Without spoiling the story or how the characters will eventually turn out in the campaign, the following text will provide a quick overview of how this singleplayer mode turns out. The UEF, the Aeon and the Cybran each have their own campaign, comprised of a linear followup of several Operations. These Operations start out small but are always action-packed while (optional) objectives are given on the fly via talking StarCraft-esque animated heads (which also show up in Operation briefings and in-game when foes are taunting/cursing you). Even when things are taking too long there is a right and sometimes funny reply of one of your superiors. After an important goal has been completed, the map suddenly becomes larger. This happens a few times until you see the main enemy base with an ACU in it which you have to kill nearly every time to finish the Operation. The artificial intelligence (AI) of the hostile faction isn't bad at all. Sure, it sometimes makes use of magically appearing troops coming from a map boundary at random intervals but once you're ensued in a full-on base vs base battle (usually at the last Operation objective with the map fully spread out) you barely see big mistakes. I once sent my Commander near an enemy base under siege, to build a local factory there to speed things up. Consequence; loads of planes and especially gunships suddenly fly out the protective baseshields, ready to kill any AA in the vicinity first and to hunt my slow Commander down afterwards. The "outer-map" reinforcements also know which targets hurt the most once they have spotted them, like vulnerable engineers that are trying to establish an outpost or some lone, wandering units.

During the first Operations build options are limited to Tier 1 units (read: the small and cheap troops), which only seems logical so people can get used to them and will learn their strengths, even when confronted by the campaign AI which is sometimes allowed to use more advanced tech. New technologies are made available to you gradually and their use becomes clear through the objectives you're being assigned to. Variation is key here and in the four UEF operations I've played, many different tasks were given, varying from escort missions to defend a point to kill a target/to produce a certain amount of units within a given time. Very enjoyable although I would have loved to see some real people amidst the mechanical slaughter. Civilians are usually represented as being permanently stationed in casual buildings or in some small trucks but that's it, the only other humans in the field are playing around in their Armored Command Units (ACU's, the Commanders). Wouldn't it be nice to trample people under those gigantic steel boots?

Yet, as far as robots go, there is a lot of variety. Land, sea, air forces, loads of defensive structures like walls, shields, anti-air, anti-missile, anti-nuke and several turrets... simply sweet compared to other recent RTS's that only opt for limited land- and air-battles. An average SupCom-unit mostly has only one real ability, making it very clear what it stands for. As players progress through the tech Tiers, things get more complicated until you arrive at the Experimental stages. While the effort to create an Experimental unit isn't always better value than putting out a huge army of regular bots, it's still a great sight to behold. The Aeon Czar comes straight out of Independence Day, blue beam of death included for this huge flying saucer, though it can be floored relatively easy by a lot of AA-fire. It makes up for that by its ability to store and resupply more than hundred planes. Other Experimentals like the UEF Fatboy (sort of a land battleship) or the Aeon Tempest (a submersible battleship) have options to create units in the field. The more direct and spectacular fights are coming from the Cybran Monkeylord (the infamous, big Spider from the E3-trailer yes) and the Aeon Galactic Colossus. The first is speedy, has stealth and excellent AA- and torpedo-abilities, the second is slow, doesn't have any AA but has oh so many hitpoints that it can withstand several waves of enemies. The Colossus' main weapon is its purplewhite laserbeam eye and two arms which suck up any-non experimental units in the area to strongly throw them away to explode on impact with the ground. The Experimentals are clearly the area where the three factions differ the most. There are other differences in the form of general faction pilosophies, loads of little details and a unique unit here or there but it's never very extreme. Only the UEF have a powerful Tier 3 Gunship f.e. or Cybran Mantis bots can heal each other and help building up structures, even during battles. The insect-like Cybran armies also use stealth to their advantage while the alienated Aeon have hovering units in T1, making them powerful from the start on seamaps. The most recognisable side is the UEF, as they are generally more robust.

I had a tough time with the campaign of the latter side, not only because the AI did its work fine on the Hard difficulty setting but the game also crashed on a couple occassions and slowed down heavily. It's quite an old build though, and the performance advancements in the multiplayer beta over the last month and the fact that Operation maps aren't the same size as the biggest skirmish maps, are more than a hint that this shouldn't be as much of an issue in the final version. SupCom can be completely run from DVD too, with only saves and user preferences being stored on your hard disk. It reminds me of TA itself where you could always predict when the game would be stuck for a second or two between music tracks and of Diablo, when every loading time made your CD-drive soar like hell. It isn't that different here and loading times are longer than when you play it from the hard disk (where you can be in-game in less than 10 seconds). In skirmish there are different types of AI to fight against. Assuming Supreme AI was the hardest, I instantly tried it out trusting on my experiences in the multiplayer beta and assuming I could probably handle it... well, I couldn't, after 15 minutes the Supreme AI usually had a double score than mine, no matter on what map the session took place. It also knows exactly when to retreat and where to attack and how to make timely upgrades.

When discussing SupCom it's impossible to neglect the strategic view, the ability to rapidly zoom out to a complete on-screen overview of the map. A complaint many will make is that you have to be in the strategic view for long periods of time and look at (loads of) different icons and some far away explosion flashes or bullet fire. Yet, in-game, it isn't all that disturbing as one may suspect. There is simply no other way to get a good view on such a huge theatre of war. What about the minimap? Isn't that still a better alternative? Forget about it, actually, if I have the minimap turned off I wouldn't notice it for a long time since it almost becomes obsolete through the ease of zooming Gas Powered Games has incorporated into this game. A minimap is still useful to spot a sudden attack when you are zoomed-in and busy with building, arranging stuff and closely ordering troops around but only the "maximap" is the real deal. In past video presentations of SupCom the developers have talked about how they couldn't go back to other RTS's because they really missed the zoom. Well, I wouldn't say I can't go back to the likes of Dawn of War or Total Annihilation but I did want to zoom out when I played these games after I've first tested SupCom. It's a feature that feels completely natural, the devs truly nailed this. You can only wonder if other games in the genre are gonna pick this up too.

Despite the refinements and additions, Supreme Commander plays a lot like TA, which means you have to get an expansionist mind, and then I am not only talking about the urge for map control. You can't expect to make a couple of combat units and be able to cope with the fast pace when facing eager opponents. While keeping an eye on your economy (which can effectively stall and cause a lot of damage if you keep on building/producing more than you can handle), there is a strong need to build more troops, more factories, more power plants or mex's (Mass Extractors), more experimentals, just... more of everything. To the uninitiated that, at first, seems a pretty simple tactic also known as spamming. Yet, if you want big, spectacular battles, you have to think big. Also, the many units have their own purposes and only a fool would create armies of one type of unit. It's all in the small details; the composition of your army, how it is positioned, which formation it's in, how you manage to get the maximum out of your economy and out of the adjacency bonusses (more on them later), gaining enough intel to timely intercept strategic bombers or a gunship swarm with your interceptor patrols... it would be all too much to control if it wasn't for the extensive yet decent user interface (UI). The options available here are a godsend to keep your armies under control. Basically, there are a lot of things the original TA could have benefited from like the Ferry mode for air tranports (or let's just say better air transports overall), which allows for a fast automated transfer of troops across wide areas. Formations are also a welcome addition just as the advanced and easily adjustable waypoints. Players can move the interface around (left, right or bottom position) and play with the overlay buttons to have a closer eye on radar range and/or the economic status of individual units and buildings. It's not always perfect since in the lowest resolution (1024x768) there are almost more UI-bits on screen than an actual in-game view.

Other peculiarities are the building adjancency bonusses, which can become really addictive. You can execute them as much as possibly (f.e. surrounding every factory with powerplants to reduce the energy cost of the units built there) although a couple of precise targeted bomber payloads can turn this quickly into a cold turkey (aka a base blown up by chain reactions). The upgrades make the gameplay more streamlined when compared to TA. No need to build a Tier 2 factory, in SupCom you can always upgrade a T1 factory. Same goes for Mass Extractors. The Commander can be tweaked with more weaponry or with extra building capabilities. A sizeable amount of new goodies then but this doesn't mean there isn't any room for improvement left, fans still ask for functions or even more importantly; new units. Despite the 240 units (divided over the three factions) present here, it sometimes still doesn't seem "enough", everything is covered (air, land, sea as said before) of course, but some aspects aren't yet as iconic as in TA with all the extra (expansions) units.

Multiplayer happens through GPGnet, Gas Powered Games' own matchmaking service which also provides support for clans, several ranking ladders, friends lists and all the stuff that are considered as standard for the online multiplayer RTS scene. Some annoyances still exist, with connection/desync issues and a custom game server listing that doesn't always gives enough info. Considering updates are still coming in right now in the multiplayer beta, it does seem to be improved more and more. Like the recent introduction of statistics-tracking. Take *myself* for example (all stats were wiped recently so don't expect that much intel); everything is on show here, what and how much units players have built on what map during each ranked game. People who thought this would be an RTS in which you could "chill out" couldn't have been proven more wrong when they play it online. Of course, in the final version you can tweak AI options to suit to your needs (as explained earlier in this article) and playing with some "patient" friends on a 20x20 map will present a completely different pace than playing on a 10x10 map for a higher ranking.

If you keep a watch over the game on lower levels it usually provides spectacular shots and epic battle-scenes that can rightfully be placed next to the orchestrated events in the stunning E3 trailer. The multiplayer beta has some nice visuals in store, even for the ones without a beast of a PC. There are also enough detail settings to tweak in order to get the best perfomance. There is something else that nags a bit though, and that's the fact that Total Annihilation did have more vivid individual battles, greater dogfights, more raw, chaotic explosions with flying debris instead of the massively used white flashes on the ground/water in SupCom, and the TA-maps definitely look more complex than the more flat SupCom-environments. When creating a spiritual sequel some things might get lost I guess (or will be added/refined later on, who knows) though the big, total war-spectacle still remains and that's the most important thing to remember.

For now, problemo numero uno is (multiplayer) performance, no matter what kind of machine or connection you have. Betaversion 5.3 plays a lot smoother than any previous versions of the game but there are still slowdowns enough in later stages of the game to get worried. Hopefully GPG gets it right from the release day (mid-February) so everyone can at least play the game.