Introduction

From Chris Taylor and Gas Powered Games comes the highly-anticipated Supreme Commander 2, sequel to 2007’s RTS of epic proportions. It seems attempts were made to inject more of a story into this title, which sees you taking on the role of distinguished commanders from each of the three factions as the Coalition falls apart around them. However, between the abysmal writing, juvenile dialogue, and uninspired performances, none of it made a lick of sense to me. For instance, a mission that was also shown in the demo depicts UEF commander Maddox defying orders:

CO: The Illuminate are terrorist scum! We’re going to destroy a civilian colony of theirs to teach them a lesson.
Maddox: Sir, my wife is there. She’s Illuminate…
CO: What!? You’re fired!
Maddox: Nuh uh! You’re not the boss of me!
CO: Grr! You’re public enemy number one, and we’ll hunt you down!

I’m paraphrasing, of course, but that’s basically what happens. At that point, I checked the “Skip briefing” option, but still endured more contrived plot devices and predictable twists than anyone should ever have to. It’s a good thing nobody plays an RTS for the story, right?

Promising “brutal battles on a massive scale,” SupCom 2 has actually made fundamental changes to the franchise formula, presumably in order to appeal to a wider, more casual audience. Knowing this, it comes as no surprise that it was developed simultaneously for the Xbox 360, rather than being ported to a console more than a year after release on PC, as was the case with the first SupCom. Did that really have an effect on how it turned out, though? Read on!