I started playing Supreme Commander this weekend. It is a very traditional RTS with a lot of micro-management. I am enjoying it for the most part, but it is quirky about saving. I started playing the campaign and found that the missions are very long. Like between 1 and 2 hours per mission. I don’t mind this, but it would be cool if there was an option to speed up time when you’re waiting for things to build and then slow it back down when you are ready to attack. The controls work well for a RTS on a console. They give you access to everything without going through a lot of levels of menus.

My big complaint is that the game has a tenancy to freeze/crash when it saves at the end of a mission. It has done that to me twice. I looked around xbox forums and it seems it is pretty common occurrence with this game. I get around it by saving right before I finish a level so that if it does freeze I can just load it back up and try again. It seems to be about a 50/50 shot on if it will freeze or not. It is bordering on making me send the game back to GameFly, but I have not even tried the other races yet and I’d really like to. Additionally the camera has a tendency to stop moving for a few seconds when a lot is going on. Everything continues, but the camera will not move for you. It is like the game can’t keep up with everything in has to control so it pauses the camera while it catches up. With hundreds of units/buildings on the map I can see where that would be an issue, but I with they had worked that kind of thing out.

I’m planning to play some more and if I finish the game it will be a while until I get a full review because it is so long. However, if I get mad and send it back I’ll get a review up sooner.