Supreme Commander 2 Preview and Trailer

[Wanted Bob]

Article: http://pc.ign.com/articles/990/990285p1.html

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEyOX4oGBmk

Sorry if this was posted before (I didnt see any threads about it), but I know there are quite a few people waiting to hear about this game.

Reading the article as we speak :)

EDIT: I'm hearing all good news right now. The economy is largly unchanged, the new tech system seems so much nicer as it automatically upgrades the units you have on the field, and the pathfinding algorithm will be great if it works. Not to mention a "new" race (the Aeon, but with completely different units), and a ton of new mini-experimental and experimental units (that dragon thing in the trailer? Thats one of them).

Colour me interested.

[CyberPitz]

Mmmm Supreme Commander. I'm definitely pre-ordering this.

[nurizeko]

What?.


This game is going to bomb.

There is SupCom and then there is every SquareEnix fear being realized.

They haven't even bothered to use the artistic skills they put into FF.


"A single bullet..." *GROAN*, more like a single bad revealing line in a pretty underwhelming trailer.

[CyberPitz]

I love how people have some futuristic knowledge on how things are going to work out. Maybe I should hire you to get me some lotto tickets?

[13LACKBISHOP]

That my freinds was an example of how not to make a trailer.

[CyberPitz]

Yeah, that kinda reminded me of the intro to the game...not really much of a trailer. They should know that it won't catch any casual gamers eyes unless there's lots of explosions and a lack of talking. Kinda like SupCom 1's trailer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHothxZQoWo

[Hazar]

yeah, the supcom 1 trailer got me psyched for the game. Hopefully they'll have better trailers closer to release for supcom 2.

http://www.shacknews.com/screenshots.x?gallery=12110&game_id=6664&id=135766

That's supposedly the first in-game screenshot. Once they get some better textures it'll look a lot better I think.

[mortiz-Redux]

Metal Levels making their return from TA.

[CyberPitz]

yeah, the supcom 1 trailer got me psyched for the game. Hopefully they'll have better trailers closer to release for supcom 2.

http://www.shacknews.com/screenshots.x?gallery=12110&game_id=6664&id=135766

That's supposedly the first in-game screenshot. Once they get some better textures it'll look a lot better I think.

Yeah, they mentioned that the game will be much more optimized. The Strategic Zoom will be reworked a little also. I wonder if those two points are going to go hand in hand a bit? Either way, I'm really looking forward to this game, and Hazar, you better play some of it with me this time!

[DEATH eVADER]

Ive already seen the trailer, I want to see some gameplay; where the f*ck is it

[Hazar]

Yeah, they mentioned that the game will be much more optimized. The Strategic Zoom will be reworked a little also. I wonder if those two points are going to go hand in hand a bit? Either way, I'm really looking forward to this game, and Hazar, you better play some of it with me this time!

I'll still kick your ass any day of the week in supcom D:

[CyberPitz]

You better. If I ever came close to winning, I'd think you were playing blindfolded!

[DEATH eVADER]

While you still have to focus on collecting mass and energy for your units and weapons, Supreme Commander now places a larger premium on whether or not you can afford a unit or a structure. If you have the cash, you can start producing units, which also build much faster than they previously did.So those people who were a bit paranoid about resource collection being removed completely blew it out of proportion

I'm glad to here this, in some ways its going back to TA, as tech 1 buildings were a lot faster to build than in SC


One of the ones that I managed to check out was the new Cybran Zilla, which took dinosaur DNA and mixed it with machines to create a brutal killing unit

Facepalm
I take it thats the unit that is seen in the trailer

[DEATH eVADER]

Well I just got to see SupCom2 on gamespot Live show, and what I can say is whoa

The tools that they use for making maps (similar to Demigod) actually makes the maps look more dramatic; they were demoing a UEF mission whereby you had to destroy a Cybran outpost, on what looks to be a spaceport hanging off a cliffedge with a nearby human settlement. An illuminate troop transport was shot and proceded to barrel-roll down into an endless pit.

The economy and energy system is still in, though it wont be as unforgiving in the earlier portions of the game. The upgrades will also be carried over to the next mission/campaign. The person that was with Taylor went on to put an extra two cannons and a SAM launcher onto what used to be a row of tech 1 tanks.

There is also a cannon for shooting units across the map, basically the unit itself is safely contained inside a shell.

I would imagined the video will be put up onto the gamespot (http://e3.gamespot.com/?category=latest&content_type=videos&tag=content_nav%3bvideos) in an hours time

[theotherguy]

This is bad.

Reading the article, it looks like they took out the continuous resource system (the HEART AND SOUL of Total Annihilation) and replaced it with a discrete one.

They also added TECH TREES and RESEARCH POINTS. God damnit. This is another major feature of the series, and one of the things that attracted me to it. It used to be, you could build any unit in the game you wanted if you had the right construction units. Now, it appears that they will force us to arbitrarily spend "cash" on "research points." This is a HUGE break from the TA and SupCom franchise.

But on the other hand, its not as bad as we initially feared. The economy is still in there. It hasn't turned into Dawn of War.... I am worried though--that it will turn into Starcraft.

[DEATH eVADER]

Well he is hoping to get it out at beginning of 2010, so Betas will be in at Autumn

But to be fair, if you remember how dull the maps were in the original SupCom (Land, Sea and Mountains of varying colour) and compared that with TA (Metal maps, unpassable gorges, acid maps and gas-bag planets etc); it looks like Gas Powered wanted to take the best map elements of TA and increase that 10x fold

At any rate I think the majority of people here who were privaleged to play both TA and SupCom will agree that the TA maps were a lot more fun to play on.

It looks like they also have pre-baked physics on destructable buildings too; a cybran building with exhaust stacks crumbled from the excess damaged

TECH TREES and RESEARCH POINTS

It could work both ways; for me I welcome it, as makes the lesser techs more useful rather than cannon fodder

[nurizeko]

The fat boy needs to be returned to his previous look and features.

Also they need to lose that goddamn dinobot.

And they better have the wide open maps of SupCom as well, I would get bored of these "oooo pretty wait this is a game..." maps.

[Wanted Bob]

Couple of days old, but for those who havent seen it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dn6D3OCyrU

Graphics look really nice as of now, aside from some low-res textures. Upgrade system looks interesting, though part of the charm of the original system was that certain units from different tech levels had unique roles, and you could go back and build units from earlier tech levels.

Level looked great, but I do hope they mix some of the old flat levels with these cinematic levels.

[Combine Hybrid]

WTF is that zoid dinosaur bullshit looking unit from cybran?

They need to get their shits straight and get rid of that unit.

[theotherguy]

Interesting.

The Good:
Much better camera controls! Cool looking map. More animation in the units. We still have an economy, it looks like. Upgrading looks like it could work a lot better than in SC1.
The Bad:
I'm very very disappointed in the cartoony art style. I hate gunships, and I really really hope that they kept fighters in the game. The new Fatboy is far too small. CybranZilla is the dumbest I've heard from GPG yet. Research trees. "As soon as you have the money, you can build the unit!" Please tell me Chris, if you don't have the money, can you not build the unit? If so, **** you-- thanks for ruining the legacy of TA.

[Hazar]

looks awesome

you can unlock the camera in regular supcom so it doesn't snap back if you want which they had on here. I like the art style even though it isn't finished yet and the nice 3d maps like demigod's but that'll mean there are way less community made maps.

I'm wondering if they're going to have some sort of "expert" economy control option to let you manage your economy like supcom.

[Wanted Bob]

We can only hope so. That was one of the things I liked about Supreme Commander. It was all about being able to counterbalance your income of resources with the expenditure on units, buildings and tech.

[CyberPitz]

Game looks pretty slick. I can't wait to get my hands on it. Only thing I can see going wrong with those upgrades is one unit for each race being the "be all" unit. The one you just upgrade to max and just keep going with it, forgetting most of the others.

In the end, I'm sure what they are doing will work it's way through. I don't think they would change a part of the game and not listen to what people are saying about it. That's crazy. We'll see how the economy works out towards the end, I guess.