johng Blog

SupCom eats multi core processors for breakfast. That’s a fact. But I will say those who experienced poor performance in the demo might want to see the difference in the retail release. While I can play for a long time with little or no slow down on some maps, the mission provided in the demo still runs like a dog in the full game. For me it’s the worst performing part of the entire game and as such it seems rather strange it was chosen as the demo level. It could be the textures, it could be off screen units, either way it’s not the best example of how most of the campaign performs.

Once you have the hardware in the place with everything working correctly you start to realise that the engine and technology behind the game is a significant technical accomplishment. The seamless transition between close quarters battles and the over head tactical map by just flicking the mouse wheel is incredible. This must have been one of the biggest challenges to get working and I can’t see this feature appearing in other games anytime soon.

This broadening of scale allows units to be vastly different in size. Tanks can roll underneath giant spider-like-bots while planes fly overhead and huge aircraft carriers float off shore. When these units open fire each bullet, laser or missile is modelled with full physics so if you have a mountain or unit in the way of your target don’t expect to automatically hit it or take no casualties of your own.

The tactical overlay helps manage all this. By just pressing the shift key patrol routes can be extended, build orders queued up or coordinated attacks can be scheduled. Add the simple and highly useful ferry ability of transport ships to the mix and even the largest maps can be tamed.

The engine is also highly flexible in the way in which you view the battlefield and allows multiple views per player. So I can have two monitors with two different views or even one monitor with the screen split in half. Heck even the mini map in the corner of the screen is a view port on the world which can be zoomed in on. Incredible.

I see SupCom as a long term investment. As new processors come out with more and more cores this game will look better and better. The developers are also keen to foster a mod community and already have a great online infrastructure set up with GPGNet that has many of the features of services such as Xbox Live (buddy lists, chat, rankings, clans, leader boards, etc).

It’s outstanding technical accomplishment right now with huge prospects for the future.