Chris Taylor delivers an epic RTS!

Gameplay: 17/20
Graphics: 13/15
Sound: 11/15
Balance: 24/25
Longevity: 25/25

Overall: 90%

weatherbee1982's Excellence Award

Important Information:

Required
Operating System: Microsoft WIndows XP Service Pack 2, Vista
Processor: 1.8 GHz processor (Dual-core STRONGLY recommended)
Video Card: 128MB video RAM or greater, with DirectX 9 Vertex Shader/Pixel Shader 2.0 support
Disk Space: 8GB available hard drive space
CD Speed: DVD-ROM
RAM: 512 MB RAM
DirectX: DirectX 9.0

Recommended
Operating System: Microsoft WIndows XP Service Pack 2, Vista
Processor: 3.0 GHz Intel or equivalent AMD processor or better (Dual-core STRONGLY recommended)
Video Card: 256 MB Video RAM, with DirectX 9 Vertex Shader/Pixel Shader 2.0 support (Nvidia 6800 or better)

Total Annihilation

Chris Taylor, the lead of Gas Powered Games and formerly of Cavedog Entertainment, has returned to a genre which he helped define a decade ago. While Command and Conquer is a title we all can associate with Real-Time Strategy, some can also remember and still play the innovative title known as Total Annihilation. This was the first RTS that brought 3D terrains and units to the genre, and massive amounts of units to each side (with upwards of 500 population cap to a side). It had been hoped by many that a sequel would be created, as the fan community kept supporting this awesome RTS with mods (increasing said population cap to 5000 as computers could handle it). Sadly, Cavedog Entertainment shuddered their doors and Atari later acquired the rights. Seeing little done with those rights, Taylor saw it time that a new RTS brought forth using many of his ideas of Total Annihilation with new features brought forward.

Story

Supreme Commander is set in the 37th century, in the midst of the "Infinite War." Three factions are vying for domination of the galaxy, with each faction believing they are the best way to unite the humans and move forward. The United Earth Federation (UEF), once the mighty Earth Empire, has risen from the ashes from the fallen Empire and is trying to bring all the planets that had once resided within the Empire's borders back into the fold. Those who oppose the UEF's methodology will be destroyed on site.

The Cybran Nation, composed of symbionts and led by Dr. Brachmann (actually led by what is a brain encased in glass), were once peacefully Imperial citizens. Symbionts, being those who had AI installed into their brains, soon discovered that they were being used by the government and later demanded independence to become normal citizens. Unfortunately for them, a loyalty program was activated and their demands and rebellion was put down just as quickly. Dr. Brachmann, seeing this as unjust, fled with his most loyal symbionts to form the Cybran Nation. It was his hope that the symbionts would be able to have a nation they could call their own and be independent of the Imperial government.

The Aeon Illuminate, the last faction vying for control, was once a group of citizens sent to a planet to determine if it was inhabitable. However, soon after their arrival, the Earth Empire lost communication and later quarantined the planet, fearing the worst. It was later discovered that the humans actually had come into contact with another intelligent being and were peacefully negotiating with them. These humans were shown "the way," and this was established as their way of life. However, Imperial soldiers became wary of the aliens and totally annihilated them from existence. The Aeon Illuminate vowed to avenge the loss of their alien friends and enforce their way of life to all those who opposed it.

Gameplay

Three factions, no room for compromise and one thousand years later, this game presents us with the ACU (Armored Command Unit) as our center of operations. Quickly, you will discover why this war has lasted so long, as the unit is the only one that houses a human being. Everything else is created by the ACU and is automated.

Each side has the ability to advance through 4 tiers of technology. What is found is that the first tier is virtually the same for all factions. Almost all the units serve the same purpose, with very little to distinguish them from one another. The only difference that is noticed between the three factions are the type of shells/lasers they fire, which determines their accuracy. As this game uses a physics engine for accuracy purposes (hence the reason why it uses up so much of the computer's resources), this does make a slight difference early. Yet, rushes are quickly eliminated by putting up just a T1 (tier-1) defense of land, sea and/or air, depending on what is needed. Even the ACU can eliminate most T1 threats quickly. It is from T2 on that most factions begin to distinguish themselves from each other and the fun truly begins...

The game comes packed with 40 maps from the offering. The maps are equally spaced and identical each time you play. The size of the maps vary from 5x5 kilometers (sometimes the largest in other RTS's) to 80x80 kilometers (expect to play a full weekend on this one). Some maps are all landlocked, where as others present a majority amount of water on it. Depending on your fancy, your taste can be satisfied for war. What I find a little disappointing is that these maps are not randomly generated in some fashion, but the fact that 40 are offered presents the option for different strategies each time. I just feel that the knowledge of knowing where your opponent is each time takes a little bit of the surprise off of each map.

Two resources are gathered (mass and energy), with mass being acquired through icons on the map. Energy can be acquired at most anytime, through the production of power generation. It is the delicate balance of these two that will allow you to keep your production growing. If you ever dip into the negatives too drastically, your production will slow (sometimes to the point of not being able to recover) and whatever required power will cease to work.

Through the use of the shift key, you can queue everything up in the factories, your engineering units, etc. (sometimes before they are even finished building). This form of automation will make things easier, but not completely in the later portions of the game. Like most other RTS's, you can use the CTRL-# (# representing a number) to set a group of units or buildings. This is essentially necessary, especially given the sheer amount of units that will come into play during the late game (500 to 1000 depending on how well your rig and others can handle it). Aircraft, while holding down the shift key and right clicking, can also be given a patrol route (with ETA being given). As the late game approaches, these features can unfortunately become cumbersome and chaotic. What was not micromanagement in the beginning becomes it towards the end, which was likely not the intent of the developers.

The major and thankful tool that I think should become inclusive for all RTS's from this point forward is the innovative map scrolling feature. The ability to use your mouse wheel to scroll as far back as the satellite scale (your units turn into icons), to as close as seeing the tread marks on the ground is amazing. All of this is experienced with no lag at all! You can use this feature to scroll out, point your mouse elsewhere on a map, and scroll right into that point on the map. Have a dual screen? You can have one screen set up as the main action screen, and the other as the tactical map (scrolled out or into another point of interest). Have a widescreen? You still have the ability to split your screen and treat it like a psuedo-dual screen. I am quite happy to see this feature used quite well and so seamlessly. It is not demanding on your graphics card, either.

Graphics

Plenty of comparisons have been made between Supreme Commander and Company of Heroes graphically. I will quickly admit that Company of Heroes has an impressive graphical engine and should be commended for what they do. Supreme Commander, likewise, has an impressive graphical engine for pumping out the sheer amount of units necessary whilst using a physics engine. You will not get the detail seen in Company of Heroes at an up close level, but you will get detail that is quite impressive when you are fighting a multi-front war with 500 units, nukes flying everywhere and you are still able to seamlessly zoom in and out to issue commands.

It is important to note that this game does scale to the computer being used. Yet, if the computer in question just barely fits the minimum requirements, expect to barely see much in the way of eye candy. You will still be able to play this game, despite the downgrade in detail, but it is a noticeably different experience versus medium and high.

Sounds

The sounds presented within Supreme Commander are great on one end (music) and leave something to be desired on the other (ambient). The music is wonderful, as it presents that epic feel that you are about to enter a serious battle. It changes on the dime and really gives one the sense that the situation really warrants attention and someone should kick their butt into gear. As time wears on, these great songs begin to have a problem of repeating and you will yearn for a soundtrack of your own.

The ambient sounds presented in this game really makes me wonder what happened in the sounding department. The units sometimes sound like they were firing peashooters more than they were firing lasers and multi-turreted battleship guns. At times, they had the right ideas with the sounds, when presented with multiple units, it will sound great. At other times, the sounds just are not there and do not have the force behind them that you wish they did. You see such a monstrosity of a unit on screen and wish to hear the pounding footsteps it makes, as it lumbers towards your foes' base. When you launch a nuke, you hear an annoying beeping sound that persists for as long as 5 minutes as it travels towards it's destination. When the nukes land, they present a wonderful visual experience, but barely register much of a rumble with your subwoofer when you wish it would serve this visual experience more justice.

Balance

This is what can make or break any RTS, is whether one faction is overpowered over another. At this time, there are a very few glaring issues need to be addressed in patching by Gas-Powered Games (GPG). They only one that comes to mind frequently by most competitive players is:

-T3 gunships (esp. United Earth Federation) can overwhelm anti-aircraft defenses and Air Superiority Fighters are hardpressed to shoot them down.

As it stands, the United Earth Federation is the type of faction that is a big end-game faction (esp. with the use of the Mavor Experimental Unit, which is an artillery unit with unlimited range). The Aeon Illuminate is the most balanced of the three, with smart gameplay being rewarded and less than optimal gameplay being seriously punished. The Cybran Nation's units are cheap, fast and compensate with units that fall quickly.

Longevity:

I will approach this from two aspects, the first of which is a Single Player aspect, the other is the Multiplayer.

The Single Player campaigns are divided into the three aforementioned factions, each with 6 missions. Now I am certain many will think that 6 missions for 3 factions is a bit low, but let me explain. Each mission starts with objectives that require you to do something ranging from defending certain points to escorting units. The map is also small at first (probably 5x5 km at most). As you complete each objective on the map, the map will expand (10x10 km, then 20x20 km, etc.) with more objectives added and more challenges presented before you. What compounds the objectives further is that the enemy presents more forces against you with different tactical methods (depending on the AI difficulty chosen). Each mission can be as short as an hour to as long as a 4 hour romp! After each mission and after each campaign, you are presented with a CGI movie of what has transpired.

The Single Player Skirmish mode is twofold, once more depending on which AI difficulty you have chosen. You can use the Easy AI (noted as Normal on screen) to take it quite easy. This AI really presents little challenge and will make severe economical mistakes. I'd prefer to call this AI the learning AI, as you can use it to learn the interface and how to build your base. As you get to the higher difficulties, the AI will be better prepared to handle your assaults and build a better economy. Rather than depending entirely on predetermined actions and scripted behavior, the AI coordinates assaults and defense better than some human-controlled armies do. So be forewarned of this when taking on multiple AI's on higher difficulties.

The Multiplayer experience is where all RTS's longevity resides. As it stands right now, over 1000 players are online and stand ready to take you on. Furthermore, there are plenty of fanbased websites prepared to provide mods for the game. This is what helped keep Total Annihilation alive for over a decade, and this is what may help keep Supreme Commander alive for hopefully just as many years.

Conclusion

Since the days of Empire Earth, or maybe even further back, some have longed for a game that presented large maps that gave us the time to plan and allow us to present our strategic capabilities. Supreme Commander delivers with this promise of epic gameplay on a strategic scale, rather than the tactical scale that plenty real-time strategy games give us today. However, with this epic size comes a requirement for an epic rig. Furthermore, interface controls need to be refined a little more to try to take the chaos out of the endgame fighting that always ensues. Outside of those few holdups, I see no reason why a fan of strategy games will want to wait before picking this one up. This game receives my strongest recommendation if you are looking for a real-time strategy game that challenges you every time you start it up and play.