An alliance forged in blood, steel and hope, they turn to face the dark

Forged Alliance pushes even further some of Chris Taylor's and Gas Powered Games' original gameplay ideas. If you thought the original Supreme Commander was too much for you, I'm sorry to inform you that Forged Alliance doesn't make it any easier. In fact, it's a lot harder, and by a lot I mean... A LOT!

If you haven't experienced Supreme Commander at all, know this: It's a game for niche players. It tries to create massive scale conflicts, with hundreds and thousands of units fighting at the same time. SC makes you reconsider real time strategy games. But in doing so, it brings a few weak points to the table:

First, and foremost, you need a really powerful computer to be able to run it. And even then the most modern PC configuration won't be able to keep up after 40 minutes of gameplay on every map. Most affected by this are the singleplayer maps. Forge Alliance brings six huge singleplayer maps that reveal progressively as you advance through your mission. One of these maps can have tens of objectives and can take you up to a whole day to complete, even if you are an experienced strategist.

Second, due to the fact the maps are so large, and you have to control so many units, it's impossible to enjoy the 3D somewhat detailed graphics, and you'll end up playing on the mission map instead, zoomed out to the max. All you will see are dots... dots... and more dots. Ok, stop dots!

Units also don't have a lot of hit points, and often one-shot will destroy them... well except for experimental units, and combined with a weak pathfinding algorithm and no tactical formations whatsoever, leaving 500 units unsupervised for only a few seconds will almost always end up in them being destroyed.

So what's new?

GPG added 110 new units to the game, including new experimental units, along with a ton of new multiplayer maps of all shapes and sizes and of course the new singleplayer campaign I've mentioned before.

The engine has been optimized a little, and the game runs now slightly smoother on the old maps... On the new maps, well... that's another story, since they are bigger and more detailed. Supreme Commander can take advantage of dual or multi-core systems, and even knows how to use dual graphic cards (either SLI or Crossfire).

Pathfinding has been rewritten, and it's much less buggy now... the game is almost playable.

Forged Alliance also introduces a brand new faction: the aliens Seraphim, humanity's greatest nemesis. Seraphim units look very good, but unfortunately you don't get to play with them in the singleplayer campaign. You may select them however in skirmish or multiplayer matches. They sort of look like the new Cylons in Battlestar Galactica.

Interface has been redesigned and it looks cleaner and more efficient than before. You can choose to have a different bar for each faction you play. Unit and building icons are a bit confusing and look the same, but they are separated smart. For example resource creator/extractor buildings in one tab, production buildings like Land Factory, Air Factory or Naval Factory in another, superweapon buildings in another, and so on.

By the way, you can finally move the screen left, right top or bottom by scrolling with your mouse in the respective directions. If you remember the original game, you had to use middle-click to be able to follow your units.

Updated gameplay

A very important aspect was and is now more than ever the proper management of resources. As you know, you need to stay positive all the time with the quantity of mass and energy you have. GPG changed the Mass Fabricators from Tier 1 to Tier 2 buildings, so you will have to pay extra attention on what you build and the amount of mass extractors you start with.

Building times have also been reduced by a lot, especially when building Tier 4 experimental units. This will help a great deal when battling your friends in a multiplayer map. Basically you now also have time to get dinner, assuming you start the game early morning.

A lot of balance changes have been made, including unit range, damage and armor. Cybrans are still the weakest but bring the best firepower available to compensate. Aeons rely heavily on shields and defenses for their survival. While UEF takes "the best of both worlds", blending a bit of what each other side has to offer.

Seraphim enters the combat with a mobile stealth generator and some great experimental units as well.