So at long last the universe is at some semblance of peace, the three primary factions are in an alliance, and everything is allgood and happy. Wait no, someone decided to shoot the new alliance leader and everything’s back to “I’ve got a bigger gun, bow before my awesome.” This is the kick-off for Supreme Commander 2, developed by Gas Powered Games and published by Square Enix, and released in March 2010 for PC and Xbox360 and September 2010 for Mac. The overall premise of the game is a violent flare-up of old hatreds and the work of three school buddies to stop horrible bad things from happening between the primary factions: the UEF, the Cybrans, and the Illuminate. Being the sequel to Supreme Commander 1, I had low hopes but I was actually very surprised, and here’s why.

To start off the Resource system was redesigned so that it retained the steady income but all construction required the total amount of resources to be deducted before starting construction. Also besides Mass and Energy they have added a third resource Research. This addition has changed the entire base development strategy from rushing engineers and buildings up in tiers, to instead building base and units while steadily upgrading whatever units you want to push for. This also means that once you reach a high tier somewhere you are not immediately amazing at everything. This basically means a player will have to choose a main method of attack or strategy and modify it as they go. All in all, this means that resource control is easier to track and both base and tech progression is smoother and less frantic.

As for the base itself turrets remain useful and are balanced well. A handful of well placed turrets can do a very good job of holding the base defense and yet they are not impossible to destroy or overcome. Other than that is managing resource buildings and the number of factories you have supplying your war effort. Bases will range in size, are easy to set up, and both easy or costly to have destroyed. Overall this makes the game play very flowing and hard to truly predict. Certain sides will have “standard” strategies that most players will recognize but there is also enough room for custom improvisation so that some very unorthodox styles of play can and will be seen from time to time.

Moving right along the units have been simplified and all units have a use of some kind and can be utilized in one strategy oranother. Simply put this means that almost every unit has a use and there are no extras that are there to “fill in“. As in the last gamethere are experimental units that are more powerful by far than the standard units or buildings. However while they can maintain a very strong influence on game play they are not typically game ending or all powerful, meaning all things have a weakness. I guess what I’m getting at is that overall there seems to be balance between not only the sides, but the units and the structures on a whole. This is not a perfect balance by far but is better than I have seen in many a game in my time.

As far as graphics go the game can be very pretty with good details on both units and explosions, however I can say that personally I have never been interested in graphics as I am in the overall game play and the progression or flow if you will, of the overall experience. However I will say that the game delivers a decent, somewhat 3d experience along with a decent control system to navigate said environment. Along with this you have a some what developed story line that is not anything amazing, but it is enough to be informative and will give reason to the various mad actions of certain characters, or at least reason to the actions of the regular characters in story until the end when it all makes sense, as usual.

So overall the game play is decent and rather balanced, with graphics that are rather nice yet not amazing, you come out with a game that is satisfying yet not demanding or very rewarding. It is decent or even good overall, with none of the standard bickering over game balance or video quality since it goes for acceptable over all rather than amazing in one specific area. Myself, I have enjoyed the varied strategies of the three different factions along with the varied strategies that are allowed for inside one faction alone. The game play is decent and not hard to understand along with the controls which are not hard to remember. The overall strategy can be simple yet the further you go the more complex it can become. Simply put, this is a game that seems to shoot for average or happy mid-zone as it’s goal line, with neither extreme success or extreme failure staring back.

Written By Patrick Keith. Edited by Tyler Clapp. All references, icons, and imagery are trademark to their appropriate owners, and author and editor take no credit for creation/ownership of these things, only the opinions stated in this article.