Supreme Commander Preview

No matter how dull the gaming industry gets sometimes, developers and publisher always find some way to replenish particular game genres. We've already witnessed the more or less successful return of high-profile licenses such as Quake, Elder Scrolls and Age of Empires. Roughly a year from now, we should be witnessing the comeback of EA's remarkably popular strategy franchise, Command & Conquer. Next to Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars, another promising RTS project is also under way. For the past year or so, Gas Powered Games, the makers of successful games such as Dungeon Siege I and II, have been working on a real-time strategy entitled Supreme Commander.

We are in international waters... the ocean is surprisingly unpolluted.

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. Star Wars, right?

Lead by game-design guru Chris Taylor, GPG means to throw a few unique features to spice up the RTS genre. Chris Taylor is, of course, known for his involvement in the creation of Cavedog Entertainment's RTS classic Total Annihilation (1997), proclaimed by many as one of the best strategies ever. After almost ten years, Chris attempts to take another step closer towards better strategy games, accompanied by his own development studio this time around. It's also important to emphasize that Supreme Commander isn't a sequel to Total Annihilation. It's more of a "spiritual successor", really (boy, they sure love using that expression).

Anyhow, I've often found myself complaining about how a majority of real-time strategies simply fail to convey a much desired sense of scale during battles. Although certain games manage to express an epic in-game atmosphere, actual conflicts often turn out far less spectacular than the developers initially promised. According to Chris, GPG aims to change all that by creating maps and battlefields capable of portraying the feel of a large-scale conflict between vast armies. It all depends on what the player prefers. It will be possible to zoom in on individual units, and see the action up close, or to enjoy a large-scale approach by zooming out.

The creators of SC are attempting to create a game that's user-friendly when it comes to overall design. This was also one of the primary concerns, perpetuated throughout most of the development process. With such a goal in mind, GPG worked intently on a practical interface, coupled with an intuitive map system. Basically, if you wish to know the whereabouts of your army, all you have to do is zoom out until you get a clear picture of the entire area. That's how the extreme zoom fits into the equation.

Moving units around the map and planning out your attacks will be a lot easier than in most strategy games. Once units are sent to a specific location, a line appears drawing their destination and path. Apart from that, you'll be able to see exactly how long it will take for your army to reach its destination, as well as the appropriate formation it's going to take upon arrival. The advantages of such elements are self-evident, particularly if you know your way around an RTS game. While traveling to the marked destination, individual troop formations will also make an effort to synchronize their time of arrival with the rest of their comrades. Hm, this seems to be an ideal solution when you want to assault the enemy base simultaneously from multiple angles.

As far as tactics go, you can be sure that Supreme Commander allows for a ton of options on the battlefield. Still, in addition to managing a variety of units in battle, it's important to think about how you build and organize your base. For that purpose, buildings can be attached to ensure faster and more efficient production. Then again, arranging a base that way endangers buildings and makes them more vulnerable to enemy attacks - if one structure, in a chain of buildings, is damaged, neighboring structures will sustain some of that damage. As you can see, achieving victory involves a bit more brainstorming than usual. Besides which, players are also required to get their mitts on a specific amount of recourses in order to survive. In this game, recourse management has been reduced to accumulating "mass" and "energy."

Micromanaging has been reduced to a minimum. For instance, after some time, your base will start spreading across the map and that would be the right time to call on a "Base Commander". The specific purpose of this unit is to look after things at home while you're busy elsewhere. Just select a certain area you want the commander to oversee and you can rest assured he'll do his job as you attend to other pressing matters.

The variety of units is huge, and will surely stand as one of the crucial aspects of gameplay. You'll use everything from tanks, planes, boats, carriers, cruisers, submarines, humongous mechanical spiders, etc. Most of the gigantic units, by the way, will be able to crunch smaller units that pass underneath them, so you'll have to be careful where you place your grunts and smaller tanks. Another interesting addition is the ability to camouflage a small number of grunts and trick enemies into thinking you've amassed a colossal army (the system, naturally, works both ways).

The story may not bring much in terms of originality, but we were pleased to see that the developers went all out to create an extensive timeline to go along with the game's futuristic setting (you can check it out over at the game's official web site).

Hey, I can see my house from here.

A futuristic adaptation of the Normandy landing.

After many years of peace, and colonizing other planets, humanity enters a terrible conflict, thus splitting into three opposing factions - United Earth Federation, the Cybran and the Aeon. As opposed to Cybran and Aeon, UEF sticks to the traditions and warfare of regular humans. They continue to fight, using fighter jets, aircraft carriers, submarines, tanks and so on. The Cybran, on the other hand, are best known for reinforcing their ranks with powerful mech-type units. Last but not least, we have the Aeon. Over the years, the Aeon learned to adapt to the advantages of alien technology and are, quite unsurprisingly, using it against their sworn enemies (i.e. the UEA and Cybran factions).

Yep, that's how the developers mean to keep it. Plain and simple. You have three warring factions, a decent enough storyline and an intuitive battle system. Of course, we're dying to see how all this functions in practice and we'll be on the lookout for THQ and GPG at this year's E3.

Oh and just so you know, most of the aspects we mentioned are being finalized and tweaked. Gas Powered Games still has a long road ahead, so don't expect to see this one in stores any time soon (not before 2007, anyways).