There has been a bit of a drought lately of RTS games so the recent hype around Supreme Commander had us intrigued. Early press releases and screenshots of the game hinted at a game that was akin Total Annihilation of old where strategy was the name of the game.
Supreme Commander is set in the future where mankind has conquered space and wiped out some of the annoying lesser alien races. In doing so, however, mankind cannot shake of his fractured past and has broken into to three distinct races as the species has proceeded on its evolutionary path. There are the UEF who remain true to Earth, and there is the two breakaway factions - the Aeons and the Cybran. The game has a distinct campaign for each of the three races and these serve to give an insight into their motivation and character.
As a commander of one of these factions, you pilot a ACU (armoured command unit) which most players would recognise as a mech'. This unit serves both as a primary construction unit and also a heavy combat unit. The ultimate challenge within a game is to take out the opposing force's ACU (that go nuclear once killed).
Each mission starts with a briefing sequence which details some immediate goals, and then you are landed into the hostile planet to commence the mission. Your immediate goal is to set up a healthy economy which is not particularly hard to do; there are only two resources to farm.
There is mass, which is the key building resource, and there is power needed to keep everything going. The latter can be sourced by building power stations while the former requires a mass extractor on a specific node. Old hands at RTS games will immediately recognise the importance of these nodes and the influence they can have on game strategies.
Once you get the raw materials coming in, you can then build one of the three factory buildings to churn out aircraft, land or sea units. Each of these buildings has three tech levels. Sadly this is a big weakness in the game, with very little meat to the technology tree. Upgrading the three buildings means they now produce stronger units. There is no special armour or weapon upgrades to research or differentiate your units.
The units themselves, although differing in design from faction to faction, are very much all vanilla flavoured. Each has its bomber, its fighter, its light and heavy tank etc. The only real difference is each faction has the ability to build an uber unit that can devastate the opposition. These take considerable resources to build and are a risky strategy. There is no system of experience for the units which is another surprising omission.
You would be forgiven for thinking at this point then the game is quite lacklustre. These issues, however, pale when you start to play the game. The real gem in the game is its vast expanse and its very capable AI. Campaign maps generally start with a small playing area and as you start completing aspects of the mission more of the map is revealed.
