare monitor, but I'd have no idea how to set that up).

I think I'll wait and get Medieval II instead.

Get Medieval II, Trapper. I returned SC last week when I realised the game was poor. MTW2 is simply amazing.

Trapper wrote:I've read some very wide-ranging reviews on SC, including one which said you can only get the best out of it if you're running multiple monitors (I have a spare monitor, but I'd have no idea how to set that up).

I think I'll wait and get Medieval II instead.

Setting up dual monitors is pretty easy as it happens, you just need a little adapter so you can use the other plug on your video card (SVGA adapter or something). Nvidia cards are better suited to multiple displays in general (their drivers remain superior to ATI's, even if their technology doesn't) so that might be all you need to do, you used to have to download special drivers from ATI but I can't see them on the site anymore so it could be that the Catalyst package can handle it now.

Thanks for the tip Nav, I might just visit the store that upgraded my PC recently (including a new NVIDIA card) and check that out.

I downloaded a demo a while back...

My system couldn't handle it...played it for about five minutes before MASSIVE slowmo ensued...

From the videos and reviews I've seen/read plus my little time playing,

- The sides do indeed feel nearly the same
- The "feel" of the game isn't very polished and is too wide open
- The interface takes up more than half the screen- what's up with that? Is it to mimic the view from a Commander's perspective, you think?
- It takes a massive new system to play
- Very little tactical/strategic play because you end up just throwing tanks at eachother in a more frenetic pace than Red Alert, but much like it in that respect...

Seems it needs alot of polish, maybe SC2 (not blizzard) will be what SC1 could have been...

[url=www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dn6D3OCyrU]SupCom2 anyone?[\url]
Why isn't this working? That's the right programming right?