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Supreme Commander (PC)

• Developer:
• Publisher: THQ
• Genre:
• Official Website: http://www.supremecommander.com
• Score: 5 of 5: Purchase

It's almost like Gas Powered Games' Supreme Commander was designed with an awesome ‘the world is your playground' checklist. A huge variety of implacable robotic war-minions? Check. An excellent and flexible user-interface that's completely configurable? Check. Dual-screen and split-screen support? Check. An innovative strategic-to-ground-level zoom feature? Check. Gigantic uber-units and massive thermonuclear explosions? Check. By the time their checklist was complete, they had themselves the newest, hottest thing in RTS gaming.

It's a worn-out story at this point, but we'll sum it up for those of you who just switched channels. Chris Taylor was the original developer of an interesting little Real-Time Strategy game called Total Annihilation that, for its time-frame, was fairly original and featured tons of robotic units and true 3D terrain (a first among its RTS brethren). Years passed after Total Annihilation's release, and with the passage of time came newer, cooler games and genre innovations. Chris, however, had always wanted to return to his roots and reclaim the RTS genre for his own long-awaited sequel to TA; however the rights to that game were no longer his, and he was forced to create an all-new intellectual property to house his sequel. Thus Supreme Commander was born.

The 1,000 year ‘Infinite War' provides the detailed setting and storyline for SupCom's three warring factions - the United Earth Federation (UEF), the Cybran Nation, and the Aeon Illuminate. Each side has its own reasons for jumping two-fisted into the fray and their own unique philosophies. These ideals shape their units and their military doctrine as well as how each faction plays. One of the minor quibbles some may have with the game is how all three races, at times, feel strangely similar or even slightly soulless, though I chalk that up more to a lack of good unit responses than to a design failure.

To get a better feel for the tone and setting, here's a short synopsis of each faction and their collective military styles: The UEF is where it all began, with the original Earth military organization expanding rapidly into the depths of the galaxy and then promptly imploding under its own growth - splintering off the game's other two factions, the Cybrans and Aeon Illuminate, in the process. UEF units tend to be bigger and bristling with weapons, most of which utilize more conventional ballistics or heavy explosive ordinance (read: nukes) to achieve their purpose. Their primary philosophy is to restore their long-lost glory and bring their two renegade factions back into the fold - by force if necessary.

The Cybran Nation was unintentionally created by a brilliant UEF scientist, Dr. Gustaf Brackman, who merged a human brain with advanced cybernetics to create a race called the Symbionts. In classic Sci-fi fashion, the UEF military grew nervous about the Symbionts' capabilities and activated a pre-planted loyalty circuit to take full-control of them. Unfortunately for the UEF, a small segment of the Symbionts, freed and re-programmed by their creator, Dr. Brackman, escaped into deep space where they formed their own culture. Cybrans want nothing more than to free their remaining robotic brethren from UEF captivity, and this motivation fuels their high-tech war machine. Preferring precise surgical strikes and guerilla tactics to outright slug-fests, the Cybrans are capable of fielding stealth units and fast-moving combat vehicles to aid them in their cause.

As part of the UEF's expansion into space, a colonization team landed on Seraphim II and discovered a highly-evolved, highly-intelligent alien race - which they not-so-cleverly dubbed the Seraphim. Unfortunately, some military elements in this expedition attacked and destroyed this original alien species but not before the remaining Seraphim could convert a number of colonists to their ‘way,' an enlightened path of peace and love. These converted colonists merged their own beliefs with this philosophy and called themselves the ‘Aeon Illuminate.' Their first act was to destroy the UEF forces on Seraphim II and forge a new path, albeit one far less tolerant and far more warlike than their original alien instructors had taught. Aeon technology allows for shields and extremely advanced ‘quantum' and ‘sonic' weaponry, and their military forces are capable of extreme devastation for those uninterested in or unwilling to accept their philosophy.

So the table is set, but what about the food? There are so many things that Supreme Commander does well that it's hard to know where to begin. But for starters, the most loudly-hyped innovation is the fully-featured zoom ability that seamlessly brings you from a down-n-dirty ground-level viewpoint all the way up to a high-level strategic view with shocking ease. I'm sure it's been said in quite a few reviews, but it bears repeating - it'll be difficult to play another RTS with a less-capable zoom in the future after using this one. Gone are the days of feeling like you can't quite see everything and feel as if you're missing the big strategic picture and in its place is the ability to quickly view problem areas while still rapidly managing the map and your battles. It's a wonderful, well-implemented feature that I've found infinitely useful, though I've also noticed with some consternation that it's occasionally all too easy to command from ‘on high' and miss out on all the great graphical detail the game has to offer.

Speaking of the graphics, SupCom showcases some serious bling with particular attention being paid to the explosions and ordinance, especially in naval warfare. Maps are well-detailed, and a variety of cool environments are aptly available for snow, desert, or jungle combat. Each race has its own unique artistic style and color, with the UEF boasting a metallic and bristling blue, the Cybrans nabbing a cherry red scheme and prickly-looking insectoid units, and Aeon Illuminate forces sporting sleek, rounded cyber-units in matrix-green. The first time you see any kind of nuclear explosion, you'll find yourself muttering ‘WOW' in stunned disbelief - they're that amazing. Water effects were particularly enjoyable and added even more ‘oomph' to the sea-borne combat between ships. The high-powered graphics engine can task lesser systems, and if you're having troubles with your frame-rates in larger battles, the game provides a myriad of suitable options to tweak in order to help make the game more playable. If you're fortunate enough to be running dual-core or even quad-core systems, SupCom will eagerly take advantage of the extra processing power to speed up the game's AI and unit calculations as well.

I particularly enjoyed the musical score by the famous game composer Jeremy Soule and also the fact that the music adjusted itself on the fly to reflect in-game changes. When combat reared its ugly head, the score become more menacing and dramatic, while during periods of relative peace and early game build-up, it was more stately and epic, hinting at the future excitement. The only disappointing aspects of the game's sound design were the lack of truly humorous or interesting unit responses and some bouts of dorky voice-acting in the single-player campaign, but in light of the high-quality music and combat sounds, it was easy to forgive. Robotic vehicles aren't known for their pithy remarks, I suppose.

While it'd be easiest to label SupCom as just a prettier version of TA, I don't think that does it justice. While some in-game changes are admittedly more iterative than innovative, there are still decent amounts of clever ideas weaved into the game's fabric, enough to really give Supreme Commander its own unique feel. One such change, other than the aforementioned scalable zoom feature, is the concept of adjacency. Simply put, adjacent resource buildings (Mass Collectors or Power Generators) placed next to unit-producing factories will provide a resource discount for units produced at that factory according to which specific resource building is adjacent. If you slap your Land Factory up against several Mass Collectors, you'll receive a mass discount on all of the units created at that factory and vice versa with Power Generators. This presents an interesting conundrum for battlefield commanders because Power Generators tend to blow up something fierce. They can often take out surrounding buildings in the blast radius, so you're left with the choice to enhance your economy but risk losing it to a well-aimed artillery strike, for example, or spreading your base out in a safer defensive pattern while allowing your economy to suffer. Choices like this bring strategy to the forefront and add more depth to the proceedings.

I also appreciated the decision to keep resource production fairly simple as well. You collect both Mass and Energy. Mass you harvest by building Mass Collectors on top of each map's pre-existing Mass Deposits while Energy is something you can produce merely by building a Power Generator. SupCom doesn't show your resource totals as a complete balance but rather as either a ratio of economic efficiency (a bit more obtuse) or as an income ratio of resources coming in versus those going out. Units are purchased based on a ratio of cost over time instead of all up front at once. This allows you to buy things on credit over time, thus allowing you to build your forces up more quickly. Consider it a military blue-light special, if you will. Further compounding the speed of development is the fact that any construction unit (Engineers OR your Armored Command Unit) can help any other builders to speed up production times of not only base building but also units being produced within factories. This provides another important strategic aspect that quality players need to take into account when prepping for war.

The single-player campaign plays to one of Supreme Commander's best strengths - its insanely huge maps. Whichever faction you choose to start with, the game starts you in a small map segment and with simple tasks initially in order to help you learn the gameplay and basics, but as each faction's campaign progresses, new missions will open up more of the map until you're finally in a full-blown gigantic struggle with your foes. This has the effect of bringing you along gently in the learning process, and I found it extremely helpful. Not everyone seems to enjoy single-player RTS action, however, and thankfully SupCom's primary strength lies in its excellent multiplayer.

Gas Powered Games (GPG) decided to eschew traditional sources of online match-making (such as GameSpy) and forged their own dedicated match-making and multiplayer ranking system entitled ‘GPG Net.' Not only does GPG Net do an excellent job matching up players of equal rank, but it also conveniently informs you if you need an update and then quickly patches your game for you. SupCom supports up to 8 human or AI players in both skirmish and competitive multiplayer matches. A nifty feature of skirmish play is that GPG provides customizable AI. If you're trying to improve your skills against turtling players (those who create an impregnable base and sit back to defend it versus attacking), set one of the AI in your skirmish battle to play defensively. If you find yourself struggling to handle those annoying rushing players (someone who attacks you quickly from the outset with lower-tiered units), practice against an AI rusher. It's a nice touch and something that should be adopted by all future RTS titles. Another interesting upcoming feature of GPG Net (in a future download or patch) will be a global map of participating SupCom players - you'll be able to click on players by location around the globe to learn more about them and their standings in the SupCom community.

Supreme Commander has its share of tiny bugs - I found one where your Armored Command Unit (which is representational of ‘you' on the battlefield as a giant multi-purpose robotic commander) refused to target an enemy Mass Collector properly. Gas Powered Games has already released a few bug-fixing patches to clean-up the loose ends, and stability really hasn't been an overall problem. Aside from the occasional tiny bugs, which are bound to appear in a game of this magnitude and scope, there are a few glaring omissions that will also hopefully be addressed in future patches. One notable issue is that for a game with maps as colossal as SupCom's, you'd expect Gas Powered Games to have realized the importance of offering the traditional ‘ping' command to help point out critical locations or situations to your teammates, yet there is none. Another small grumble is the lack of multiplayer save points, and since games in Supreme Commander can occasionally last for a couple of hours on the larger maps, this also feels like something that should've been included.

It seems all too rare these days for a highly-anticipated game to actually live up to its billing, but I'd daresay that Supreme Commander has not only met those expectations, it's surpassed them in several ways. Boasting not only fantastic visuals, a huge variety of units, gigantic, brain-numbing maps, some clever in-game innovations, and great multiplayer, SupCom reaches for the stars and captures a galaxy. Now it's your turn to do the same.

Mar 13, 2007 | 0 comments
Tony DuLac