stinky

the most over-hyped sequel of all time to the the most overrated game of all time. the fixed some UI gripes, and updated the graphics........ but it is if anything worse. the original had the excuse of poor hardware to run it but this? its almost the same. the gameplay is still over intensive and far too small. unit AI is almost non-existent. there is still no physics to speak of, not even three dimensional gameplay (no heights, just "land" or "air" a ranged unit can attack from the base of one side of a hill to the opposite side, firing THROUGH the hill). still massively restrictive unit caps. No LAN play, which even starcraft one had.. at most it is an expansion to the original, 10 years late and twice the price. all polished up but bland, repetitive gameplay.

a very overrated game. even at the time it was made, it had poor graphics, horrible UI, just plain annoying resource collection. ridiculously low unit cap (there are 20 people on the ENTIRE PLANET) terrible unit AI requiring silly amounts micromanagement. has a horrible case of scissors paper rock, made worse by the small selection of units. it has two saving graces- firstly its story is fairly ok, but this is fairly extraneous on a multiplayer oriented game. secondly, it has the best support for any game ever. but while lack of polish can break a game, lots of polish does not make a game

looking at all the other reviews, i have to agree the game cold be buggy. but not any more than many other rpgs, and it is fairly stable when patched. balance is fairly bad for PvP, but that's not really what this game is about. i am quite amused at people complaining about the AI, as i found it good in the original campaign and it just got better in the later campaigns (after spending a few minutes setting it up in the AI menu, which is admittedly fairly easy to miss). importantly, every mechanic is there in the spell/ability description, and all the numbers too, unlike that annoying trend recently.

innovate game play (skiing, jet-packs) combined with large maps, solid vehicles, semi customisable bases and deployable equipment. huge player counts (forget 8v8 or 16v16- it is usually 32v32 or even 64v64). very, very customisable characters (choose each and every weapon, grenade, pack) that can be changed between quickly (without even having to suicide like other games of genre). easy to use, very useful pre-set voice commands, huge scope for teamwork. it had it all, and is still (in my opinion) the best online game ever made -comparing it to everything to date.

time and time again I compare more recent RTS games to this, and it is still far more enjoyable than almost all. the graphics are dated, the storyline is borderline non-existent, and the AI players are fairly terrible. but it (still) has some of the best unit AI (queue up orders and customise stances), true 3 dimensional GAMEPLAY (no shooting through hills, artillery and ballistic trajectories matter-something that is SEVERELY LACKING in even current RTS) and what was a very active mod community. hundreds of units to a side (as opposed to maybe 10 or 15 in star/war-craft, many, many different units, unit types, weapons even in the un-modded game, and it is a wonderful LAN game, especially with (now) older computers.

just not worth it. the interface is terrible (it tries to do everything with just left and right mouse), the game itself amazingly boring with repetitive, blocky levels and only re-skinned enemies. latency is a big issue (at least in Australia) and despite being "free", you very quickly run out of play, as many actions (like changing level) require up to 10% of daily energy. spend a lot of money on this "free" game, or not worth playing