supreme-commander posts

Today's PC game sales start a new work week and include a chance to get some games on sale as part of GamersGate second week of celebrating its fifth birthday this month.

Among the many, many PC games on sale for the next week on the site are Supreme Commander for just $7.50, MX Vs ATV Reflex for just $7.98, Men of War for $5.98, King's Bounty: The Legend for just $4, the original Jagged Alliance for a mere $1.25, Guardian of Graxia for $5 (plus its expansion packs for 50 percent off each), all the Flatout games for 75 percent off and both Deus Ex games for $4 each.

All this talk of neural nets and AI learning has us a little bit concerned. Is Gas Powered Games trying to bring about the robot apocalypse? Are they build Skynet within Supreme Commander 2? The content director and QA testers in the trailer above would have you believe they are human, but we have the sneaking suspicion that they are actually robots. Ones designed to keep us from finding out that their AI has conquered the world.

Kidding aside, Gas Powered Games has been hard at work improving the AI of Supreme Commander 2. They've been implementing more neural nets for unit behaviors (naval units are specifically mentioned), tweaking established settings, and given the reins of AI customization to players. All of this is good for those looking for a challenge, but if the robots take over, don't say we didn't warn you.

Hard to believe we will be getting both StarCraft II and Civilization V in the same year. It will be interesting to compare sales of the two games when Civ V comes out next week.

• PC Gamer's week of Valve Software interviews makes for some interesting reading even if all the newsworthy stuff was leaked beforehand.
• From now until 1 pm Eastern time on Monday Direct2Drive has BioShock on sale for $9.95 and Supreme Commander Gold Edition for $14.95.
• A still-in-development notebook with duel touchscreens where the second screen takes the place of the keyboard? Wild.
• Gratuitous Space Battles' creator Cliff Harris gives a timeline for his upcoming projects including the mysterious "Game IV".

Microsoft's announcement of Age of Empires Online earlier this week made more than one RTS fan happy. Now Microsoft is celebrating the revival of its own RTS game franchise with a special sale at the Games For Windows web site. From now until Monday five RTS titles will have price cuts on the site. The games are downloaded via the Games For Windows Live client.

The games include Microsoft's own Age of Empires III: Complete Collection which has the last game in the series and its two expansion packs that were made by the now defunct Ensemble Studios. The game is now available for $19.99, a 50 percent price cut. The other games that are on sale have prices of $9.99 each and include Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War, Dawn of War Dark Crusade, Supreme Commander and Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance.

Games that are coming out soon have a lot of unknowns that the average person might not know. Who is this character inspired by? Is all the talk of volumetric fog or cel-shaded graphics really worthwhile? Do the game mechanics really seem solid, or are they lackluster? In All You Need To Know we provide information to help you fully appreciate what these upcoming games have to offer.

Feed your head after the jump.

Check out our collection of Supreme Commander 2 related downloads here on Big Download!

In 2007 Gas Powered Games released Supreme Commander, an epic sci-fi RTS game with huge battles, massive units and big nuclear explosions. In just over a month, Gas Powered returns to that universe for Supreme Commander 2, the sequel that will be published this time by Square Enix. Big Download got a chat to ask some questions to Gas Powered's head Chris Taylor to get more info on this long awaited strategy sequel.

First, the original Supreme Commander game was famed for its massive units and lots of stuff going "boom", Is it fair to say that those elements are sticking around for the sequel?

Without a doubt. Big explosions are a key element to a good RTS game, and they are definitely here to stay in Supreme Commander 2!

What can you tell us about the factions for the sequel and how the single player campaign links to the original?

We've woven the new campaign story into the existing history and fiction to continue the story, but we have leapt 25 years into the future, and are telling a very different kind of story... a story that focuses on the people, and the personal struggles they go through when caught up in a war of galactic scale.

It's a slow day-before-Christmas Eve so we are happy to post close to anything (within reason). But we most likely would have posted about this newly revealed box artwork for Supreme Commander 2 even on a busy day. It's just that good. Hey, it's a big honking mech. What else do you need.

You can click on the box art to the right to see a big honking version of the box art. Gas Powered Games' sequel to their big honking 2008 sci-fi RTS game is something we are looking forward to playing when it ships to stores in early March 2010.

Direct2Drive has been celebrating its 5th anniversary of offering PC game downloads with week long sales of certain games for just $5 each. Today marks the beginning of the end of the $5 sale as the site has put a number of war-themed games (a mix of strategy and FPS games) on the price chopping block from now until October 11. There are once again some terrific deals here including one game (Battlestations: Pacific) that normally sells for $49.99.

Company of Heroes Gold
Supreme Commander Gold
World in Conflict Gold Edition
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Dark Crusade
Battlestations: Pacific
Codename: Panzers - Cold War
Hearts Of Iron II Collection
Brothers In Arms: Road to Hill 30
Delta Force: Land Warrior
Delta Force: Task Force Dagger

It's a Monday but the retail web site GoGamer.com has already launched its weekly (and mis-named) 48 Hour Madness sale. This week's sale, which ends at 3 am ET on Thursday, September 3, has a number of good PC games on sale, as always.

Just some of the sales this week on the web site include Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion for just $7.90, Supreme Commander for $7.90, Company of Heroes for $7.90 and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for (yes) $7.90. Stronghold Legends is on sale for a mere $3.90 and the recent game collection Sword of the Stars Ultimate Collection is on sale for $19.90.

Direct2Drive has been stepping up their sales of downloadable PC games, perhaps because of competition from other such service. This week the service has announced that five PC games from publisher THQ will be priced at 50 percent off their normal prices from now until Sunday.

Those games are the RTS title Supreme Commander Gold ($14.95), the action-RPG expansion pack Titan Quest Immortal Throne ($7.50 and requires the original Titan Quest game) the open world action game Saints Row 2 ($14.95) the post-apocalyptic shooter S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl ($9.95) and the near-future shooter Frontlines: Fuel of War ($14.95). In addition a sixth THQ game will also be priced at 50 percent off on Direct2Drive beginning on Friday.