Score
Gameplay:	5
Graphics:	4
Sound:	4
FunFactor:	5
PlasmaFactor:	6
Overall:	4.8

Supreme Ruler 2010 Review
June 11, 2005 by Rick

by Rick - June 11, 2005

Supreme Ruler 2010 is a complex worldwide strategy game that focuses on regional activity instead of national activity. The game allows you to play small regions within a country, including the individual states of the United States of America. Conquer your little section of the Globe with all the force you can muster.

Dominating the World Has Never Been So Difficult

The Gameplay in Supreme Ruler was pretty difficult. It most certainly did not facilitate ease of play. The tutorials were anything but informative, mostly only giving you a brief overview of the interface instead of explaining the functions of the game in detail. The game would have benefited greatly from an interactive tutorial that actually ran you through several scenarios that explained the functions of the game. One of the most infuriating parts of the game were the units. The darned things always sat in a town, and when you wanted to select that town or building, you would get the unit instead. Not only would you select the unit, but your next click would automatically order the unit to travel to that location. As I said, infuriating. The organization of the menus were also pretty poor. It was difficult to maneuver my way through all the expanding menus that each cabinet held in wait for me. It could use some serious work. All in all, this game's gameplay was substandard and failed to facilitate an enjoyable experience.

Graduating Class of 1984

The graphics in Supreme Ruler 2010 were neither supreme nor did they rule. In fact, the graphics were downright substandard. I'm somewhat confused, admittedly, as to why more effort wasn't put into the graphics. I'm disappointed. I thought I had seen the last of the days in which a game's graphics were enough to cause me to decide to wait to play until I had nothing better to do. The graphical interface was uninspired at best. It looked more like a winamp plugin than an actual game interface. It wasn't horrible, mind you, simply uninspired. The graphics for buildings and roads and such were one of the worst parts of the graphical interface. The roads looked like they were drawn with the pain too in Photoshop. Like some expert had taken the brush and drawn a bunch of straight lines in light grey. Very unprofessional. When you selected units or sections of land, the game highlighted the selection with a blue circle that I could make in ten seconds. The borders, just as bad. The buildings and most of the units weren't that horrible, however, they lacked any interesting qualities and took up way to much of the map for their own good. I found the pictures of the various cabinet ministers you can hire throughout the game simultaneously hilarious and depressing. Their portraits looked like something I would expect to find in my mother's yearbook. Hilarious, in that the pictures were downright goofy looking, depressing in that the ability to hire different cabinet members was one of the game's redeeming qualities, and it was virtually ruined with the presence of these ridiculous pictures. I'm all for not judging a book by it's cover, however, it would be hard to take even Shakespeare seriously if it were written in crayon.

Don't Get Me Started

This game virtually lacked sounds other than the standard clicking sound and the obvious sounds of battle. In fact, there was no music to speak of. If you aren't doing anything, then the game is silent. Sure if you get an email the game will tell you with a nice little tone, and if you open a cabinet window, it makes a little sound as well. However, the complete lack of music during play is a pretty poor choice. Ensures for little ambiance. While there was no music and little actual sound of interest, there was only one sound bite that I disliked. But oh did I hate it. When you start a scenario and you load into the overview of the game about to start, the game makers decided it would be cool if the game made a short jack-in-the-box-esque sound. Just a quarter turn or so. Not only is it an annoying sound, but for some reason, it's twice as loud as any other sound in the game. It's a good thing I'm not afraid of clowns, or I might have had a heart attack.

But Was it Fun???

No. It was not. Which is definitely the final disappointment for this game. I actually had decent hopes for it when I opened up the box and popped the CD into my computer. I thought it might be enjoyable. But it really wasn't. The game featured an interesting concept. Somehow, the designers managed to make a game that was simultaneously devoid of freedom and devoid of constriction. That may seem like a paradox to you, but I assure you this game would prove you wrong. You start out the game with your little region, some buildings have been made and some units are scattered about the region. You have a treasury, usually a deficit, and preset relations with your neighbors. At this point, your first priority would be to ensure the stability of your country, specifically the monetary stability, since you can�t do much of anything without money. You can fiddle with every little aspect of the structure of you region until the cows come home. If you�re a financial advisor to a country, you might be able to make some changes under the influence of understanding. However, the average person will most assuredly find the parameters of a country confusing at best. Well where does that leave the average person? It probably leaves them afraid to touch anything, since most of the changes result in either a downwards trend or a hardly noticeable alteration in favor of the player. That means that you are hardly doing anything. But someone is. Your cabinet members virtually run the country for you. They even move your units around as they see fit. You can of course lock units and changes in the government to prevent minister manipulation. But you really have to know what you�re doing first. This results in a choice. You can either let the computer run your government for you, or run the country into the ground by making mistake after mistake. Neither option results in an enjoyable game. At least not for me.

Viva La Manual!!

The game's most redeeming quality would, without a doubt, be the manual. I have never seen a more informative and easy to use game manual in my life. virtually every aspect of the game is detailed in the manual and the three and a half page table of contents is well organized and easy to read. On top of it all, the manual has a nice papery smell that I can't help but sniff every now and again. Kudos on the manual.

 

Back to the Drawing Board

If there is a good game somewhere beneath all the critical issues that can be found in this game, it must be very lonely right about now, because I sure am not playing it. I do not recommend going out and buying this game unless you are either a super player who can look beyond the rough exterior, and rough interior and enjoy the raw complexity of managing Rhode Island, or someone looking to spend a few bucks on a nice manual.