Turquoise waypoints angle like zigzag avionics over flak-lit terrain zoomed mile-high: ETA 1:33. Perfect. we pull the trigger on a squad of spider-legged siege bots (they'll scamper north to scout a fog-cloaked resource field) then drop back low, panning a few hundred feet over desiccated riverbeds and scrub-covered hills before finding our base - a plateau tattooed with power plants feeding circuit-riddled factories, generators, fabricators, turbines, and missile launchers.
By the river, our
That was unexpected. Facing off against three other players - Red, Green and Blue - we've just been defeated. And it was going so well: we'd been conducting constant, searching raids against all our opponents. We'd made steady progress - taking out our enemies' production facilities scattered all over the ice-plains.
And then, trouble. A UFO slowly looms across the screen. Our anti-air batteries are weak and barely scratch its surface. The UFO's metal shell opens. A single laser fires from its
Tuesday 27 June 2006
Being able to zoom out really, really far is the most important thing to happen to strategy games since they decided to go real-time. It's the biggest reason why Supreme Commander is a monstrously important game.
It may also be why it can look a little bit rubbish in screenshots, and why you may not be that excited yet. You really need to see it in action, and we can help you with that over here.
So what is Supreme Commander? At the most basic level, it's a strategy game
Gas Powered Games' producer Gary Wagner is a pretty tall guy. One look at him and we knew that he's spent a lifetime hitting his head on low overhangs, stooping under short showerheads and ducking into tiny foreign cars. So when Gary set out to help produce the buzz-tastic new real-time strategy game, Supreme Commander, he'd be damned if he was going to hit his head on the camera ceiling.
Once we saw Supreme Commander in action at E3 last week, we realized that backing the view out to take in
Real-time strategy hit a high point with Total Annihilation, but the creator, Chris Taylor left the genre behind to craft both Dungeon Siege games. Now that Taylor's creative legs have been stretched, strategy's superstar inventor is cooking up TA 's spiritual successor: Supreme Commander.
Since leaving the RTS scene, Taylor found that the industry firmly slipped into creating real-time tactical games. Or worse still: resource wars. "To bring strategy back, you need scope and scale," said
