Oh, I love the supreme commander series. I played it when I was a lad, and now with a much better graphics card, the game is more than I remembered. And it’s not even the rose-coloured glasses talking. I get a lot more of the nuance of the storytelling from the main campaign now, and the Cybran Nation swiftly rose from my least favourite back then to my most favourite now. I don’t want to spoil the story, but now that I understand a lot more of the struggles of marginalized peoples who just happened to look different or have different backgrounds or births, and have already really thought if the difference between a computer made of neurons and a computer made of circuits is just what they’re made of, the story starts drag you in. Again, attempting to avoid spoilers, “bring my daughter home” stuck with me, proving that in that universe, Cybrans have souls. And as for gameplay; it’s responsive and interesting, with massive armies you have to manage while trying to bring out the big guns before your opponent can. However, don’t get too hung up on building your experimental units to the exclusion of everything else. I once tried to turtle to get my fatboy out only to find Aeons can zerg-rush pretty well too. I don’t use the online multiplayer, so it doesn’t mean much to me. But if that’s important to you, than I'm sorry it doesn't have that. But to me, the campaign, the skirmish maps, and the LAN multiplayer was more than enough to keep playing, and more than worth it’s low asking price of a few bucks.
There’s no good way of summarizing how I felt playing this game. But if I had to try, I would call this game chilled, harsh, and poignant, at the same time. We start the game playing as a detective who had lost his memory, but “playing as a detective” is a very loose way of putting it as we ended up exploring this strange, sad, but yet, very interesting world; lost in what could be perceived by the inhabitants as madness, fuelled by alcohol and a history we don’t really know yet. The land of Revachol is full of people just trying to survive in the broken society they live in. Following you around is your partner from another precinct, Kim, who you slowly build a rapport with. And in this weird mishmash of ideology, beliefs and philosophy, you get to discover a little about yourself as you compare the various shades of grey. I read somewhere that dialogue is the core system of this game, and I tend to agree. The dialogue system is indeed the game's keystone and all other systems revolve around it. So, if you’re easily put off by something that is mostly dialogue and interaction, then you might be a little put off here; even though I’ll still heartily recommend this to you. The world and the characters are interesting, the person you’re playing is interesting, and the weird things you get to do are interesting. If I had to think of something I didn’t really like, I’d say the ending. I won’t spoil it here, but I think they might be having trouble tying everything up in a neat little bow near the end. But that doesn’t take away the journey there. A journey of self discovery, both for the hapless, amnesiac detective and for the player, if you would let it.
Maybe it's the rose tinted glasses talking, but I played it before, and I still love it now. I forgot so much of the story that I only remember the main twist; but on revisiting this classic, I got so much more of the nuances. The... "bodyguard making factory"... was a particualry dark questline. Although a lot of the modern features that we're used to isn't in this game, do stick with it. Also, get the fan patch. You have no idea how much better the fan patch makes this. This is one story you'll have to exprience to understand.
The beginning hours are bad, and you have to do your own research online in order to play this thing. Buttons and interface are non-intuitive, and a button which should cancel or exit is actual a one time thing like rename; leaving the exit to a small x on the top right. And please make it easier for me and let me call up the menu by pressing escape. Also, isn't it easier to click on your main building in order to enter it? You can only enter it by pressing the second button from the top right. And why can't I harvest one of the crops first? There could easily be a button on the right above or below the 3 crops that says 'harvest this one now'. AS is, a single button harvest everything, whether you want to keep one or not. I felt my IQ drop as I struggle to give it a chance. I finally gave up when I spent about 2 hours trying to get a 5 star 'Rkatsiteli', and I found the only way to do it is to nerf your judges. There were no combinations that gave me a 5 star Rkatsiteli when you invite 3 5-star judges. I also hit a bug where my screen goes blur as my tavern fails to load. I had to get out and back in again. This is lazy version of a Skinner box; and I don't recommend it to anyone. Please go play "Stardew Valley" instead.
I've been playing this game for month and I just clocked 250hrs. It was tough at first with the crashing and failures to run, but the support at GOG (not owlcat), helped me out, and this game now runs like a charm. (I hope I didn't jinx it) There're some parts of the ending that I didn't like as I thought I could have done something, but overall the story was great and it's more or less the same one as the pathfinder pdf modules I have, minus the companions (who of course, would be your fellow pathfinder players) This review might be slightly baised as I love Paizo's Pathfinder and I enjoyed the game; so I can overlook how a damn update last year made this unplayable. But talk to the support team, some of them really know their stuff.
I remember this game when I was younger, which is why I bought this in the first place. But on a 32bit win 7 system, it hangs frequently, to the point I had to install the Circle of 8 fan patch. But it still stops and hangs every now and then. After a week of trying to play the game, I give up. It crashes too often. I believe it is my Win 7 32 bit system that could be the problem. Maybe it needs a Win 10 or maybe it needs a 64bit system. I'm rating this as 2 stars because I remember liking it fine when I was a lad. I have no idea what to do with this now. Maybe I'll reinstall it later when I get a new PC. I wish I bought something else instead.
I tried liking this game. I really did. But after over 50 hours of gameplay, I have to say, I am not enjoying myself. The walls and doors sometimes will not load, making it seem like pavement and walkways (especially in Core City) are floating in a sea of black. The dock areas of Junkyard, SGS, Core city sometimes get laggy for no reason; giving me 1 to 2 frames per second. And the entire camp Hathor would hang and lag, probably because it’s one big dock. And the “Error: Zone Transition failed.” I get! God, I get like 8 or 9 of “Error: Zone Transition failed.” a day, after which I’ll have to load the autosave. And sometimes, after I get “Error: Zone Transition failed.” and I try to load the autosave, I get “Error: Failed to load the save game.” After which I have to quit the game and load it back up in order to load the save. The railroading (the pun is not lost on me) once you join the (spoiler) at the university is even worse. You can’t tell anyone who is coming. No matter what you do or who you join doesn’t matter at the university; even if you choose to kill everyone. You’d think that you could use your comms to tell Schteff what you see and tell him to save himself, or Georgis and Octavia (I told Eidein I needed to do something and ran off to tell Georgis and Octavia to get out, but I can’t do anything except buy stuff and tell them T(spoiler) guide them). The worldcrafting is interesting though. But it's hard to appreciate it when the world is freezing and lagging at 1 frame a second randomly. And Crawlers; oh God. I had to play a new character because I couldn’t detect them no matter what, and I still couldn’t see them with my perception at 12. They’ll always hit you and stun you. I ended up just buying antidotes and just ignoring them as they take chunks of me until they just stand and fight, or blocking sections with psi-forcefields. I’m not sure if this is a game engine problem or a PC problem, but I’m not getting a new computer to find out.
