Supreme Commander 2 demo on Steam

By Robert Purchese Published 25 February, 2010

Game using Steamworks tools.

There's a free Supreme Commander 2 demo on Steam that you can play providing your PC meets the listed system requirements.

Publisher Square Enix released the demo alongside an announcement that Supreme Commander 2 will support Steamworks - Valve's handy set of developer tools.

Steamworks has been a bone of contention among digital distributors in the past. Direct2Drive, Impulse and Gamersgate all refused to sell Modern Warfare 2 because the game used Steamworks. Games don't come more high-profile than Modern Warfare 2, which suggests those sites may also boycott Supreme Commander 2 if their grievances haven't been addressed.

The Steamworks tool inevitably pushes players towards Steam at one point or another, no matter which digital distributor they bought the game from. But that shouldn't matter to you. And Valve doesn't care.

All that really matters is Supreme Commander 2 and the pedigree of developer Gas Powered Games. The first Supreme Commander was great, and the sequel is shaping up interestingly.

Check out our recent hands-on impressions of Supreme Commander 2 while your demo downloads.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (29) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • ignatiusjreilly #1 2 years ago

    So, will/would Get Games refuse to stock SupCom 2 also?

    Come on, give us some insider insight ;)
    Edited by 2 at 25/02/10 @ 10:12

  • cianchristopher #2 2 years ago

    I'd imagine Get Games will be selling it - they're selling Napoleon: Total War, aren't they? That game uses Steamworks too (as did Serious Sam HD, and Aliens vs. Predator)...

  • Roarrr #3 2 years ago

    I tried the demo this morning on steam but it didn't work lol major gfx issues, black screen, washing.

    I have a 4ghz i7, 9gb ddr3 X58, GTX285o/c, raid etc. and supreme commander 2 demo is the first thing that doesn't work on it. I know it's not my pc that's for sure, so disappointed. Perhaps there's some force nvidia setting that it doesn't like. Needless to say I won't be ordering. The first one had some bugs in it too.

  • Saxo #4 2 years ago

    Tryed it and i liked it, good with some more old school rts. Not that i dont like DoW 2 and the like, but sometimes some good old base building fun is needed :p. Also had no problem running the game at all, with high setting and 1920x1080.

  • Ryboy #5 2 years ago

    @ N@

    Why would you 'absolutely refuse to have Steam' on your PC?

  • Benno #6 2 years ago

    cant wait to try this!

  • KDR_11k #7 2 years ago

    Just shows you how irrelevant the other download platforms really are if they can boycott a game and nobody notices.

  • Sunyavadin #8 2 years ago


    Why would you 'absolutely refuse to have Steam' on your PC?

    Because by doing so you contribute in a small way towards the acceptance of increasingly draconian DRM (I'm looking at YOU C&C4 and ACII) and the gradual push by publishers to eliminate the second hand sales which are the main source of income for most retailers, further justifying the move to eliminate the retailer altogether, which leads to economic damage, unemployment, and a situation where publishers can charge any price they want for their products as nobody has any alternative.

    It's a gradual trend towards monopolistic practices which Steam is the most successful pusher of so far, due to them being very sneaky with it.

  • Thedni #9 2 years ago

    Liking the demo so far!

    I am right in thinking that a certain Mr Nolan North voices the main character in this?
    Edited by 1 at 25/02/10 @ 21:59

  • hiddenranbir #10 2 years ago

    Another steam lock in...sigh...

    Valve are the gamer's Apple? ;)

    I liked it when Steam just delivered games to my PC, now it wants go further.



  • sneetch #11 2 years ago

    @KDR_11k
    Just shows you how irrelevant the other download platforms really are if they can boycott a game and nobody notices.

    More like it just goes to show how irrelevant their boycotts are: if you can't get a game on one platform but you can get it from Steam why would you care? Just buy it from Steam, especially as all games tend to sell at the exact same price. This is the same as Gamestop refusing to sell a game that the GAME right next door has in-stock. Why should you care?

    Also, (and this is not directed at you) it's not a monopoly unless you can control the market. Steam doesn't and cannot control the market: developers aren't in any way forced into using Steam. Games can and are still developed to be able to run independently of any of these download services and they (Valve) have no way to stop that (nor do I believe they have any desire to try). Steam however provides a lot of useful services and features that other sellers don't and is the most successful digital download store. Being successful is not the same as being a monopoly.

    The other digital download stores would do well to try to offer better services rather than (incorrectly) cry "monopoly" the entire time.
    Edited by 1 at 25/02/10 @ 12:51

  • Sunyavadin #12 2 years ago



    I liked it when Steam just delivered games to my PC, now it wants go further.

    That's the thing, as an optional download service, I'm okay with it.

    Forcing it to be in the versions released on competitors' systems is a problem.
    Putting it in boxed copies of games is a problem.

  • Kain201 #13 2 years ago

    The Demo seems to use your Steam Account information. I could see my account name and picture in the menu.

  • Bertie Verified Senior Staff Writer, Eurogamer.net #14 2 years ago

    Sorry, last line wasn't supposed to be there.

  • glottis0 #15 2 years ago

    @hiddenranbir "Valve are the gamer's Apple? ;) "

    That's an interesting idea. I think they are, but I like their services/products in the same way I like apple's.

    On the plus side, everything is standardised, easy to buy, nice to use, and *just works*.
    On the minus side, you have to put up with their arrogance - "This is how we think it should work - do it this way or f**k off".

    Overall I think it's worth it 9/10 times.

  • ChthonicEcho #16 2 years ago

    Because by doing so you contribute in a small way towards the acceptance of increasingly draconian DRM (I'm looking at YOU C&C4 and ACII)...

    What the hell are you on about? Steam's DRM is simple - have Steam running in the background as you play. It doesn't boot you out of the game if you lose connection; hell, you can even play without an Internet connection. Steam Store always gives you a disclaimer if a game has 'draconian DRM', warning you that the game uses 3rd Party DRM and describes it.

    The only real issue with Steam is the pricing. Instead of paying less because companies save up on various costs related to putting the game on the shelf in retail, you pay more for the convenience of having a vast catalogue of games at your fingertips. The logic of businessmen, eh?

    As for Steam's DRM, people need to move on. It's not 2005, the craze of complaining about the implications of using Steam has passed.

  • ignatiusjreilly #17 2 years ago

    I think he's complaining about the 3rd party DRM (although I don't really know what that has to do with Valve), rather than Steam's.

    I think most people would be happy if all games used the type of DRM we see on Valve/Steam games.

  • Sunyavadin #18 2 years ago

    It's more that as general acceptance is gained for a system where you have their proprietary software running in the background is gained, everyone is jumping on the bandwagon, and the majority are doing more harm than good because they don't think it through. The faster people take things like this up, the faster competitoors want to bring theirs out, and the less well they plan them.

  • Ryboy #19 2 years ago

    @ Sunyavadin

    I could not disagree with you more strongly. The high street retailers can go and fucking burn to the ground for all I care. They give nothing to the games industry other than making bollocks offers like "buy Modern Warfare 27 from us and get a free Modern Warfare 27 limited edition bin". And before you all start, no I dont care about the unemployment and all that shite, it isn't a real job anyway. Haha, bring on the abuse...

    This has turned into a rant because ChthonicEcho basically said what I wanted to say before I could! Well done squire.

    I have no problem with DRM, I buy my games and play them quite happily thank you very much. People need to get over themselves, and stop calling Steam a monopoly. I mean it's pathetic really. Valve and Steam have done more for the PC than you even realise and, if anything, you should be thankful.
    Edited by 1 at 25/02/10 @ 18:38

  • Unknown27 #20 2 years ago

    Leaving the whole Steam issue alone for the time being, what does everyone think about the fisher price colour schemes on the units?

    They look ridiculous! What's with the whole yellow fascination? Blue and yellow for the UEF and black and yellow for the Cybran! It actually looks worse than the original!

    Hoping to god this is just in the demo. :(
    Edited by 1 at 25/02/10 @ 19:46

  • j-bo #21 2 years ago

    Must admit it seems like the game has been dumbed down, a lot, it just feels like, hmm i dont know, things dont have a cause and effect anymore? as in resources and certain units just dont have the weight attached to them from the first game...

    Apart from the tech tree, there didnt feel like much of an upgrade to it. The sp campaign is horrible - the voice acting is really, really dated

  • Schiraman #22 2 years ago

    Ugh. Have just played the demo and it's truly horrible. It looks worse than SC, it feels very dumbed-down (most notably in terms of the economy, which is surely *the* key feature of TA/SC) and the presentation, story and dialog are dreadful.

    It's actually bad enough that's it worth downloading just to see how bad it is. And because it will save you buying the game and being massively disappointed then instead...

  • j-bo #23 2 years ago

    @Schiraman

    Exactly..

  • Sunyavadin #24 2 years ago

    As I've been saying for some time now: It's going to be like MW2.

    A massive success because it appeals to a larger range of players than its predecessor, but offering less of what the fans liked so a large portion of them will return to the previous game shortly after release. Most of my friends list were playing MW2 the week it came out, half of them, mainly ones who played CoD4 a lot before MW2 went back to playing CoD4 within a month.

    Which isn't a problem for the publisher when you've expanded your playerbase so much that the original players are expendable.

  • Stop-gap #25 2 years ago

    Dear fan base,
    Fuck you. You are not wanted and will not be missed.
    We will continue down the path of cretinous simplicity for simplicity's
    sake with each title until you require only the mental capacity commonly
    found in a new born chimp which has fallen straight from the tree and landed
    on its head.
    Your constant desire for complex features and careful design is a drain
    on the scant funds we need to hire TOP NOTCH actors and writers required
    to "flesh out" the story and make you "connect" with "characters", which
    we all know is what separates a mediocre game from a chart-topper.
    We're leaving now to go and fleece 360 owners looking for a RTS that
    doesn't suck.
    Love,
    Squenix & GPG.

    PS - if you were planning on modding our game, you can't, haha. Go die in a fire.

  • Buran #26 2 years ago

    @Sunyavadin:

    Despite what media and the developer said, Modern Warfare 2 was a massive failure IN PC. Not only did sell a lot less than COD 4 (far less than a million), but also the popularity of the online falls way behind the COD 4 -and even COD 2 numbers-, with a 50% reduction of the community after only 4 months.

    In fact, MW 2 was more pirated than COD 4, has more hacks, has less people playing it, far worse infrastructure -bad ping values, failures in connection, horrible matchmaking- and no future due the lack of community support, dedicated servers and mods to improve the contents.

    I support DRM systems (StarForce, SecuROM, Battle.net 2.0...) except Steam, because I find intrusive the Steam client and I'm not interested in Valve games anymore.

  • orpheus #27 2 years ago

    For cryin out loud quit whining about Steam and just tell those of us who can't access the demo whether it's any good or not!! I don't give two shits about the voice acting, what's the GAME like? :D

  • George-Roper #28 2 years ago

    For cryin out loud quit whining about Steam and just tell those of us who can't access the demo whether it's any good or not!! I don't give two shits about the voice acting, what's the GAME like? :D

    You will care when you hear it.

    Kinda hard to play the game and not hear it, unless you don't have any sound on. I don't think it's possible to 'mute' the bastards.

  • m0ngy #29 2 years ago

    From playing the demo Sup Com 2, the latest Chris Taylor game would appear to be a complete piece of sh!t. It has very little of the fantastic - COMPLEX - RTS gameplay that made TA & SupCom so awesome. Slightly improved graphics (maybe?) and smoother unit AI (those planes do track well, if totally unrealistically) does NOT make up for a lack of units generally, poor gameplay, lack of perspective, and total inability to approach the game laterally, to make of it as you like. This is gaming by numbers, for n00bs who need (and like) to read the booklet. Clearly, SupCom 2 has been developed for 10 year old kids to play on the 360, PC players be damned. Let me tell ya Chris, REAL gamers, PC gamers, don't give a FUCK about storyline in an RTS game!! Did the developers bother asking any hardcore RTS players what they wanted? We want HUGE maps, HUGE tech trees, MULTIPLE tech levels (incorporating ALL units, buildings, and defensive structures), HUNDREDS of DIFFERENT units able to exploit weaknesses in the enemies defensive line (another important feature made redundent), and HUGE skirmish battles which last days, eventually duking it out with nukes and experimentals. THIS hugely complex, fiddly, intricite web of defensive and offencive units (and building an economy to back it) are the essence of RTS. The writer of the 'hands on demo review' is a fucking n00b idiot. Micromanagement is FUN!! He's just too dopey to be able to work it out because it's complicated and takes a fair degree of intelligence. SupCom 2 moves the greatest RTS franchise of all time right back into the mainstream of boring, generic C&C clones, in completely the WRONG direction!! This could have been so much better, so good, and it's such a HUGE dissapointment. They've largely ignored many of the innovations TA and SupCom introduced, now so long ago, and replaced it with a load of bullshit for little fuckheads with hand controllers. SHAME GAS POWERED YOU SELL OUT FUCKS, SHAME!!!
    Edited by 3 at 02/03/10 @ 20:45