wful. Just awful. You’ll have to excuse the poor grammatical structure, but this game lends itself to muttered one word vitriolic complaints. Supreme Commander is a unique RTS that challenges many of the traditional conventions. Very little of its innovation can be enjoyed in this stumbling and poorly executed port. It’s a fantastic example of how controls can make or break a game. It also serves as evidence that not every game is best served by a seat at the bountiful console gaming table.

The opening missions of a campaign in Supreme Commander are infuriating, as the controls never seem to allow me to implement my strategies in the way I envision them. Clumsy troop movements are the order of the day for a long time until you slowly begin to grasp the control scheme. While I love the ability to pan my view in and out at a moment’s notice, I never found a camera position where I was happy. At extremely close views, units look blurry and ill defined. At a medium view, it’s hard to keep the camera from twitching and shifting. At a distant view, I’m just looking at icons – I may as well be playing a board game. Even selecting the appropriate units is a chore; completing the most simple of tasks is often ponderous and time-consuming. If you were looking forward to watching a smooth flowing sequence where units fly in on their attack runs or the excitement of a massive exchange of laser fire, I’ll save you the trouble. Constant framerate problems dramatically damage the visual experience, often making it hard to even move the cursor to where you want it as the game chugs slowly forward.

I was really looking forward to this release in the months leading up to its launch. But the reality of said launch is a relative disaster. The PC version of the game still comes highly recommended, but steer clear of this console iteration.