Dawn of War II v. StarCraft II v. Supreme Commander 2

This is the first of 7 brief essays in a series titled Survival of the Fittest: the making of a legacy.

In this collection of essays, I will analyse what I feel is key to founding an RTS legacy, namely the following three components: Campaign, Gameplay, and User Created Content. The subjects of this analysis are to be the three games mentionned in the thread title. While some may disagree with my choices, I consider these games to be the three greatest RTSs in recent years. However, the ultimate goal of this thread will be to determine which RTS offers the most complete experience --which RTS will most likely establish a powerful legacy.

So, why isn’t C&C 4 here? Well, I had hoped to include it, but the fourth iteration of the series shot itself in the foot and was unavailable for comment.

 

SUPREME COMMANDER 2, PART I: THE CAMPAIGN

“In SupCom 2, Square Enix is going to help us tell a story.” –Chris Taylor

Prior to release, I was intrigued by Mr Taylor’s claim that SupCom 2 would feature character driven narrative. It seemed that perhaps Mr Taylor had finally realised that there’s a wee bit more to story than a beginning, a middle, and a conclusion. Of course, the only way to flesh out a solid character in an RTS is through the medium of dialogue. And I can only unfortunately conclude that Square Enix, the company that birthed the Final Fantasy series, rescinded their offer. While many regard Mr Taylor as a masterful game designer, no one has praised his story-telling abilities. And with reason: just like the battle bots in the game, SupCom 2’s script is mechanical and lifeless. An accurate assessment would be that the campaign is a mercifully short narrative designed to prepare you for multiplayer. From that perspective, the campaign could be termed, in the loosest sense of the word, “successful”.

The story’s premise is a manufactured cliché calculated to provide an excuse for pitting giant robot armies against each other: a long-standing truce has been broken because of the assassination of some key figure. However, SupCom 2 curiously eschews something that Blizzard has grasped since WarCraft 2: the player must be made to feel like he’s part of the plot. Unlike Blizzard RTSs, never are you addressed directly by any of the characters, nor are you submerged in a world rich in lore. Minimal history is provided, and you simply witness the action and events like some distant deity would. Couple the sense of power that SupCom 2 imbues in you with a strictly linear narrative, and you cannot help but feel like a disconnected god observing mortals squabble.

Meet Dominic Maddox, Thalia Kael, and Ivan Brackman. Tattoo their names to your forehead: it’s the only way you’ll remember them.

The other problem is that SupCom’s narrative cogs churn furiously, but fail to connect. All three protagonists have some sort of little background: they’re from different factions, they’re friends, they have families, Dominic is married to a woman of an opposing faction, etc. I suspect that Mr Taylor consulted one of those ubiquitous story-telling guides that encourage the budding writer to amass various factual anecdotes on each character. Because these characters obviously have more biography than personality. The only one to display any sort of individuality in SupCom 2 is your crackpot opponent William Gauge who, while doing battle, recites pseudo-Shakespearian soliloquies:

“My glorious kraken has faded into the abysmal sea!
For I have done a thousand terrible things,
as easily as one would kill a fly.
But nothing grieves me heartily indeed,
that I cannot do ten-thousand more.”

A first for war gaming? The talented Mr William Gauge comes complete with what many describe as a stereotypical “gay” voice.

In contrast to their nemesis’ idiosyncratic speech, the heroes deliver various awkward platitudes, for example: “So, what did you and George do yesterday?” Everything about the three protagonists is flat: their characters, their lines, even their voices; there’s no chance that anyone will ever remember the voice talent that brought them to, I hesitate to use the word, “life”. And then there are other signposts that you’re trapped in a subpar campaign, such as the bungled attempts at humour:

Coleman: “Guys like me eat guys like you for lunch!”
Maddox: “Well, that explains the foot in your mouth.”

Finally, there’s the endangered specie of the Supreme Commander universe: well-crafted dialogue, of which the following is one of the few remaining exemplars: “I’m either taking you in, or taking you out.”
And that line, I’m fairly certain, was lifted almost verbatim from a John Wayne picture.

Two things should be obvious at this point. 1) SupCom 2’s campaign is, more than anything else, a competent, if overly long, tutorial. And 2) Supcom is a universe that offers too little for you to lose yourself in it. I can’t see even diehards picking through the bones of its dull lore and writing fanfiction. However, despite its flaws, I did replay most of the strictly linear campaign, albeit unwillingly. It turns out that the game would (until the first patch was released) arbitrarily delete your progress. Needless to say, I was far from amused, as I was on the third chapter. I think there's much to be said for Mr Taylor's first effort, Total Annhilation: he took the heat for not including any missions. But then again, back in '97 he did not make the mistake of presenting a first draft --a first draft hamstrung by cliches, weak dialogue, and weaker characters-- as a completed story.

 

i think ill vote for war 2

 

SC2 wins, simply by virtue of support. blizzard supports their games and makes sure they stay fun for YEARS. they've also progressively added more support for user-created maps with every RTS release. even if SC2 was released buggy and unbalanced, they would be releasing patches to fix the game up.

 

StarCraft 2 naturally. First of all, StarCraft iz a Blizzard game. Blizzard = quality. Second, this is THE MOST anticipated strategy game since WarCraft 3. And third ... StarCraft rlz ...

 

DAWN OF WAR II, PART I: THE CAMPAIGN

“In Dawn of War 2, you drive the story forward, the story doesn't drive you.” –Jonny Ebbert, Lead Designer

Can an RTS’ campaign truly emulate the open-ended nature of an RPG? I would argue “No, it can’t” because an RTS is not so focused on developing the player’s character, or emphasising the player’s choices: in all RTSs to date, the player’s “character” (if there even is one) and the player’s choices (if there are any choices to be made) are subsumed to the gameplay. Furthermore, fans of the RTS genre seem to crave a canon version of events more than their RPG-playing counterparts, who relish multiple endings. Naturally, Jonny Ebbert’s claim that “the player drives the story” is one that caught my attention. In traditional RTS campaigns, sequence X,Y, Z results in C, and the player has no control over the order of these events. Dawn of War II lives up to Ebbert’s claim only to the extent that the campaign is not strictly linear: while there is only one possible ending, the player can choose to reorder the X,Y, Z sequence –although the reordering of this sequence does not result in new events, say A or B: the ending will always be C. So, Dawn of War II is a fairly primitive example of the player “driving” the story, but this system offers something that SupCom 2’s campaign certainly doesn’t: replay value.

(to be continued)

 

You will get heavily biased results here.

It's like going to a sports fan webpage about a particular team and asking them which team they prefer.