Reviewed: November 12, 2004
Reviewed by: John DeWeese

Publisher
DreamCatcher Interactive

Developer
GolemLabs

Released: October 6, 2004
Genre: Strategy
Players: 32
ESRB: Teen

6
7
5
5
5.5

System Requirements

Well, the new strategy game SuperPower 2 lets you do all of the above. Creator GolemLabs and publisher DreamCatcher Interactive have designed a sequel to the 2001 original where you control any country in the world, from Angola to Zimbabwe. You can raise taxes, overthrow governments and invade neighboring countries. In other words, indulge in the same pleasures politicians get to enjoy everyday.

But like campaign promises, SuperPower 2 does not deliver on its pledge to be the “most realistic global geopolitical simulator” of all time. What spoils much of the fun is SuperPower 2 has some nasty bugs, including frequent crashes. I played it on a machine that matched all system requirements, and yet the game still ran painfully slow at points. Gameplay can be very abstract, and the best way to complete goals is not always clear. For example, cutting government spending may improve the economy in the short run but will kill you as the game progresses and your people become more restless.

Although the game includes a comprehensive tutorial and easy-to-read manual, the more complex details of running a strong economy or building the best army still remained unclear to me even after a week of playing.

This title’s plus side is it’s tailor-made for news and Poli Sci junkies, since it uses real CIA data to flesh out every country. Sidebars show you everything from a country’s literacy rates to unemployment to what kind of bombs a country’s fighter planes carry. The game also allows you to try any strategy you want, from invading Alaska as Russia to building a nuclear arsenal in Brazil. (Not that I tried to build nukes in Brazil, although I was on the receiving end of an attack from Rio)

As long as you are not fighting a major war, much of the game can be played AFK (away from keyboard). While building Canada’s nuclear arsenal, I lowered spending on education and healthcare, bumped research, then went off for a half-hour to make a special dinner for the missus. When I came back, I had ballistic missile technology and an even higher approval rating. I guess the Canadians don’t want socialized medicine as much as they want a little respect. While we’re talking about popularity, I still don’t understand how the computer decides approval rating. Start a war and your rating may go up, lower taxes and it might go down. I felt I had as much control over influencing presidential elections as I did over electing my senior year prom court.

The game also lacks some common sense approaches to solving problems. Say you’re the American president and want to increase steel prices for those poor Detroit workers. Your two choices are leave things alone or nationalize the entire steel industry, a very unpopular move in free trade U.S.A. There’s no easy “subsidize” or “give tax break” button, though you can increase production of many different commodities.

Raising the literacy rate and cracking down on child labor were all noble goals as Turkey’s leader, but things got interesting as America’s president in a gulf war simulation. I learned from the president’s real life mistakes by working on an international coalition. Oh, I also suspended free speech and outlawed the Democratic Party. Too bad nobody liked my war idea, not even traditional allies like the United Kingdom. I think traditional allies in the real world should have been given game bonuses when dealing with each other, and real life enemies should have started with penalties. But in Super Power 2, the UK is as likely to attack the US as China is to help in a second Korean war.

Without European allies, I gave big fat aid packages to Turkey and Saudi Arabia to help me, but they accepted the money without raising a finger against Iraq. I then sent covert operations to sabotage the Iraqi army before launching a60,000-troop full invasion. Handling covert cells was one of the fun parts of the game, and absolutely essential if you wanted to start a war without looking like the aggressor. Unfortunately, training and deploying spies takes almost as much time as lowering a country’s unemployment.

The invasion showed one of the great weaknesses of combat – it’s too easy for any country to deploy armies around the world. My army actually reached Iraq before my navy did, and I didn’t have to make treaties with other countries to provide staging points for my troops. Likewise, the Iraqi navy of patrol boats sailed across the Atlantic and attacked my rear fleet off Chesapeake Bay. Zooming down on the “front line,” I was given the choice of either air strikes or full ground assault.

The planes, tanks and infantry on both sides don’t actually move, but instead represent markers of how many troops and vehicles are still in the battle. Below this battlefield is a hard-to-read radar screen that shows where troops are actually moving. If you select air strikes, your planes will move forward to bombard the enemy before your infantry engages. As the Iraqi army continued to be pounded by my unstoppable air force, I was proclaimed the winner within a few minutes. I clicked “occupy territory” and my troops spread out across Iraq’s several provinces. But some bug in the system kept the troops from dividing equally, so some provinces were guarded by just one soldier.

Iran, joined by turncoats Saudi Arabia and Turkey, jumped in on Hussein’s side, slaughtering my lone sentinel. One of the big weaknesses with SuperPower 2 is, no matter how much you help neighboring countries; they will still turn on you.

As President Bush might say, it was time to go “nuke-cular.” I went into a creepy red screen as I selected 20 ICBMs be dropped right on Iran. To confirm the attack, I had to push a big red button in the middle of the screen. Then missiles raced across the screen to explode in a fireworks display above Tehran. There was some international outcry, but the nuke strike kept Iran from reinforcing its attacking units and Iraq became the 51st state.

The combat system’s problems were even worse in a second war scenario where I was asked to rebuild the Russian empire. In Kazakhstan, my armies were repulsed by a coalition of India, Brazil, Bangladesh, the UK and Greece that waltzed across the Russian plains at light speed to whoop my ass. Seems they all had economic aid treaties with Kazakhstan, and that was enough to come to my enemy’s aid. Once again, I had selected occupy territory (the only way to conquer a country, by the way) and spread my troops way too thin.

There is a current events ticker at the bottom of the screen, but if you don’t see an event the first time, it’s impossible to scroll back. The game unfortunately lacks cut scenes or pop-up illustrations to commemorate great events or natural disasters, or even winning the game. Real world footage would be great to see when you conquered an area or won an election. The interface is far too text-based for my taste.

The combat screen is outdated. A friend I showed the game to said it looked like something from Activision days, but I liken it more to the early Warlord and Heroes of Might and Magic games, where your units don’t move but their images take damage as the computer auto-resolves the battle. After playing Rome: Total War with its rich strategy and tactical maps, I was expecting more from a 2004 title.

Also, much of the game’s value is lost when you consider the frequent crashes and annoying bugs. Reading several fan sites it appears players were complaining about the same bugs in the original that have showed up in the sequel. This title needs some serious patching before I can even recommend spending a dollar on it. As of this review they have just released their second patch which addresses the growing list of bugs.

In closing, I’ll give the developers credit for acing their classes when it comes to international studies. Too bad they forgot to study basic computer programming before shipping this game.