Even the best game has some chinks in its armor. SupCom seemed like the rare exception, but there is one thing that soon came to light: naval pathfinding. Granted, big ships don’t turn on a dime, but it is incredibly frustrating to need naval cannon support ASAP, only to have your ten perfectly capable ships not move at all because they’re stuck in some kind of mathematical gridlock further up the canal, except the three farthest away – who of course sets full sail in the OPPOSITE direction.
I suppose the logic is that they’re seeking an alternate route around the whole damn continent, but given the size of the maps that’d take about 10-15 mins. Still, this is a case where prudent math and realism should yield to playability.
Another minor downside is that it’s designed for the gaming rig of the future. That makes perfect sense in a way, except it’s a tad annoying for us who can’t blow five grand on the latest and greatest today. I tested the game on an AMD 4200+ dual core, twin nVidia 7600 GT 512 Mbs (SLI) and 1 Gb RAM – all well above minimum AND recommended specs. But sure enough, stuttering rears its ugly head when you’re running four players with a couple hundred units each.
Graphics, sound and such
It’s not a “pretty” game per se. In fact, you won’t spend any time fully zoomed in due to the intense action so you’ll spend most of your time commanding an army of ant-sized bots and/or hordes of little map symbols. Furthermore, the interface is quite chunky. Even on a 19 inch widescreen, you get a slightly claustrophobic feeling when there’s a battle raging but most of it is obscured by unit reports popping up at the bottom and headquarters issuing new orders in the top left corner.
But overall, the graphics are functional and fits the environment like a glove. Fancy, overproduced graphics would have made it an eye-killing mess. Any simpler and it’d be like a fugly turn-based hex strategy game. Thank heavens nobody came up with the idea of Manga graphics.
The voice acting is generally good, although a few of the actors try a little too hard and come across as having abdominal discomfort rather than being badass. Explosions and gunfire – 99% of the sounds you’ll find in SupCom – are satisfying, especially the awesome nuke.
