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Supreme Commander
Author: Wil HarrisPublished: 16th February 2007
Cutlass Supreme
None of this would be possible were it not for SupCom's unique viewpoint, and one of the best things ever introduced to the RTS genre. Imagine a standard RTS viewpoint. Then imagine you can zoom right in to examine your troops and the battle in staggering, gorgeously-lit detail. Then imagine you can zoom back out, and out, and out, and out - until you're left with a graphic depiction of the map, with your units as mere markers on a board, like a mini-map but, well, bigger. All of this happens with a flick of your scroll wheel.Mastering this unique viewpoint is crucial to success in a game - after all, generals in the movies don't spend their time down with the plebs, they spend it shifting big coloured blocks around big war-zone maps. Due to the massive amount of units in play, the different fronts, and the scale of the game, you'll spend probably more time viewing the zoomed-out, 2D-tastic view of the battlefield as you will actually getting close enough to admire the intricately rendered graphics.
But this is where SupCom's next innovation comes in handy, and where the game really begins to get sublime - multi-monitor support. If you have two monitors connected up to your PC, you can use both in-game - a first, as far as we can see. You can use one monitor to stay close-in to the action, and another to watch the tactical movement of troops from afar. You can zoom both in and out at will, although the command interface only appears on one, and this means you can keep track of two separate parts of the battlefield at the same time.
Once you've played SupCom with dual monitors, you'll wonder how you ever played an RTS with just a single monitor. This single feature is so revolutionary, it turns gameplay completely on its head and changes the way you think about the battlefield, your units, your tactics and your orders. It's so difficult to explain, but feels so right in practice.
If the game's unique perspective and scale turn your tactics on their head, you're going to need to adapt fast - because the game is totally, utterly unforgiving. SupCom, even on Easy, is one of the hardest games we've ever played. It never gives you a free ride, and keeps you constantly challenged. Just when you think you've beaten a map, that the enemy forces have been beaten back by the skin of their teeth, there's a plot development and suddenly a scientist gets abducted, or an enemy commander gets spotted, and you've got to regroup, get building, and throw yourself back into the fray. The sheer number of war fronts makes this a complete head-exploder.
Burrito Supreme
Building is, obviously, one of the key parts of the game, and GPG has eschewed traditional RTS resource-gathering in favour of something a little different. There are two resources - Energy and Matter - and both are infinitely regenerating. There are only a certain number of mass deposits on the map, and you'll need to build extractors on these to harvest the mass. Power generators bring energy, and hooking these up to mass extractors give a bonus. Your status of both is represented by a bar, representing a percentage of your storage capacity.Building mass or energy storage facilities allow you to store extra, expanding your capacity for resources. The resources regenerate at a speed dependent on how many facilities you have harvesting them, and deplete depending on how you spend them on troops, buildings etc. Rather than just give you absolute numbers, the game handily gives you a 'rate' figure for both, in the plus or minus, indicating whether you are currently accumulating resources or burning your reserves. Balancing your consumption rate is hard to do, but will make it faster and easier to expand, if you get the balance right.
Your initial building will be done by the eponymous Supreme Commander, i.e. your avatar on the battlefield, represented by a bloody great robot. You're bigger and tougher than virtually every other unit, but there's only one of you, and if you are killed, it's game over. Killing a Commander generates a nuclear explosion that will wipe out the surrounding area, and is often the way to win a map. You therefore have a balance between using your Commander to build quickly on the battlefield and keeping him out of harm's way.
For our final conclusion on the gameplay, hit the last page. However, you'll want to check out our verdict on the game's graphics, sound and performance over the next couple of pages.
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