Superpower 2 Preview

There has been no shortage of simulation games released for the PC market.  There are countless varieties of simulation games being released today that range from the mundane to the downright insane.  What about ruling a railroad empire?  You can do it with a PC game.  What about running a theme park?  It’s available for you.  With SuperPower 2 gamers now have the ability to rule the world by military force but also with political and economic influences.  GameZone has been lucky to enough to play an early preview version of SuperPower 2. 

SuperPower 2 is essentially a war simulation game but with a vast amount of options for gamers.  War doesn’t just rage on a local scale or in a futuristic type setting; SuperPower 2 takes place during modern times.  When I started the game off I had to choose which country I wanted to control.  The game includes almost 200 different countries to choose from which range from the largest countries (China, United States, etc.) to the smallest.  All of the data for the different countries are based on statistical data from the United States military. 

Once I made my choice of country I could then select from a few gameplay goals such as World Peace, balance country resources, conquer the world, develop nation, and raise GDP per capita by 50%.  This should be a warning sign to all gamers that this isn’t just a military strategy game, this is a world simulation game.  Who wants to balance country resources in a war game?  Not me but if you want to give it a try this option is available.  What about getting down and dirty and raising the GDP by 50%.  It reminds me of political science class from school not a game.  There was even an option to select the political party I wanted to run the country with.  But the game did present me with an option to give the computer control over certain functions of the game such as the Politics, Economic or Military functions.  As I would later find out this is a great option to include in the game. 

Once I selected the country and which gameplay options I wanted I was then presented with the main screen for the game, Earth.  Yes you read that right, Earth.  The game plays out almost entirely on a layout of the world itself.  I was able to zoom in for a closer view of my country with the scroll wheel on the mouse.  You will be able to zoom in to almost every major city across the globe, which I thought was a nice touch.  On the screen I was presented with three buttons, a military, political and economic button on the left side of the screen.  The middle of the screen showed which country I was responsible for and some additional buttons to check the objectives of my game, relationship level with another country and more detailed information about my country (such as population, land mass size, etc). 

By selecting from one of the three buttons (military, political and economic) I was amazed at the choices available within the game.  Gamers will have an almost god-like control over all aspects of their country.  For example if you want to raise the personal income tax of your country by 50% you can.  Of if you want to increase production in cereal to reduce the amount of cereal imported into your country, you can.  At first I found that all of the choices in the game were too complicated.  There wasn’t a sense of direction or a help feature that could show me what I needed to do.  It took a few hours to get used to all of the controls and even then I felt like I was only discovering the outer layers of the game. 

The graphics fit the game nicely but won’t win any awards.  As I mentioned earlier the game is played out with a topographical overview of Earth.  I noticed clouds moving over the different continents and day/night cycle as well.   Zooming in doesn’t give you a detail view of the cities and each particular location.  The meat of the graphics belongs to the globe itself and the military section of the game.  There are 3D models of the different types of weapons and units available within the game.  The game even includes a simple battlefield to represent two warring countries and the units doing battle.  The battles in the preview version were static with each unit not moving while in a battle.  The rest of the graphics were menu based.

SuperPower 2 is shaping up to be the one stop shop for military strategy game fans.  The amount of options included within the game is mind blowing.  I was able to see the game at E3 this year and I’m still amazed that the developers are including so many different variables and choices for gamers.  Some other gameplay options available in the final version will be multiplayer and a tutorial mode.  The multiplayer mode should be interesting since each country will be controlled by a gamer.  I barely scratched the surface regarding the options within the game and hardcore strategy fans shouldn’t be disappointed when SuperPower 2 is released later this year.