In 1942, Albert Einstein went back in time, forever altering the timeline *cough* not that it matters anyway, that's another game... Anyway, in more recent years, in 1997, one of the fathers of the RTS genre was released. Considered by many the best strategy game that ever existed, Total Annihilation was the first Real Time Strategy to feature full 3D graphics. The terrain and units were made completely out of polygons, an achievement worth taken into consideration at that time. Chris Taylor is the founding father of Total Annihilation (TA). Soon after its release he started a new development company Gas Powered Games. A lot of time has passed since then, but in 20 February 2007 the spiritual successor of TA was released: Supreme Commander.

Underneath the surface, and the (little) resemblance with the grandpa Total Annihilation, the greatly anticipated Supreme Commander brings some really revolutionary changes and innovative ideas to the RTS industry. My opinion is that some of them are good, some bad, and some good but the implementation somewhat lacks...

I will start with an overall impression: the game is good. An enjoyable RTS, with just a bit of frustrating moments especially at the beginning while you are getting used to the controls. The game design is thought to be different. The maps are huge and the game is really focused on macro management as opposed to micro. Chris Taylor wanted a new approach. His impression was that in previous RTS games the scale of the battles was too small. Indeed, thousands of units can be utilized at certain moments in a medium map.

By allowing the player to zoom in and out of the battle map, it brings a new perspective to strategy. It doesn't matter if you lose a few units in Supreme Commander. In fact, it is almost impossible not to lose quite a few. The game relies on massive scale attacks, and focuses on the tactical overview that you achieve by zooming really far out. The units, now too small to fit on this type of map, are replaced by symbols according to their type or function.

For a successful mission, you will have to think what combination of units to utilize, and where to focus your attack from. Usually a frontal attack won't work, and the units are really designed that way to complete each other, so you will have to have several types of units in one group. It is also up to you to find the lowest defended points of a base, or more than one point to attack at a time.