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.

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The Downside

While this style of strategy will maybe make you think more before you act, and involves in theory less luck, things are not always what they seem. The massive scale brings some real limitations and trade-offs to this game. For example, the game graphics: Well done and optimized, the maps and units look amazing, and the special effects excel. But since the huge scale, you won't be able to enjoy them most of the time. You will be zoomed out 90% of the time trying to manage your huge forces as best as you can, and have an overall look on the battlefield. Except when you start your base, for a very brief time, the tactical overview is your key to win.

The second not so good aspect is the resources required to run this game. Again, the giant scale makes even the best systems in the world lose FPS, and on my PC I've had drops to 6-7 FPS when in the middle of a battle. As a sidenote, the biggest skirmish/multiplayer map that you can find in this game cannot be played at the moment on any computer in the world, and it measures 6400 square km. That's the real size of a whole city.

Third aspect: unit design. It is absolutely imperative to have many, many units. You cannot just go with a group of 20, even if you have strategy and play well, and know how to combine them properly. Turrets are very very powerful and cheap to build, and units much too weak. Most of them die in one hit (tier 1 units do for sure). The gameplay tends to get to a certain degree where you can just push forward with turrets, and everything else is almost impossible. While this aspect can make the game dynamic and stimulating, making you fight for virtually every palm of land, you somehow get disappointed and bored after a while. You know you can do it and reach there, but you are also aware that you have to do the same thing over and over, build the same units, push with your point defenses.

So the game is making you wage wars on a massive scale. Fine, but to do that, you need a massive amount of units. Building units takes time. Building a lot of units... well... just takes a lot of time. Having engineers to assist will help you build faster, but since you get a limited number of units (around 500), you can have less troops if you have more engineers, and vice-versa. In single player mode, you can alter the game speed to suit your need dynamically, by pressing the + or - keys. Game speed ranges from -10 to +10 in increments of one.

The impressive waypoint and building queue system (hold SHIFT) allows you to plan everything that involves building in your base, and then just speed up the game until you have everything constructed. Supreme Commander has the best waypoint system I ever seen in a game. However, changing speeds is impossible in skirmish maps or multiplayer, a tiny aspect that can make the game really long and boring at the start and between fights.

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Singleplayer and the Factions

Similar to Total Annihilation, the commander is represented on the battlefield by an “Automated Command Unit” or ACU. Since the quantum gate technology used to arrive instantaneously to a distant planet is still dangerous, a human commander is inserted at the controls of an ACU mech and sent alone via the gate. The ACU is capable of building everything that is needed for a base, and every other unit.

Two types of resources can be found in the game: mass and energy. Mass can be obtained by building mass extractors in special places, or mass fabricators that use energy to generate mass. Energy can be obtained by creating power generators. Both resources can also be obtained by harvesting the wrecks of dead units, trees, etc. You also get an “adjacency bonus” if you build these types of buildings next to each other.

Four tiers of units and structures can be constructed by each faction, and the higher trees can be achieved by upgrades. Tier four is entirely with experimental units, very distinct for each faction.

There are three factions in Supreme Commander, all human, but very different, all with the goal to conquer the known universe.

The United Earth Federation (UEF)

“All hell has broke loose” for the UEF, as they are forced to fight now in two fronts, against both the Cybrans and the Aeon. The UEF wants to reunite the universe under its command and bring back the Earth Empire to its former glory. The UEF forces are spread too thin, and the predictions for the outcome of the war are looking pretty grim. You are the last hope for them, a powerful commander that will ensure the launch of the ultimate weapon: the “Black Sun”. Black Sun is an experimental weapon build around a sun, that can detonate virtually any planet via the quantum gates.

The UEF are mostly efficient on the ground, with heavy resilient vehicles with good firepower, but with long construction times, heavy resource cost and not so much maneuverability. Here is a list of the special tier 4 units that UEF can produce:

• "Fatboy" Mobile Factory: A tracked mobile base that can crawl across land and the ocean floor. It has a variety of weapons, including 4 battleship turrets, torpedo tubes and anti-aircraft capability. These are joined by a strong shield that operates only when no construction is underway. The Fatboy can construct land units at high speed and can repair and re-arm aircraft, but can only do any of this when on land, underwater it's a sitting duck.

• "Atlantis" Submersible Aircraft Carrier: Can hold, refuel, and repair up to 150 aircraft, depending on size. It has several anti-aircraft missile launchers, mainly Surface-to-air missiles and AA guns, but primarily relies on powerful torpedoes (from six torpedo tubes) to inflict damage.

• "Mavor" Strategic Artillery: Extremely expensive, the Mavor can fire extraordinarily accurate artillery shells across the largest of maps, thanks to being stationary. Requires a very long time to build, and has very high energy costs. The shells are of the same basic design as the UEF's nuclear weapons, and they arm in mid-air to prevent accidental detonation.
  

The Cybran Nation

QAI estimates that the UEF will fall within 42 days. It is imperative to capture the “Black Sun” weapon before it falls into the Aeon hands. The Cybrans are cybernetic creatures led by Dr. Brackman, the genius who invented Symbiont technology. They are fighting against UEF oppression since the symbionts aren't tolerated. You will act as the “tip of the spear” for the Cybran offense to capture the Black Sun and insure the supremacy of their race. Here are the Cybran experimental units:

• "Soul Ripper" Experimental Gunship: A very tough beetle-like gunship. Has a number of air-to-ground and air-to-air weapons. Low firepower, but very mobile. Usually meant for frontline help with air support and anti-air weapons, the Soul Ripper, if used correctly, can do a great deal of damage to the enemy.

• "Scathis" Experimental Mobile Rapid Fire Artillery: The Scathis consumes a considerable amount of energy, but can quickly blast apart the toughest imaginable defenses. It is notable for its extreme vulnerability, for which it is the subject of much debate in the emerging Supreme Commander community.

• "Monkeylord" Spiderbot: One of the most flexible units in the game, the Monkeylord can go anywhere and fight almost anything. Mounts torpedoes, heavy cannons and a powerful microwave laser, it is also undetectable by radar installations. The concentrated microwave laser continues firing as long as units are in range, even if they are on the opposite side of the Monkeylord, resulting in a "garden hose" firing arc as the turret turns to meet the target.
  

The Aeon Illuminate

The UEF killed the first intelligent lifeform that they encountered some time ago. But some of the humans have found “the way” in the alien culture, and by utilizing some artifacts and alien technology, they managed to become a major power. Now they fight to bring “the way” to the other two factions, the sinners. Possibly the best faction for water troops, the Aeons struggle internally. The princess has premonitions, and saw the way this war must end. Another commander with influence in the Aeon army however wants to take matters into his own hands, and obliterate everyone and everything in his path. You must prevent that and ensure that the “Black Sun” will fall into the right hands. Here is the list with Aeon tier 4 experimental units:

• "Czar" Flying Fortress: The Czar is a flying saucer, complete with a massive beam weapon that annihilates anything in its path. The downside is that it must be directly above the target to fire correctly. In addition to its main weapon, anti air weapons line the perimeter of the Czar, and it can carry a large amount of aircrafts. Very useful for taking out enemy ground-based experimental units. The Czar will also destroy anything it crashes on.

• "Galactic Colossus" Sacred Assault Bot: This is the most resilient unit in the game and it is the only one that can survive ground zero of a strategic nuclear explosion. It has a head-mounted Photon Beam Cannon (which can take out an enemy commander in less than a second) and two “gravity claw” arms. It is, however, extremely slow and lacks any anti-aircraft capabilities. In addition, the wreckage of the Sacred Assault Bot can provide possibly the largest amount of mass from a single object in the game to add to a commander's war effort if it is reclaimed.

• "Tempest" Submersible Battleship: Carries a long range energy cannon and torpedo launchers. The Tempest can quickly construct naval units, however, like the "Fatboy" mobile factory, it can only attack or construct while surfaced.

Multiplayer

Up to 8 players in a LAN match or over the Internet (via GPGNet) are supported. Enough maps to satisfy all the tastes, and tons of options to choose. There are certain modifications that you can enable for all maps, like double the resource income for every player. AI is very customizable as well, and you can select not just difficulty levels, but strategies like swarm where it will attack with tons of low level units all the time, balanced, or high-tech, where it will level up as fast as possible.

The downsides are that you have to have a really good system to play or host multiplayer games, and the fact that it can get really boring on normal speed, because of the big number of units you have to build or upgrade.

Conclusions

A good game, bringing real innovation to the RTS world. War like you've never seen before, on a massive scale. But everything has a downside. The big scale will make you play it at maximum zoom out level, where you will lose the enjoyment of the superb graphics. It also requires a really good system to play. If you are a real fan of the game and have dual monitor support, the game offers a split mode, that you can use for example to have a strategic view on one monitor, and a detailed zoom in look on the other. I didn't experiment that, but I assume it could bring a nice twist to the game...

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Gameplay: 85

Some fresh ideas and an overall quality gameplay that will keep you around the PC for hours. Massive maps, massive wars, and a quality story told in a total of 18 long missions, 6 for each side. Too bad about the zoom out problem, about the pathfinding AI sometimes and some annoying scripted moments in singleplayer campaigns. It's really frustrating that you HAVE to play with zoom out, and that units can sometimes act so dumb. I think it's the only game where you can look away for a moment and lose 200 units when you look back and wonder “how the **** did they get there in a straight line, just waiting to get killed”.

Graphics: 90

Excellent graphics, and the zoom options are incredible, you can get almost on the ground with your camera and zoom out until you see just different colored dots.

Multiplayer: 88

Like I said before, many options and maps, AI modes and addons. A complete multiplayer experience shadowed only by the high resource demand of the game.

Sound: 88

The music score is composed by the famous Jeremy Soule, the one not only responsible with the original Total Annihilation soundtrack, but with music composed for Guild Wars, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion as well. Unit sounds remind me of the original Total Annihilation, good, but a bit repetitive.

Hardware: 80

You can see that the game is really optimized, and there aren't any visible annoying bugs. Load times are short and everything works as it should. You can see that a lot of effort was put into it. It's just impossible to get it much better. But the big scale really brings even the best computers down to their knees. It's a price you have to pay for not compromising the scale... The size of the install is decent, somewhere around 8GB, and the game comes on a Dual Layer DVD.