Supreme Commander

Supreme Commander is yet another in the build/rush/destroy type RTS games that count things like Command and Conquer, War/Starcraft and many many others. You would think the market is very saturated, and you would be correct. But this game stands out amongst equals. It is really just the best of them. Hasn't been peaked. Possibly never will. Is still great today.

So there are essentially 4 games in the series. Total Annihilation, which has aged pretty poorly, but was really great in its day, Supreme Commander (this one), Supreme Commander:Forged Alliance and finally Supreme Commander 2.

In regular games like these, you mine some ressources, build some stuff and rush the enemy. What makes this game stand out is that there are infinite ressources, so you measure your ressources in rates rather than units. And you have a max limit of ressources, so you had better start building stuff or you will waste your mined ressources. Which makes for huge battles the likes of which are just not seen in the other games. This game essentially turns it all up to 11. If you like these kind of games, even if you think they can be kinda dumb, you should try this. It doesn't get better than this. This game made me go Wow. Warcraft 3 never did.

There's a story in it. It is then finished in SC:FA and for some reason stretched further in SC2.

Which makes it hard to tell you which one to get. Well, OK: Skip SC2. It's a bland generic game that adds nothing to the formula making it a huge step back from the two first ones.

SC:FA just feels slightly smoother, but the campaign mode continues the story started in SC and makes little sense if you haven't played SC. So I think what you should do is Play SC campaign. Play SC:FA and stay with it. Then after a while, buy SC2, play it for a while and then realise that you should have listened to me, when I told you it was garbage.

But seriously, this game is just so much fun. Still stands out today as the best of the bunch.

Let me paint a picture for you.

late 2000's RTS consisted of essentially 2 franchises, Command & Conquer and War/Starcraft.

Total Anihilation burned out after TA Kingdoms fell. it suffered the fate of corporate sabotage and sell outs from it's studio leading to an eventual spiritual successor that is Supreme Commander.

I have been playing RTS games since I was 8 years old. I know almost all of them. Supreme Commander, in that era was essentially a dead game because no one played online, it didn't have good marketing, but it was a Genuinely Good Game.

Fast forward to now, EA is a shitshow, Blizzard couldn't even remaster their own game themselves, and the only other RTS games are either franchised slop, souless cash grabs on pretty engines, or uninteresting clones of better games made cheap and adding nothing new or worse stripping out what made their originators better.

Supreme Commander still is a genuinely Good Game, with tism elements overlooked and a generally misunderstood cycle, but protip: increase your unit cap significantly and you'll have a better time.

I don't regret borrowing this game from the local library and redeeming its key as a 12 year old. Still a great game

This game has got to be up there, if not, the greatest RTS game ever made. Air, Land and Sea units and graphics that are detailed but simple enough not to get too messy to take in quickly. For a game that's 17 years on from release now how well it stands up to playing today is a work of dark magic. Absolutely recommend trying this out, even if your useless at these type of games like me.

There is no RTS game like Supreme Commander. The micro and macro scales, the hour + long matches against cheating AI or screwing around with friends, the ability to place almost any building almost anywhere instead of being confined to select areas, its a 10/10 if you are a die hard RTS fan, especially if you play Forged Alliance and play the Forged Alliance Forever multiplayer mod/launcher thing.
So sad we will probably never see SC3, and most imitations of the game just aren't the same.

Beautiful Game. For its time, unmatched. The campaign is amazing (Go UEF!) way cooler than Star Wars

Supreme Commander (as well as Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance and Supreme Commander 2) is a game I still play every once in a while, and which never gets old. Pretty well refined 4X action, tactics and strategy -- maybe the best, but that's my taste. The games have aged extremely well.

Some in the series struggle with high resolutions, but the graphics (did I mention that already?) have aged well, even if you cant run 'em at 4K.