This is where the games excitement ends. First you have to build up Naval units and take out your enemies naval unit. Secondly, you have build up Air units to attack the enemies land positions. Fine, right? Typical RTS stuff. The amount of units it takes for you to kill your enemy is typically a 2 to 1 ratio. This gets a bit tedious and after a while you're thankful it lacks a unit cap. So you've build up your gigantic fleet and go after the enemies positions and guess what? They wipe you out. For some reason, the small rebel band is able to out maneuver and over power your fleet even though its twice the size of theirs. Its like playing poker and having a straight flush, only to find that the only other person in the game has a royal and you've gone all in.
Additionally the AI in the demo isn't very ambitious. Its very content with playing the defense card. It doesn't attack you, until you're in its territory. Sure I understand the desire to make the demo "easy" but it could at least demonstrate the full capabilities of the AI. Who wants to play a game where you're constantly attacking your enemy and they are constantly fending you off? NO ONE! Games aren't meant for Stalemates, its meant for victories!
Thats a perfect description of Supreme Commander 2, Stale! Similar to biting down on an old cracker, this game lacks the flavor, excitement, and strategy that more RTS's offer. Its simply a game of numbers and taking over your enemies resources. Building up a massive force and overtaking them. There's no strategy to it.
It does have a leveling system that unlocks new units for you to control, which is neat. Its very similar to WoW's talent system where you have to put set amount of points to gain access to areas where you can develop new units, but at the same time, why not have a support structure that you have to build that allows for them to be built? It would be far more cost effective, time wise, than having you send in your units against the vastly superior enemy like lambs to the slaughter.
Final Verdict:
Supreme Commander 2 lacks something that its ascetic appeal cannot make up for. It lacks fun. Its a rather mindless game that requires ridiculous time investment and large forces even to conquer one enemy. It seems to me that Square-Enix should stick to making RPG's, since they love the massive time investment system so much, and stay out of the RTS gaming arena. RTS fans, Wait for Starcraft 2 in my opinion. Don't encourage bad games from bad companies.
