Blog FeedA New Kind Of War?
I greeted the announcement of Chris Taylor’s new RTS, Supreme Commander, with more than a little excitement. After all, wasn’t this the mind that came up with arguably the best of the genre, Total Annihilation? The abysmal TA: Kingdoms aside, after Cavedog went bust and Taylor formed Gas Powered Games, this was what everyone was waiting for. Instead, we got Dungeon Siege, which, while a good game in its own right, didn’t go too far towards fulfilling expectations, unless your expectations included leading pack mules around.
Interviews looked promising; screenshots even more so. A new approach to strategy! Unprecedented level of scale! Three distinct factions! And, even more shockingly, the small matter of a story. Any sort of story would have been an improvement on TA’s one-page epic, but what we were presented with looked pretty hefty. Xenophobic humans, waging a war against their renegade creations and a hybrid race. Tasty stuff, made all the better by the pictures of the massive war engines at your command.
Now, if you can’t already tell, this is a game that’s going to end up in my computer as close to its release date as I can manage. Total Annihilation has always been my RTS of choice, and this creation, made in its mold should, at the very least give its brand of gameplay a fresh coat of paint and a chance to appeal to a brand new fanbase.
But the issue here is something slightly different. Most of the time, when a game like this comes along, we hear lots of talk about how it’s going to ‘redefine the genre’, something especially prevalent when a new Blizzard RTS comes along. Warcraft II, Starcraft, Warcraft III; these have all been simply refinements on an admittedly good formula, but they’ve never been exactly revolutionary in the mold of, say, Deus Ex.
And now, we’re hearing about how this game will leave all others in the dust. Maybe I’m just being overly skeptical, but I’m not sure how being able to zoom in and out really far radically revolutionizes the RTS as we know it. Effectively speaking, it simply turns groups of your smallest unit into a single unit on a larger scale and so forth. Barring some good tactical AI, it could end up being a rather disastrous mess having to coordinate battles on the kinds of scales that Gas Powered have envisaged. Ideally, what one wants on a scale as large as this game can offer is the ability to set out an overarching strategy and allow your units to take care of the specifics. Micromanagement would be hell.
The game promises a lot, but will it be any more than a rehash?
22nd July | Reply
Firstly, I disagree with you about Dungeon Siege being a good game, but I think that’s something I can pick on you about later.
I never played Total Annihilation, but I’ve heard and read a great many things about it, and I’m now anticipating Supreme Commander even more than Civ4, and perhaps even more than AoE3. I’m a big strategy freak, so that’s saying a lot. At first the screenshots looked a bit silly to me - the grass textures and foliage looked a bit dated, but since looking at GameSpy’s in-depth preview, I’ve changed my mind, and I can’t wait. The naval units in particular have me drooling.
It says the people at GPG have put a lot of effort into making it simple and relatively effortless to zoom in and out for controlling the battle at what level you desire, and I’m actually quite eager to see how they’ll do it. It’s something only the demo will really be able to demonstrate though (as demos do… thus their name), though I’d imagine it’ll be quite different in the full version with bigger maps and such.
A grand-scale RTS is what I’ve been hanging out for though. WarCraft 3 took a step in the other direction (less units, more micromanagement) and I didn’t like that. Supreme Commander, however, looks like my kind of game. The whole idea of the game is to do away with irritating micromanagement, and that’s something I am really looking forward to.
Such a big map size and so many units makes me worried about system requirements though. Dungeon Siege ran horribly on my PC at the time (and even after I upgraded it), so it makes me doubt the abilities of GPG’s programmers. I don’t want another fantabulous RTS that chugs along at piss poor framerates, ala CnC Generals.
22nd July | Reply
I remember playing Total Annihilation and, while I didn’t find it bad, I couldn’t quite see what all the fuss was about. What worried me more was the huge variety of units available and which you could add later. While I may be mistaken here, I’m sure that many different types of units will either a) make it hard to distinguish different units such that each has a proper role, or b) make it too easy to unbalance the game. Still, if the new one will work on my old P4 then I might give it a bash when it comes out.
My current (and only PC) strategy game is Dawn of War. While one of my biggest reasons for buying it was a desire to see my childhood love of the Warhammer 40,000 universe acted out, I’m really enjoying it at the moment. The detail unit level is very close to WarCraft 3 (no bad thing in my books as I really enjoyed that as well) but you get much more control over your units. Specifically you can choose things like the weapons load-out of your indivdual troopers (if you so desire) and this can have a major impact upon how well they do against specific targets (missile launchers for demolition/vehicles vs. flamers for weakly armoured massed infantry). The story seems a little pish at the moment but passable sci-fi stuff, although I understand that the main campaign is a little short. Anyway, it’s pretty much all good at the moment so I’m happy with it.
23rd July | Reply
I think the micromanagement might be along the lines of Rome: Total War, albeit only having a few bases. You just click a button to research what you want, and it takes time to do it. I doubt they’ll have resource harvesting in the form of planting metal extractors/solar collectors/etc.
The game does indeed look good. I can only hope they improve the 2d looking terrain, and create some good AI which uses strategy (i.e. ambushes). TA’s AI was pretty poor to be honest, even though it was a 1997 game.
Oh, the nuke looks pretty fun too.
1st August | Reply
I’m looking forward to this game for one reason: building a new base in each mission is stupid.
I’ve never liked the RTS convention that a new base must be built on each new map that you play. That is not how the military does it, so why do we do that in our military games? We have staging areas like in Iraq and Afghanistan, but those are controlled by the Central Command.
I like the idea of planet sized maps. I would like to make one or two main bases and create staging areas to mass troops for tactical assaults. I like the idea of having far-flung resource areas that must be protected. Supreme Commander seems set to radically change the way RTS games are played.
Chris Taylor says as much in his interview with Gamespy. Most RTS games are actually Real-Time Tactical games. The difference between tactics and strategy being, as I understand it, tactics are what you use to win the battles, strategies are how you win the war. I’m really looking forward to a game the puts you in command of the war, and you have to make strategic, as well as tactical decisions.
Plus, as others have said, the makings of a terrific story and planet-scarring nukes are pretty awesome as well.