Maybe it's the way the genre's grown more complex, maybe it's a character flaw on my part, but I haven't been able to get deep into a real-time strategy game since the early days of Command & Conquer. That said, it's hard to deny the impressive technology that Gas Powered Games brought to Supreme Commander, an RTS that valued scale over just about everything else. We got to see its upcoming sequel, the aptly named Supreme Commander 2, behind closed doors at Square Enix's E3 booth, and it seems to be refining the formula and improving the technology in some smart ways.
The first and most obviously improved aspect of SupCom2 is the environment. The maps in the original were pretty huge, but they were also kind of lacking in detail and character. This is certainly not the case for the sequel, and the map we were shown featured a terrific sense of verticality, with a futuristic city built into the side of a huge red-rock cliff with several towering mesas nearby. The game still appeared to operate on a relatively flat plane, making it seem like the map changes were mostly for show, but it left an impression nonetheless.
The art style for SupCom2 is being refined in general, with what we saw looking a little less grim and a little more fantastical. Not to say that the first Supreme Commander didn't have some crazy, ridiculous stuff, but this one definitely looks to go further. One of the things that gave Supreme Commander's sense of scale any meaning were the massive experimental units, and we were told that there will be over 25 experimentals in SupCom2, in both mini and major forms. We got to see a couple of the major experimentals in action, including a giant, lumbering humanoid robot and what Taylor himself just described as a robot dinosaur, as well as a mini, which came in the form of a unit cannon that you could use to launch a unit immediately into the action from your base.
SupCom2 will also take a few plays from Demigod, the last game that Gas Powered Games brought to market, most apparently in the research tree. In typical RTS fashion you'll collect resources to pay for access to new technology, as well as upgrades for existing unit types. There will also be a system in place where you'll earn points by attacking your enemy that you can use in a similar fashion. It sounds like the net effect of this is that you can either turtle up or play aggressively and still get access to the cool toys.
What probably shocked and impressed me most about SupCom2 was the performance. The game was running a crazy resolution of 1920 by 1080 on a machine that we're told was decidedly less than cutting edge, and even with dozens of units getting into, the frame rate was almost unnervingly smooth. It sounds like a lot of this performance will come from the ways Gas Powered Games is increasing unit detail while reducing the number of polygons they use, as well as some new pathing technology. However they're doing it, it seems to be working.
In addition to the PC version that we were being shown, Supreme Commander 2 is coming to the Xbox 360, with Taylor stating that the controls are being radically overhauled. It'll still use the basic radial menu concept, but it sounds like many lessons were learned from the 360 version of the original Supreme Commander.
Considering how insular RTS games have become over the years, I think it speaks volumes that Supreme Commander 2 was able to impress an outsider like myself. Supreme Commander 2 is currently set for a 2010 release.