A console RTS that shouldn't be

Supreme Commander’s debut on the PC last summer was gargantuan. Ten years after the release of the highly acclaimed real time strategy game Total Annihilation, which was the only title that held its ground against the more popular Starcraft, designer Chris Taylor re-envisioned his prior masterpiece for the current age. It was successful, both in sales and ratings.

The Xbox 360 version was troubled from the start. Originally slated for release just a few months after the PC release, it was pushed back a year later, finally being released this last June. And while it makes sense that the longer developers spend perfecting a game, the better it should be, that isn’t so in this case.

I should point out that my favorite RTS has and may always be Total Annihilation, and that Supreme Commander is also very much adored. In fact, for those unfamiliar with our hardware reviews, all PC’s and Laptops we test are tested to see how well they run the game. With perhaps the exception of the upcoming Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3, there has been no other PC RTS that has drawn my attention.

That said, SupCom on the 360 is exactly the same as its PC counterpart, save for the interface. Gameplay mechanics, AI, unit names, storyline…all of it is identical to the PC version. This, of course, means that because the 360 is not identical to the typical gaming PC and the game is, there are going to be some problems.

Thus, framerate issues occur frequently when there are lots of units in play or lots of action occurring on screen. Which makes sense, considering the recommended spec for the PC version was a 3GHz, 1GB of RAM on Windows XP, 10GB of hard disk space and a mid-range 256MB videocard. The 360 is lacking in RAM and disk space.

Interface is also very difficult to manage. Because SupCom has so many different functions available, on a mouse and keyboard it’s easy to get lost. Hotkeys, on-screen buttons, highlighting sets of units…it can become cumbersome. On the 360 it starts out cumbersome and gets into the unplayable realm too easily.

How the interface works is actually very simple. All units can be ordered to do simple commands (move here, scout there, attack this) with any of the face buttons, but more complicated tasks require activating a scroll wheel. Similar to what players see in Mass Effect when setting powers and selecting weapons, the scroll wheel allows players to do everything that the specified unit can do. Which, of course, is a hassle considering the PC version was two clicks: select the action and where to do it. Here, it’s activate the wheel, find the correct symbol and select it, then hover the camera to where you need to perform said action.

In theory, it sounds reasonable for a console, but in reality it just doesn’t work. There are simply too many unique units and features in the game to allow players to adequately play the game without being overburdened by excess commands. When the scroll wheel has over ten different options to perform, and different layers to them, it’s asking very much from players to actually learn it, let alone use it.

Combine the overly difficult interface with severe slowdown at times and SupCom on the 360 has some serious intrinsic problems that beg the question: why not scale things back for the console version? The slowdown that occurs can be very heavy at times, especially when using many units on larger maps. And the way SupCom plays, you will want lots of units at all times, so playing is essentially asking for framerate drops because that is the nature of the game.

Hell, it’s not only framerate issues. The game will crash; the AI will become stupid for long periods of time; it’s basically pick your problem. It’ll probably show up. Frustration doesn’t even begin to describe the feeling of dealing with this game.