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Rather than litter dakka with innumerable threads every time a want to share my views on a game, I decided to start this thread to keep everything nice and tidy. I have already reviewed a previous game, Cortex Command (http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/244126.page)

Because this is the first month, I'll start with two reviews just to be nice, the games for this month are Don't Look Back and Gravity Bone, two rather nice indie games

(N.B. Both of these can be found on the Demo CD from PCG issue 200, you'll find that most of my reviews will be indie games supplied by PCG)

Don't Look Back

The Myth of Orpheus is a heartbreaking tale, a young man whose lover has been prematurely taken to the underworld, grief stricken, he heads into the underworld to bring her back, never turning around to face her or else she will disappear forever.


Orpheus stands mournfully over the grave of his love, this looks like the end, but it's just the beginning...

This is a platform game where you fight enemies from Bats to Beelzebub in a quest to rescue your lost love. With basic graphics but good gameplay this is certainly worth a look. The actual storyline doesn't take very long to complete, making Don't Look Back a very good time killer.

Gameplay is standard Platformer stuff, move, jump, shoot. But in some places it can be a disgustingly difficult game. The positioning of enemies can be tricky and the Boss battles (even though there's only 2) are taxing. The game can have interesting and cruel twists, in one early section the floor becomes invisible, which means the platforms you must reach are hidden and require probing about to find. There are also the classic Platform tricks, platforms that fade in and out of existence, or crumble beneath your feet, falling Stalactites and moving blocks. Also present are the stereotypical Platform enemies, Spiders, Bats and Snakes. With Bosses in the form of Cerberus and eventually Hades himself.


Cerberus, a lot less scary in these graphics


OMG! Where'd the floor go?!?

Another horrid twist is that when you finally reach your wife in Hell, the game isn't over, you've got to get her out again, but now you can never face left, which means slight mistakes result in starting again, it can get aggravating, but when you overcome the obstacles it's very relieving, until the next challenge


It's a strangely beautiful game, in it's own way

After all this toil and effort, I finally got Orpheus and whatever his wife's called back to the grave where I started, but the game still had one last twist of the dagger



Overall Rating: 8/10
Graphics not brilliant, but that is what gives the game so much character, a very nice (if sad) storyline and smooth gameplay, time playing Don't Look Back is time well spent

I'll get started on the second game review, Gravity Bone, now, it'll be in the next post, But don't hold your breath, it could be a little while

Sigh... Arcade games from the seventies have better graphics than that. I didn't just spend $150 upgrading my computer so I could play what seems like a gameboy game from the early 90's. How about a review of something cool, like the Transformers Revenge of the Fallen game when it comes out? Thanks for the thought, anyway.

Maybe I missed it, but what platform is Don't Look Back on?

warpcrafter wrote:Sigh... Arcade games from the seventies have better graphics than that. I didn't just spend $150 upgrading my computer so I could play what seems like a gameboy game from the early 90's. How about a review of something cool, like the Transformers Revenge of the Fallen game when it comes out? Thanks for the thought, anyway.

You ask "How about a review of a cool game" and then you choose to pick a completely mediocre title based on a film that is nothing more than a shameless cash grab?

Mad props Pancake. I remember playing this game in the past, and it makes me want to go play Out of this World again. Or even Alone in the Dark!

The kids these days... don't appreciate what's come before.

Great review! Don't worry; true fans of the medium appreciate it.

Warpcrafter, I will mostly be reviewing lesser known indie games for PC (I changed the thread title to explain that these are PC games, shoulda done this before) The review for Gravity Bone will be up shortly

Oh, and thanks for the kind words Achilles


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Gravity Bone

An inexplicably titled game, as it has nothing to do with either Gravity or Bones...

Nontheless it's pretty in a cubic way, and in the background of the first level is some pleasant cha-cha music. The voices of the people will make you want to die, however and the game is short with only 1.5 missions (Mission 1 is so short I'm only counting it as half a mission) there are also quite a lot of loose ends, at the end of mission 0.5 you are awarded $3400, which cannot be used in ANY way


The Furnace Room? Ok

As Mission 0.5 starts, I sit happily in an elevator descending into The Saturday Club, a pleasant joint located in the sky above a valley. (I point out at this point that it is wholly possible to fall over the edge and plummet 15 metres before landing IN THE AIR, dead, but landed) I wander up some stairs and locate the Furnace Room, after a bit of maneouvering I locate a briefcase which opens to reveal a tape player which relays my instructions...


I've never been told to do that before

Beside the briefcase are a suit (to disguise myself as a waiter) and the drink (which on close inspection, has a small insect in it, this is important, remember it)


They don't look thrilled to be at this party, it's actually quite fun, trust me

I give the man his drink and he belches loudly (how uncouth!) and I am ordered to find the exit, when I do an information video plays, saying that the bug ingested by the red-haired man will excrete a gas which your clients will use to track him across the galaxy...

WTF?

Anyway, the second mission begins, I am in a strange, unexplained building, with a few people around, including this woman, who I want you to remember...


What an interesting book that must be...

Again I must go to 'The Furnace Room' (Does every building have one of these things?) and this time the briefcase gives me a camera and orders me to photograph 5 birds. I find all 5 birds who when photographed fall of their perches and explode...

WTF WTF?

Anyway, mission complete, I head to the exit, which, paradoxically, is where I entered the level, when I arrive almost everyone has left, except that woman. I press the button to end the assignment but then suddenly my own blood splats all over the walls and I fall to the floor. I turn and see that woman from before, she takes a drag and then takes my camera (along with my hard-earned bird photos!! Although why these would be valuable to anyone is beyond me)


She may look nonchalant, but this witch just shot me!

She breaks the window with a bullet and leaps out, I pick myself up and leg it after her, there is a prolonged chase through subways and at one point, through a dinner party...

WTF?

I finally corner my foe on a gantry, but she shoots me off, I begin to fall in slow motion. My characters life flashes before my eyes, in yellow (for some reason)

There is a woman in a car, the car then explodes... WTF?

I am in a car, being shot at by two men clinging to another vehicle... WTF?

The Evil womans face pops up, "Hi" she says in a voice to melt your mind, in a bad way... WTF?

Bear in mind that at this time I'm heading towards the floor as fast as a rock in humous

The last flashback shows a woman winning a running race... WTF?

Despite all this, i can't help thinking "How could you?"

Overall Rating 5/10
The Graphics and music are pleasant, but only really for level 0.5, there are some quite realistic environmental sounds in level 2, but they're not fun. Overall there really are just too many WTFs for this to be a particularly good game, also, it's WAY too short

Next review will be out in August

Nice reviews of games I had not heard of, keep them coming

Well, it's august children! And time for our review! This month, I present you with Spelunky an odd title for a great game.

Spelunky is a game where a suspiciously familiar treasure hunter must descend through caves full of snakes, spiders and cavemen. Yes there have been many games like this in the past, but Spelunky's defining feature is random generation, the levels are all randomly generated, you'll NEVER play the same level twice. Everything, from the names of the shopkeepers (who have oddly decided to set up shop underground ) to the little phrase before the introduction is random. This grants endless replayability, you can't plan how to tackle a level because you have no idea how it will be set out.


Save the girls for extra health, seriously...

Another key feature of Spelunky is difficulty, I have died EVERY single time I've played, and NOT because I suck, for once! This doesn't dishearten me, though. I just always feel that the next time will be the winner for me. Because nothing is ever the same, it keeps me eternally optimistic. Although it would be nice if it had difficulty settings (Easy, Medium, Hard etc)


Shiny statue, pretty statue...


3 seconds later...

In many games, we have a fear, of sorts, of dying. Why is this? I suppose it is because death removes our progress through the level. But in Spelunky death means a fresh challenge, as opposed to in other games, where a frustrating difficult bit means endless repetitions of bits of game you could probably run through in your head. The levels keep introducing new mechanics as you progress, such as in some levels which are shrouded in darkness, and you must light flares to see, there are monkeys too, MONKEYS!


Red Light districts, even caves have them, sort of...

Spelunky produces anecdotes like all good games, the time when you just escaped being turned into jam by that boulder, or when you 'accidentally' killed that girl you were supposed to save, I've probably missed out little bits of commentary subconsciously, because I really want to finish this and get back to playing!


Oh God, I'm sorry, Oh God...

Overall Rating 9/10

A charming Indie game with one thing many mainstream games lack, surprises. The lack of optional difficulty settings is all that stands between this and a 10/10

Just played Gravity Bone.

It feels really half-assed, but still somewhat fun. The gameplay was nice, but I think that after the first mission, the creator just threw the concept out the window.

Still, is somewhat fun to play the first level.

Next review should be out in a few days, Im going to get some screenshots as we speak, what game is it? Youll have to wait and see!

Dyson

NOTE: This game has nothing to do with vacuum cleaners!

I've been playing Dyson for some time now and I have found it a nice, enjoyable game. The basic premise is that you must colonise an asteroid using trees, these come in two types, Defensive trees release spiky spores to defend the asteroid they're planted on. Dyson trees create the trefoil seedlings that you use to make new trees and conquer new asteroids


Dyson begins by giving you a single asteroid and some seedlings, now go conquer the galaxy!

The effectiveness of your trees depends on their asteroids attributes. Each asteroid has a name, and three statistics, Energy, Speed and Strength, these affect the size, shape, and power of your seedlings. Weak seedlings are small, high energy ones last longer and Speedier ones move between asteroids more rapidly. This makes you think about how to use each asteroid individually. I like to categorise my asteroids based on their stats and use

Fort: Fort asteroids hive high Strength and/or Energy levels, I plant exclusively Defensive trees (Except the one Dyson tree that every asteroid gets upon conquest). They keep a strong border for my astral empire!

Farm: Farm asteroid have High levels of each stat, I plant exclusively Dyson trees to make masses of dyson seedlings to capture other asteroids and reinforce my own

Waypoint: waypoint asteroids stats dont matter, they usually have a Dysonefensive ratio of 2:1, These asteroids act as waypoints for my fleets of seedlings, as asteroids can only send seedlings a certain distance


Dyson's asteroids quickly become host to prettyful forests

You're not alone in space however, other teams are establishing their arboreal empires all over the asteroid field, there is the everpresent grey team, who are hostile to everyone, and other teams of varying colour, these opposing forces will try to invade your asteroids, destroy your trees and seedlings and capture them for themselves.


A typical Dyson battle, my blue seedlings versus the malevolent greys

You conquer asteroids by sending a fleet of seedlings to the target rock, you can send a custom number of seedlings, or the entrie population of a selected asteroid, there will be at least a single tree of varying height, your trefoil minions will deal with these by lasering them (honest!) and then following its roots to the core of the asteroid, reducing its core energy, when core energy is reduced to 0, you claim the asteroid and a Dyson tree sprouts.


Go forth, my pretties! KILL!

The entire experience of Dyson is relaxed, the music is calming, the sound affects all similar to a stone plopping into a pond, Even when you're under attack, the asteroid being assaulted just emits a red pulse, rather than some nameless person yelling "WE'RE UNDER ATTACK!" like in many other games. The only criticisms I can level at it are the fact that you cant pick your team colour, and there could be more types of seedlings to unlock.


My Empire expands!

Dyson will be available on Steam from October. You can download version 1.20 from http://www.dyson-game.com/

Overall rating: 9/10

Lovely, simple and easy to grasp, but with only two small niggles mentioned above, well, nothing's perfect!

The graphics in "Don't Look Back" are supposed to be reminiscent of the Atari/Intellivision/Collecovision era of gaming. Which, by the way, was the early to mid 80's, not late 70's. If you can't recognize such an obvious homage you might not have any business commenting on gaming history.

Of course your Transformers 2 comment makes me think you are just trying to get a rise out of us.

Thanks for the reviews and keep going after the smaller independent titles!

You can change your color in Dyson. In the opening menu click on the Seedling and there should be a color wheel that appears around it.

Oh! I wasn't aware of that, thanks!

Next review should be out soon!

Im sorry about the wait but my next review is based on a game I have on Steam. Which is currently not running properly for me, many apologies

New game time! this month we have a retro review of sorts, the game in question is the Star Wars game Jedi Knight Dark Forces 2 (It's a long title I know) It was rereleased on Steam last month for the measly price of £3.49, which is a bargain. JK remains a classic example of win in the FPS genre, it has all the classic ingredients; lots of guns, a relatively badass character, blastable enemies (and civilians ), Boss Fights, Secret Areas... But it has all these plus Lightsabers and the Force. The story between levels is told with FMV movies, which could easily be parts of a proper SW movie.


The Movies are a mix of live actors and nice CGI backdrops, such as Nar Shaddaa here

The gameplay is fun, Kyle Katarn (the player character) gains force powers which can be upgraded between levels, RPG style. You upgrade these powers using 'stars' which you earn primarily by discovering secret areas in levels. Whether Kyle turns to the Light or Dark side of the Force depends on how you interact with JK 2's Civilian NPC's amongst other things. Kill civilians and generally act evil, and you turn into Darth Kyle, and can use the mighty Force Choke and Lightning powers. Spare them and be a good boy, and you go to the light side and get Mind tricks and stuff... So Dark Side then.


The guy in the middle is Jerec, Dark Jedi and sworn enemy of opticians.

Multiplayer is a bit useless. It relies on ancient technology (because the game is so old) which you simply dont use anymore as it has been replaced by modern alternatives. There are two gamemodes, Jedi Training (aka Deathmatch) and Capture The Flag (or tiny floating robot thing, looks a bit like a Tau gun drone). Training has a reasonable selection of maps but only 3 or so maps support CTF. The chances are that you might never play a Multiplayer game, but this is no great loss as Single Player is so good.


Let go of your preconceptions, JK2's Stormtroopers are about 1000% less useless than in the films

The huge, fat flies in this otherwise remarkable ointment are the bugs. JK 2 is very, very old and therfore suffers from hideous compatability issues. My copy, for instance, fails if you pause the game more than twice per play, even worse in Multiplayer. 3D acceleration causes horrible, horrible screen problems and sometimes just loading it causes Steam to fail completely. These are too big to ignore and the only hope for us is that Steam get it patched up...


Overall Rating: 7/10

By all means an incredible game, but let down massively by compatability problems






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Oh one last note, Dyson's Steam release has been renamed 'Eufloria' but it looks much better than the free version

all the Dark Forces and Jedi Knight series were great!

I picked up the entire Dark Forces / Jedi Knight pack when it was released, a great bargain for sure and lovely trip down memory lane. A pity though that Dark Forces 2 and Mysteries of the Sith are so buggy and broken as hell.

Borderlands

The next game we'll look at is Borderlands. It marks a whole new genre of gaming, the 'RPS' or Role-Playing Shooter. Put it this way, many developers have attempted to make action-oriented RPG's (take Fallout 3 for example) but the RPG bit tends to come first, in Borderlands the action element firmly comes first, well, the guns come first, but I'll come to them later. Another of Borderlands defining features is it's art style, which is reminiscent of some kind of (gun-based) Graphic Novel. Developers Gearbox Software originally planned the game to be set on a gritty and realistic alien wasteland, but late on in the design process changed their minds and decided to make it more cartoony, thank god, the generally tongue-in-cheek humour of the game would fell totally out of place in a Fallout-esque world.


The robotic Claptraps are your tour guides in this game

The story revolves around four mercenaries, Brick, Mordecai, Roland and Lilith, as they search the planet Pandora for the mythical 'Vault' full of alien treasure, whilst using guns. You pick one of these mercs to play as and the others can be played by your friends in co-op (requires a Gamespy account). The characters represent another roleplaying aspect of the game, classes. Beserker, Hunter, Soldier and Siren (magical woman) respectively. The other main roleplay element is character progression, from level 5 (yes, you level-up) your character starts earning skill points to spend, first on your 'Action Skill' (A unique skill for each cahracter, Roland's AS, for instance, deploys a turret) and then on various upgrades for your character. Each merc has three upgrade trees to follow, Brick for example can be geared towards Brawling, Tanking or long-ranged Blasting.


Brick will kill you, in the face

Did I mention the guns? Well, Borderlands is full of guns, every time you find a gun (there everywhere, believe me) it's statistics are randomly determined. They range from the mundane, like a pistol that fires bullets that hurt things, to the legendary, like the shotguns that shoot rockets made of acid. The guns are colour coded in a system familiar to MMO players. In ascending order of rarity; White, Green, Blue, Purple and the coveted Orange. The other items coded like this are grenade mods, which change what your grenades do. And shields, which protect your character. These items (mainly guns) are used to complete missions, like any other roleplaying game with an open world (and GUNS) there are main missions and side-missions. The main missions are fun, but generally cliche 'kill-the-boss' affairs. IMO the side misssions are more interesting, ranging from scavenging weapons to finding missing people to.. erm.. cliche 'kill-the-boss' affairs.


Look! Look! a GUN!

If the missions aren't quite keeping you busy, there's always the challenges. Challenges work like achievements, only unlike achievements on Steam, GfW/Xbox LIVE etc. The challenges actually have in-game effect, even if it's only XP and the loot dropped from those 50 Spiderants you just killed. Throughout the game, you'll be kept sniggering at Borderlands humour. The early boss 'Nine Toes' (who also has three gentleman spheres, the game helpfully tells you) or the recordings of Patricia Tannis, who gradually develops a relationship with her tape-recorder (before breaking up with him and giving most of her underwear to a man who lives in a scrapyard). Even Borderland's hardest creatures aren't taken seriously, they retain their species name but earn the prefix 'Badass' (or 'Bad Mutha' on your second playthrough I'm told) It's hard not to giggle when a midget gets blown onto his backside by his own sotgun recoil! (It happens, believe me)


He had VERY cruel parents

All in all Borderlands is a brilliant, fun piece of software WELL worth the £30 asking price

Score: 10/10

Oh dear, it appears that christmas, me not being bothered and a general lack of interest has led to me neglecting to do one for this month, oh well

This game could really do with a stash and I'm shocked that it didn't come with one at release for all the weapons you find. Thankfully, you do eventually end up with plenty of inventory space if you make a habit of helping claptraps.
One thing to remember that was brought up in the respective Borderlands thread was that it is very, very easy to overlevel for your progress in the story by doing sidequests, thus making boss fights easier than they really should be.

Also, the game has a "playthrough 2" feature that allows you to fight through the game again with your saved character with all of the enemies, and more importantly, the loot, leveled to around 35-40. You'll want to get through this as fast as possible and skip sidequests here because once you beat the second playthrough, any time you play playthrough two with that character from then on will have enemies ranging from lvl 48-51, and the loot will be leveled as well. It's definitely worth it to skip ahead and get here if you want to get the best loot as fast as possible.

I really liked Borderlands, but as soon as I beat it I felt like I was "done" .. I took the game out and haven't looked back. I tried playthrough 2 with my soldier and it just seemed like the same ole same ole. tried each of the different classes started out up till level 10 or so and it just seemed boring, since I did it all before. I thought about getting the new DLC but I've been reading it's kind of tough unless you have a solid group you can play with, which I don't. If they'd do a new DLC like zombie island with all new quests and new theme/story I'd be all over that though.

I guess it's the same reasons i got sick of playing WoW. Leveling up is a lot of fun, raiding the same dungeons over and over and over got tedious and stupid.

I'm hoping they put together more DLCs though

The characters don't really start to differentiate themselves until level 20 or so because they won't have enough skill points to use until then, so you're pretty much stuck with a tedious startup.

Cheers for the input, Ill try to get another review up at the weekend

Battle for Wesnoth
Yeah, slightly cheesy title I know, but dont be deterred. Wesnoth is a solid, open-source and most importantly free game. It's a hexagonal, turn based strategy game, focusing on developing individual soldiers and eventually this results in battles featuring heroic veterans that have been with you since the start of your campaign, mixed with fresh-faced recruits looking to prove themselves. The actual mechanics are simple and easy to understand, click on Elf, click on Orc, Elf hits Orc in face, Orc falls over. It a lot more fun than it sounds.


My battleplans were ruined when my cavalry caught leprosy

The most amazing thing about BfW is the amount of stuff you get for free. There is a massive selection of campaigns, including an experimental 'post-apocalyptic' one for skilled players. Fasntasy lovers will enjoy the selection of races, from Undead to Dwarfs (there's even Dragons, Freakin' Dragons!) there is support for online and offline skirmish play and possibly the most user-friendly map editor ever concieved!


The Campaigns feature stories accompanied by gorgeous artwork

Battles are clever and tactical, combat bonuses (and penalties) granted by terrain encourage you to endeavour to outmanouveur the enemy and fight on your own terms (i.e. Elves get bonuses in woods, Mermen in water etc.) But I find it fun to develop the stories of your grunts over a campaign. At the start of a game, you can recall survivors from previous missions instead of recruiting new ones, the obvious advantage being their combat experience, but also their familiarity. I once spent a whole campaign concentrating on preserving an Elven archer called Lan (they get their own names, its cute!) he was rubbish and tended to miss a lot then run away, but when he was killed near the end of the campaign I genuinely felt sad. The beauty of Wesnoth is that it creates legendary tales such as the Heroic Knight who sacrificed his life to allow his kinsmen to outrun the persuing undead horde. Or the mage that single handedly took down an Orc warlord in his own castle. Every match is like a good fantasy movie.


So many campaigns, it really is more than you deserve, dont get it

OK, I may have gotten a little carried away there, perhaps not every game you play will be another LoTR 3, sometimes maatches can be a bit too easy, and the turn-based gameplay can feel a bit dated. But Wesnoth is fantastic, fun and free. The holy trinity of indie gaming. But, it really is more than you deserve, I hereby command you not to go to www.wesnoth.org and download it until you have proved yourself worthy!


DON'T DO IT!

Score: 9/10
Superb, that's it.

Mind detailing the post apocalypic campaign a bit? That's intreagued me

Ooo this game looks a bit like the first heros game. Anyways good rewie as normal, keep up the good work man.

well, I haven't dabbled in the PA campaign much, but it's basically set a long, long time after the rest of the campaigns and details the story of some tribesmen who leave their village after it is destoryed by meteors, IIRC.


Also sorry about no review this month but I couldnt choose a good game to review, we'll see what march brings *cmon Supcom2!*

Supreme Commander 2

A dozen UEF Rockhead tanks trundle towards my base, a line of my Cybran turrets, the size of office blocks, turn about and laser them to death before they can get a shot off. A formation of bombers swoop overhead, but they can't penetrate my shields and my Anit-air soon finish them off. I zoom out and take a casual look across the map...

bugger...

There's a huge land army heading my way, and I have next to no ground forces, having concentrated primarily on Naval units, but Im not that worried. A quick sojourn to the research screen and for 5 research points I grab 'Land Emergence Galleon System'. As the UEF forces trundle unawares towards my base, my ships come closer. When they finally reach the shore, long spidery legs emerge from their hulls and they climb onto the land. Within minutes the UEF are a smoking ruin and my amphibious fleet head on to counterattack.

This isn't any normal RTS, this is SupCom 2


[i]All the ACU's have been restyled

I don't envy the guys who designed this game, they had to create something to stand up alongside one of the most celebrated real-time strategy games of all time. Many of the core principles are the same, you still have an avatar in the form of the ACU (Armoured Command Unit), there are still 3 distinct factions (Aeon, Cybran, UEF) and games still tend to become a tense arms race eventually involving firing nukes at robots the size of mountains. There are differences though. The Aeon for instance, have no navy, instead their land units float on water. Also, where Supreme Commander had 'Tech Tiers' to organise its units, it's sequel has research points. This third resource (after Mass and Energy) is generated by research stations, your ACU, and by killing enemies and basically allows you to upgrade your units, unlock new ones and generally make the game fun. The most noticeable difference though, is the scale. Any SupCom veteran will be used to fighting colossal battles with 7 other players over a battlefield of hundreds of square kilometres. SupCom 2 is smaller and yes, it does feel (dare I say it?) dumbed down, but make no mistake, it is as much (if not more) fun than it's predecessor.


King Kriptor: For when everything ever just has to die

SupCom 1's most memorable moments came from titanic battles between 'experimental' units, the huge endgame units capable of wiping out whole armies. People loved the experimentals, and the developers listened. The first game had three experimental units per faction, one each for Land, Sea and Air. SupCom 2's factions have 8 experimentals per faction, and they've really let the creative juices flow. The UEF get a cannon that fires tanks, the Aeon get a giant robot that fires lasers from it's face, the Cybrans get a giant freakin' robot dinosaur! This is why SupCom 2 is fun, what it lacks in scale, it makes up for in pace and pure laser death. SupCom 2's installation is a faff, you need Steam, which elongates any installation unnecessarily, but thank god they didnt hop on board with the abomination that is Games for Windows LIVE. An upside to Steam is Steamworks, it gets Stats, Leaderboards, achievements, auot-updating and polished multiplayer. However there are some fatal bugs, I cannot review the campaign for instance, as soon as the intro movie stops playing, the game fails. I can only hope this will be patched later.


The Cybrannosaurus Rex: Why Cybran is now the best faction

The owners of the Supreme Commander franchise, Gas Powered Games, have tried something different with SupCom 2, they've tried to make an story-heavy RTS. They've even gone so far as to have it developed by Square Enix, of Final Fantasy fame. Ultimately, I dont think this was a good idea, I don't particularly care about the story of fathers and sons, brothers and sisters yadda yadda, I just want to blow s**t up, with dinosaurs. Another mistake they've made is forcing you to do the campaigns in order. Wnat to play Cybran? You'll have to beat the UEF and Aeon campaigns first. It is buggy, too. Certain maps have collision errors, there's the aforementioned campaign issue and the AI can be baffling. On one occasion, my AI ally built around 12 air transports, but no land units to trasport. In another game, where I had disallowed land units, they just froze up. We can only hope that Square Enix patch these up nicely.
Oh, one final note, if you do buy it in a shop, don't read the manual. They've tried to make it humorous, and at sometimes it does warrant a chuckle, but it is mostly very dad-like. And whose idea was it to give all the Aeon units stupid names? Wilfindja? Pulinsmash? HeeHola? did they get a baby to come up with these? And the box tells me I'll 'Question Everything I Believe In' right... But to be honest, you wont care about these when you're frantically starting up a half-baked Experimental to defend your base, or teleporting a strike force into an enemy base to take out his Nuke defence.

Score: 8/10
An unquestionably ridiculous and fun brawl with more lasers than a Techno Concert, but a bit buggy and unlikely to appeal to SupCom purists

Oh my lord... LAZOR DINOZAURZS!!! Well that settels it, Im getting Supreme Commander 2