Supreme Commander demo: Third impressions
I already posted my first impressions, as well as my second impressions, of playing the Supreme Commander demo. Well, now it’s time for a synthesis. I hadn’t really played the Skirmish map at all when posting those impressions. Now that I’ve played it quite a bit (and talked with my friend who is insane about this game), I have some third (and maybe final) impressions on the demo.
The game seems to have two major shortcomings. One is hardware problems. In my first impressions I wrote about not being able to get dual-monitor support working acceptably. The problem might have been caused to my rotated secondary monitor, so I unrotated it recently and tried playing again. It performed a lot more acceptably at the title screen, but when I actually got into playing the game, slowdown issues started popping up immediately. The slowdown was bad to the point of unplayability, and I had to disable the second monitor after only a minute of terribly laggy play.
It’s too bad; multi-monitor support was supposed to be one of the hallmarks of Supreme Commander, but it just isn’t working correctly yet. My friend, who assiduously browses the game’s forums, says that a lot of other people are having dual-monitor problems and that it will all hopefully be fixed in the release-day patch. Right now, it’s just unacceptable that a top-of-the-line system, which I have, can’t even pump out more than five frames per second when both monitors are enabled. It’ll be so awesome to see a tactical overview of the entire battle on one screen and a close-up view on the other, but it just isn’t there yet.
The second major flaw is the artificial intelligence. We heard all of these stories in the previews about how great the AI was supposed to be, but it just really isn’t up to snuff. Even in Hard mode it’s easy to routinely trounce the AI. It doesn’t put up a good fight. It’s especially bad about defending itself and fighting for far-flung resources. These shortcomings have been mentioned in the forum and a gamer has already hacked together an improved AI that makes it more difficult. If someone without access to the game’s source code could make a better AI, why couldn’t Gas Powered Games?! In hindsight I suppose we should have seen this coming. Total Annihilation was lacking in the AI department (perhaps its only major shortcoming), and the really good AI was all made by third-party developers. I just hope GPG gets their act together and quickly releases an official patch that adjusts the difficulty levels or adds a few tougher levels, because I’ve already gotten really good at trouncing the AI on Hard with only a few games worth of experience.
Other than these two shortcomings, which can easily be addressed with patches, the game is awesome. I finally made all of the experimental units, and they are a great sight to behold. The AI even threw a Monkeylord and experimental airship against me, and they were lots of fun to take down. Supreme Commander is just hella fun to play. I’m eagerly awaiting the retail release later this month. Using the nuclear missile is especially satisfying. The explosion is so large that it takes out the entire enemy base, at least on the smallish skirmish map. I can’t wait to see how battles play out on the much larger maps that are shipping with the retail version.
February 13th, 2007 at 00:45
The hardware problems indeed suck, but I don’t think we can judge the AI just yet. There are several additional ‘hard’ AI’s that will be included in the final game. Also, if you let the hard AI that is included in the demo build up a bit before killing it, it can actually offer quite a challenge. This leads me to think that it may very well be quite competitive on the much larger maps. (The demo map is only 10×10, but the largest maps are 80×80). Also, the AIs are apparently entirely scripted in LUA, so expect to see some very good AI mods in the not-too-distant future.
February 13th, 2007 at 11:50
If it’s true that Gas Powered Games intentionally handicapped the AI in the demo, that’s bad. It makes sense to handicap the number of units and the available maps, because people will understand that demos don’t include all of this kind of stuff that the full game does. But it was not a wise decision to leave out the best AIs, as lots of people are going to totally trounce the AI in the demo and then not end up buying the game because they think it won’t be fun, when really it’s just that the demo didn’t offer an accurate picture of what the real gameplay is actually like.
February 14th, 2007 at 01:33
The demo was a completely bad release of the final game. The beta was a lot better and I can say for certain the AI is too. The AI on horde mode will completely destroy you, it knows how to harass, retreat, and perform surgical strikes. The AI in the demo is just the hard balanced AI. One which doesn’t really attack, nor defend.
The final game’s AI would be much better.
February 14th, 2007 at 11:37
I’m hoping you’re right, because I’ll definitely be looking for a challenge even when my friends aren’t around to play online against. I just wish GPG had put a more challenging AI into the demo. This one is probably turning some hardcore gamers off.
May 18th, 2007 at 01:14
It is a nice feature, though, and extremely useful with the large maps used in supreme commander. The game stresses large numbers of units, and moving large numbers of units can prove to be difficult. Getting your army to move together …