Supreme Commander
 

Supreme Commander official site.

So, there's some new stuff on this game since the last time the forum was reset, so I'll go ahead and make a new thread so we can discuss the spiritual sequel to the best RTS game ever made.

A little background perhaps: Supreme Commander is made by Chris Taylor, of Total Annihilation fame. Although he adamantly claims it's not a sequel to TA, it obviously is.

At first the screenshots of the game looked really similar to TA, but recently some new screenshots and even video footage has come out, and it looks a lot more modern now. It also looks absolutely gorgeous, and just generally very exciting. (It also took away E3's best strategy game award, although quite frankly I'm not sure if there was any competition at all.)

The game also features extreme zoom possibilities. You can zoom in on one unit and see the guns moving and whatnot, and then zoom right out and get a view of the entire battlefield. Apparently, the game features maps that are "thousands of square kilometers in size", and take days to complete. Units can be huge in size, and battle will be between hundreds upon hundreds of units. Similar to TA, really, but on an even grander scale. It's supposed to be completely customisable as well. It's currently slated for an early 2007 release, apparently.

Some screenshots (from Gamespot as you can see):

http://img49.imageshack.us/img49/505...n0028pr.th.jpg http://img49.imageshack.us/img49/676...n0017rv.th.jpg http://img49.imageshack.us/img49/579...n0013aw.th.jpg http://img49.imageshack.us/img49/935...n0044vt.th.jpg http://img125.imageshack.us/img125/4...n0048jl.th.jpg
More screenies.

I'm really excited about this game, and I'm hoping there'll be good cooperative multiplayer modes, that allows you to go through the campaign together. Of course, multiplayer skirmish is where games like this really shine, so I hope they make that worthwhile as well (but really, they should be able to do that).

Well, technically he's correct, it's not a sequel. His company doesn't own the license to be able to do one.

Anyways, this game does look very good.

That's certainly true, and I just checked the official site and they're a bit honest about it in the FAQ: basically they're suggesting that if they could make a TA 2, they would.

I'm definitely looking forward to this game. It looks amazing and is exactly what the RTS genre needs since more RTS games are scaling down and focusing more on heroes instead of big scale combat. The thing I find weird is that you're fighting on huge battlefields on planets, but there are no cities to be seen anywhere. It would be cool to have cities scattered around the world for you to fight in as well. It just doesn't seem right that a huge planet only has wilderness (unless of course tnhey're fighting for the planet so they can colonize it).

It's supposed to be situated on Earth, so I definitely agree that there should be some sort of city (or deserted city) setting. They might have it planned but not finished yet, I guess? It's definitely a good idea (I fondly remember the deserted cities of TA).

Im really liking the story/technology behind the Aeon race. Hopefully all the races are balanced so they all play well =P

I'm also really excited about this game. Total Annihilation was a highly underrated RTS that got totally overshadowed by StarCraft.

So far, this game is looking like its in great shape, I just hope my PC can handle it.

Most excellent. I look forward to facing you all online with this game.

It looks like most of the worlds are similar in a way to the worlds in TA. Green Worlds, Desert Worlds, Water Worlds, Metal Worlds, etc. I really hope they somewhat translate some old classic TA maps to this modern game, I would love to have Painted Desert, Eastside Westside, Trout Farm and Greenhaven in Supreme Commander. :)

Although I can't tell if the screen with the base in place is actually on a Metal World or if it's just a concrete foundation that is placed to build your base on top of it, similar to the old Dune RTS games.

As long as this game has an air-force similar to that in TA with Hawks and Phoenix Bombers, I'll be a real happy camper!

I know I will be upgrading my PC again just to run this game at it's fullest. I wanna avoid any of the old school TA lag when hundreds of Units are on-screen.

There's supposed to not be a metal world (since it's not a real sequel, and the metal worlds are a supposedly CORE-specific thing, according to Chris anyway). It's kind of a shame, cause those were a lot of fun and I wouldn't mind seeing them again, but yeah this is situated on Earth and Earth, well, kind of isn't a metal planet.

I like that Jeremy Soule is doing the music again. TA is still some of the best work he's ever done, and that's saying a lot, seeing as he's a kick-ass composer.

This is Earth in the future and there are no cities? I really hope they do add some in. If not, I'm sure it will still be an awesome game though. 2007 can't come fast enough! =(

I don't mind no metal worlds, it was more of a nostalgia thing for me. I would prefer metal deficient worlds however, as it requires more skill to work it. I prefer urban worlds anyway like Eastside Westside and Trout Farm.

Yeah, same. I always liked the huge metal worlds mostly because you could create a 4000-man army and watch it get utterly slaughtered by my foe's virtually inpenetrable defences. Exciting stuff!

I really feel like playing some TA, now...