Supreme Commander demo due Tuesday a.m.

[Player-X]

Supreme Commander demo due Tuesday a.m.

Playable demo for Gas Powered Games' and THQ's massive strategy game set for release this week. Exclusive details inside.
Publisher THQ has confirmed that it will release the playable demo for Supreme Commander, the highly anticipated PC strategy game from developer Gas Powered Games, tomorrow (Tuesday) morning at 9:30 a.m. PST. The demo will include an early portion of the single-player campaign for the Cybran Nation, one of the game's three playable factions. It will also include a skirmish map named "Finn's Revenge," which can be played on easy, medium, and hard difficulty levels.
According to the in-game fiction, the Cybran Nation consists of a race of cybernetically enhanced humans known as "symbionts" that seek their freedom from the oppressive human regime of future Earth, which is controlled by the aggressive United Earth Federation, a faction that has enslaved the symbionts for fear of rebellion. Meanwhile, the UEF and Cybran Nation will need to contend with the game's third faction, the Aeon Illuminate, a mysterious group heavily influenced by alien philosophy and technology that claims pacifism, but backs its claims with military might.
While Supreme Commander is an original intellectual property created at Gas Powered Games, the game is ostensibly a successor to the 1997 real-time strategy classic Total Annihilation, which was designed by GPG's frontman, industry veteran Chris Taylor. The game is scheduled for release on February 20. For more information on the game, consult GameSpot's preview coverage.

I've been looking froward to this since the beta, I guess I now have a reason to keep my PC on in the morning.

[makotech222]

seems a little hard for me right now. i dunno why im usually awesome at RTS, but i keep getting killed by enemy on easy lmao. ill try playing again when new vista nvidia drivers come out.

[Player-X]

I would think your army is too small, ever since TA I have found that it's better to have metal makers/mass fabricators to take p your excess power production, use multiple factories, never stop building even if it's just a tech 1 unit and know when is the time to tech up and when to just build.

[Cid Highwind]

*enters the line @ fileplanet*

Can't wait to test this game

[darth sephiroth]

finally! i just can't wait to try this out!
Although i was never that big on the original total annihilation game, i'm a long time player of total annihilation: kingdoms

[Player-X]

Although i was never that big on the original total annihilation game, i'm a long time player of total annihilation: kingdoms

So there was someone who actually liked TA: Kingdoms.

[Cid Highwind]

Hmm, played it for about an hour I think, wasn't wowed in any way. I like the way they deal with Mass and Power though. Because I have the feeling I don't have to be afraid I will be using up all the available resources on a map. The map is plain boring, a desert and I didn't really find the effects to be spectacular either. I send in ten bombers and all I saw were some low animation effects. Not really what I expected it to be when running a game maxed out.

[darth sephiroth]

it's a demo after all, it's probably just limiting you to teh cr4ps.

Originally Posted by Player-X

So there was someone who actually liked TA: Kingdoms.

you like ta:k too? i guess i'll say the same

[bositman]

I beta tested the game,so it's no surprise to me.Supreme Commander just like total annihilation does not rely on flashy gfx or anything.It's how strategy games should be,strategic.In games like these you have to deal with huge armies (bad move limiting the units to 500 ) where formation and surprise attacks actually make a difference All in all,I've preorded the game from Amazon and believe it will be pretty enjoyable.It's been a while since I've played any decent strategy game.

[Cid Highwind]

Well I haven't seen any water in the game, which is usually a pleasant sight. Also, haven't been into any big wars of course and the 500 units should give enough to gasp at. The thing is, I was struggling with the camera as well to get a decent view or closeup on the battlefield, limiting me to a default Red Alert 1 pov, not showing any details. Another thing I missed is being able to assign groups to CTRL+1 and stuff like that. I should give it a bit more time to let it grow on me. I like how you describe the game as being different from most RTS'.

[bositman]

Hmm didn't try Skirmish? There is a level with some water there :P Also mindu there are some levels which are simply MASSIVE.I mean,that big i've never seen before! About the camera,you do know about the zoom in/zoom out feature right ? (with the mouse scroll).That could even make scrolling obsolete...also there is a great feature of split screen,where you can split the screen in 2 halfs vertically (dunno if they put horizontally as well) and e.g. control your construction in one and see how the war goes in the other

[Cid Highwind]

Yup, the zooming in and out is done really well, in fact the whole overlay reminded me of Homeworld, which was also Massive with a capital M. I read the game also supports dual monitor setups and uses it as more than just a gimmick. Unfortunately I'm limited to a 1024*768 CRT monitor as 60hz gives me a headache, so I'm pretty limited in that aspect. I found the screen minus gui/hud pretty small already. Definitely a game where I would recommend 1280*1024 or a nice widescreen equivalent.

[Player-X]

I think the zooming system was inspired by Black and White 2's camera.

[Cid Highwind]

Never played Black and White, but it felt a bit like Brothers in Arms without the pause, or like I said, Homeworld. The thing is, I felt constraint by the fact that the camera would go back to it's default position after I had panned it around. What I was looking for was an intuitive way of 360 degree control, but it felt more like these old games where north was up and where buildings have no backside you're ever going to see, kinda like Settlers 2 (10th Anniversary).

Then again, I'll give it another testrun this afternoon.

[cyclonmaster]

I'm playing it now. Very addicted

[darth sephiroth]

Originally Posted by Cid Highwind

Well I haven't seen any water in the game, which is usually a pleasant sight. Also, haven't been into any big wars of course and the 500 units should give enough to gasp at. The thing is, I was struggling with the camera as well to get a decent view or closeup on the battlefield, limiting me to a default Red Alert 1 pov, not showing any details. Another thing I missed is being able to assign groups to CTRL+1 and stuff like that. I should give it a bit more time to let it grow on me. I like how you describe the game as being different from most RTS'.

i think there was some water in the screenshots in the link as well.

[Cid Highwind]

True, I've seen some in a gaming magazine as well, and judging from those it looks really nice. I just want to see how it looks on my pc, so far my X1950pro didn't really break a sweat in these minor skirmishes. It runs less hot that some 5 year old games :P

[darth sephiroth]

five year old games burn modern computers, because modern computers hate 2D graphics

[Cid Highwind]

Hehe, well after being in a somewhat bigger fight with the Skirmish mode I can say this game requires quite the hardware, I think it's my CPU that was choking when I started to move a large army. The water looks really convincing imo and I think this is a game which has a lot of depth. I still need to find out if I can use battle formations or not. Grouping is one thing, but using those groups effectively is a whole different thing.

[Player-X]

Anyone else find using the "coordinated attack" feature really helps win battles?