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 Spanky's thoughts on Supreme Commander FA April 7, 2010
Spanky(DSC)
This is almost clearly an excellent game but with one notable serious flaw that needs to be addressed. Unless you are flat out working with top notch alienware equipment more than likely this game won't run good in some situations. The stages can be huge and on top of that if you have a lot going on with multiple teams the game will slow to a snails crawl I don't care what you got in your PC. So just keep that in mind that likely you'll be limited from small to medium maps and probably no more than four teams max and maybe you won't fall victim to the speed crash. Other than that this is one of the best RTS games ever hands down. Plenty of units to choose from in each of the four factions (in skirmish mode) you don't feel like everyones using the same stuff. A great feature is that strategic zoom that allows you to see everything on the map at once. When I play other games I find myself scrolling back the mouse wheel thinking that feature should be in every RTS. The feather in the cap for this game is the experimentals. Being able to build gigantic units with awesome destructive power is a satisfying experience for any commander. Overall I say get it without hesitation it is more than worth the money.
 Major disappointment November 15, 2009
J. D. Lunn
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
I've enjoyed a lot of RTS games over the years (Age of Empires, Starcraft, Warcraft III, Ground Control, etc. etc.) With all the alcolades on the box and the impressive graphics shown, I figured this would at least burn up some hour of boredom. This game turned out to be a major disappointment quickly. Once I started playing, I quickly realized it is formatted exactly like Total Annihilation (which is it's predecessor, by what 8-10 years), you generate energy and ore (renamed as "mass" in this game, can't get much more generic than that) in the game to build units and structures. I loved Total Annihilation, so I've got nothing against the format except that it doesn't offer anything unique. The game totally fails in it's gameplay, you can get the graphic shown on the box but you'll have to zoom all the way in and you can't play that way because there is no way to control your units or manage your "city" development. This is true for almost RTS games but generally there is a zoom that is a happy medium where you can see what you're doing but still enjoy the graphics, with this game the zoom required to really play everything turns into little squares with icons and symbols of what they represent. The music is awful, especially when compared to Total Annihilation which has a soundtrack that rocks. I guess it just goes to show that rarely does a clone match up to the original, unfortunately I don't think that Total Annihilation is compatible with Windows Vista. It just serves to me as a reminder to do the research about a game before going out and buying.
 What the original SC should have been August 29, 2009
Yu-jin Chia (Cupertino, CA USA)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance is technically an expansion pack for the core game. In practice, however, it's a bit more than that- much like C&C Generals: Zero Hour was. This is largely because the meat of Supreme Commander has always been its skirmish/multiplay modes. Simply put, Forged Alliance makes SC a much better game- it adds a great deal of improvement to the AI, especially in terms of pathfinding, and makes a lot of useful improvements to units and the interface. As gravy, it also adds a campaign that's actually fun to play.
It is immediately evident that the AI has been improved. Enemy units are more aggressive, enemy commanders actually rebuild things you blow up, and pathfinding in particular is massively improved. I've still seen units get stuck once in a while, but it's a far cry from the original game- where sometimes ships or tanks literally couldn't even get out of their factory and you're forced to reclaim the structure to clear logjams. Generally speaking, if you order ground or naval units to go somewhere they actually get there now. They'll even take the fastest path and arrive in formation if applicable, so it doesn't take them a half hour to reach the destination. I can't stress how much of a relief this is after having played old SC skirmish.
In the original game, defenses were ridiculously overpowered. If you had half a brain cell and knew what to build, you could erect a nearly invincible base; this made it very easy to arrive at a stalemate in melee games. To a great degree this has been resolved in Forged Alliance, especially when it comes to experimental units. Experimentals are SCARY now, whereas previously they were essentially a waste of resources. Even solo they can crack pretty much any defense, save for one supported by other experimentals. Even then, they'll likely do pretty serious damage before going down, which means it's actually a good thing to go on the offensive now. This greatly improves the pacing of the game, as you're actually inclined to seize the initiative instead of turtling. A lot of units and structures have also been added, some of which are pretty darn powerful. They also add more distinction between the races, giving them unique combat advantages with special high tech units (e.g. Aeon get a T3 torpedo bomber, missile ship, and sniper bot).
The added units are nice, but there's something even better: a fourth faction, the Seraphim. Their units are quite interesting, especially in appearance, and they're definitely worth checking out. To do so you'll have to play skirmish/multiplayer mode, as there's no Seraphim missions in the campaign. In the single player missions (which are about as long as one of the original campaigns) they serve as the enemy. The plot is actually rather interesting, the levels are more challenging than the originals, and you start at the highest tech level. It's engaging enough that you might actually want to play it again as a different faction (you choose at the start) and there's fewer stupid instant-fail conditions that cause you to waste time and discourage replay. Those who have played the original game will likely find that the individual campaign levels run a bit faster than before, but this is largely due to the changes in units rather than any difference in map size or number of objectives. Additionally, you'll sometimes have AI allies that are actually worth keeping up- a far cry from the rarely seen and often useless assistance you got before.
One of the most irritating things about vanilla SC was the fact that you couldn't see jack squat. Most units didn't have a radar or sonar and had very short vision range, so you couldn't even see where enemies are. Things like air and land scouts could see farther, but were so weak and vulnerable that usually the moment you spot something they'd blow your scout away. The only real way to crack a heavily defended base was to go build a radar array in range of them, set up some artillery, and shoot into the fog of war until all the icons disappear. It was a pretty common situation to actually never see your enemy's base. Forged Alliance greatly improves this: units in general can see much farther, most units have radar or sonar- and all have had their ranged increased. There are also methods other than spy planes to scout enemy positions. Now when you nuke your opponent's base, you can actually watch the fireworks!
The bottom line is that Forged Alliance is much more than an expansion; it in fact remakes the game and does a very good job at it. I honestly have no complaints with Supreme Commander now, and really wish GPG had done this good a job with the game in the first place. Better late than never, though, and if you had even a remote affection for the original then this is a must-have.
One of the best RTS's in recent years July 30, 2009
Sceptus
Supreme Commander was a fairly decent game, but had some balancing issues, but this expansion, Forged Alliance, definitely set most of them straight. This RTS is definitely for more hardcore strategy fans, but it is certainly accessible by casual players as well. The matches can be really long, and the game really taxes your computer (don't use an old one!), but all these things are necessary to bring out the epic scale that this game tries to achieve. I would say much more, but I think that one should probably look at the official information for more details.
The one major negative of this game is that it lacks a good storyline and an in-depth single player campaign. Yes, it HAS a storyline and HAS a campaign, but neither are nearly as good as those from, say, Starcraft or Empire Earth.
This game appeals to the following type of player:
- Enjoys strategy games for the strategy element
- Is good at managing large economies
- Wants to see warfare simulated on a grand scale
- Is patient
Great Original Terrible Expansion July 8, 2009
N. Garrell (USA)
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Now in Supreme Commander, I would have to rate it as a 5 out of 5, however, this to me has to be the worst expansion to any game I have ever played. Now it was updated to fix some problems, but I have not seen any problems with the original Supreme Commander, but the one problem i had with the Forged Alliance expansion is the "Improved" User Interface.
The UI in the expansion had everything on the opposite side. An other problem I had was the mini-map. In SC the minimap showed everything needed in the same view as the main viewing area, however in FA the only minimap option available was a topographical view which was just horrible. You cant just completely rearrange a UI so much in an expansion compared to the original (SC)
Another thing that made me give this expansion such a bad review is that in SC, my computer, which is top of the line, could handle 6000 units with 3 tiers and with multiple battlefronts without lagging, however, in FA, the game lags after 1000 units.
The story is not that bad, even if there is only 6 missions, compared to the 18 missions in SC.
After 2 missions, I uninstalled the expansion because i could not take the game anymore, but i still play SC.
Since the UI and advanced performance is the most important features in a game, I would give this game a 1 out of 5.
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