Supreme Commander

Icy-Tea is offering one FREE hour to play Supreme Commander

One of the new PC releases this year is a welcome back to the ground breaking team headed by the legendary Chris Taylor. Before the hits of Dungeon Siege and its subsequent follow-up, Chris was responsible for the ground breaking RTS of Total Annihilation. Until this point RTS, Real Time Strategy, games had been based upon isolated battles and limited AI, Artificial Intelligence, the enemy’s ability to adapt and conquer, however Total Annihilation broke this mould plunging the player into large titanic struggles of sprawling terrain.

Following on a decade later, Supreme Commander picks up from where Total annihilation left off, the player has to choose between three warring factions; United Earth Federation, Aeon Illuminate or the Cyber Nation.

Set in the distant future where three diametrically opposed factions battle for supremacy, you control a Supreme Commander, a giant battlefield robot equipped with a cornucopia of upgradeable offensive and defensive capabilities.

However, there's the catch. With your Supreme Commander key to your faction's survival (if he's destroyed then it's game over), you have to decide whether to bolster his shield and weapon systems and risk sending him into the fray, or play it safe and keep him within the confines of your base to help with construction and repairs.

One of the new features of the game is to move seamlessly from the battlefront to the tactical map, by the scroll of the mouse wheel, enabling the player to command their mass armies in an instant.

With all this behind it you would presume that Supreme Commander would stomp it rivals into the ground, however there are several flaws that stop this game from taking the top spot; the first is the slightly inadequate interface which does not offer the level of control required t really command massive units. Secondly you find yourself flustered when the enemy quashes your carefully planned attack with immeasurable ease, causing you to revert to the old favourite tactic, build the biggest army and assault via the front door. Finally adding in some suspect path finding when commanding large groups leaves you with the feeling of what could have been.

Overall while it may not quite be supreme, it still ranks as one of the finest strategy games you’re likely to experience this year.

Rating: 8/10 Available on PC only.