Supreme Commander is a real-time strategy PC game that was released in 2007. In 1998 Chris Taylor designed the exceptional Total Annihilation. The game gave the player control over hundreds of land, sea and air units that were controlled over a wide variety of maps leading to extremely enjoyable and entertaining battles. Annihilation was one of the first games that was mod friendly; that is, players created thousands of new maps and unit types, many of which had wildly imaginative abilities. Network and online play were solid and reliable and remain so even today.

For what could only have been business reasons, Annihilation went for some time before it received a sequel; Supreme Commander is Chris Taylor's spiritual successor to Annihilation, and it improves upon the original in almost every sense. The game is an impressive, innovative second coming of the original game with a stunning interface that allows the player to zoom seamlessly from a tight, detailed view of a small section of the battlefield out into space where units become represented by graphical symbols that can be controlled from the new viewpoint. Maps are homongous; three factions are available for play and each has their own unique units, including three "super units" for each faction. The player will have to manage two different resources and become a capable strategist in order to succeed. The game also features an all-new storyline for the player to enjoy.

Educationally, Supreme Commander's biggest strength is its reliance on real-time multitasking and problem solving, most of which revolves around battle and economic strategies employed by the player. Creativity is strong in the title as well, as combat strategies and base layouts are all up to the player's whim, encouraging a sort of chess-like strategy in unit placement. Developer creativity is notable as well; Supreme Commander is a unique real-time strategy game with aspects not found in its competitors.

Supreme Commander is set in an imaginary 37^th century world, and as a result classroom facts are not easy to find. Campaigns in the game make loose references to several advanced scientific concepts that are common to science-fiction, including quantum gates, symbolic genetic engineering and artificial intelligence.

By the player:

Base layout is a highly creative process as the player's main unit, an armored commander (or supreme commander), can construct buildings and defenses on pretty much any level patch of ground or water on the generously large maps. There are no requirements regarding constructing buildings within certain proximity of other buildings unless the player wants to earn the proximity bonuses that are available with certain groupings. The result of all this is an extremely flexible base design system that can be tailored to suit the ambitions, machinations or whims of any player.

While predominately a problem solving matter, it is worth noting that the large number of unit types and maps encourage creative choices in strategy and tactics on the player's part as well.

By the developer:

Gas Powered Games have produced a revolutionary interface that allows the player to zoom out into space to view an entire battlefield and then, by repositioning the mouse cursor, zoom back in to any point on the map. This lowers the usual necessity to check an in-game mini-map and use edge scrolling as a method of examining an area.

The zoom interface makes battles across the giant maps extremely manageable and makes it much easier for the player to keep track of and feel connected to all of their units at any given time. Supreme Commander uses this feature to remain immersive even with maps of such ridiculous scale. The size of the maps is itself a technical triumph, and by comparison can make other real-time strategy games feel visually confining.

Supreme Commander contains three different campaigns, one for each of the playable factions, and there is an enthralling storyline that features characters that may even shift loyalties mid-campaign.

Supreme Commander has its players use a low level of resource management in order to succeed. The player must collect metal and energy to keep everything running properly. The process is not particularly complicated, but if the player is not careful and runs out of one of the resources the results can be devastating.

One of the strengths of Total Annihilation was the level of cooperation available during online play. The game allowed teammates to exchange map information, resources, units and buildings between each other, and this sharing or resources remains a large part of Supreme Commander, as well, being presented in a more streamlined manner with certain options being automatic and others being easily accessible through a short menu selection.

Supreme Commander lends itself to team-based multiplayer on LAN or online in several ways. Teammates that coordinate well together are much more likely to be victorious. While the maps are very large, it is never difficult for one player to send support units to another, and because there are no limitations on where buildings can be placed it is easy for teammates to construct buildings near or even inside of teammate's bases. Weakened players can retreat to an ally's base and continue to battle.

The most prominent educational strength of Supreme Commander is problem solving. From the moment the player must deal with opponents, real or AI, that immediately begin constructing bases and launching attacks. The player usually begins with a single unit with which a defendable base must be constructed, an army must be built and resources must be gathered. To be successful the player must keep track of all of these things constantly and plan ahead with tact.

The player will need to have a solid plan and strategy, and groups of units must be sent into battle with certain tactics in mind. Producing hundreds of units and marching them into enemies isn't usually the most effective means of attack, especially against human players who will know exactly how to respond; the player will need to scout out enemy bases to find out what exactly is being done and react quickly and accordingly. Plans will often need to be modified on the fly, and will occasionally need to be completely reworked. While this can be done, it will require time and resources and the player will need to keep this in mind, as well.

There are a number of different options when it comes to creating an army. There are three levels of buildings that create different types of units. Sometimes the best strategy will be to rely on lower-level buildings to create mass numbers of units, and other times putting the time and resources into reaching the upper-level units will pay off. Usually the best strategy lies somewhere in the middle. Players will often try to be deliberately unpredictable by changing their behaviors mid-game. The surrounding terrain will often come into play as well, as a map that is covered with water will obviously require different strategy than a land-based one.

Supreme Commander boils down to a continuous series of move/counter-move problems that the player must solve quickly in order to succeed. With the dimensions of base construction and maintenance, varying map sizes, terrain obstacles and the hundreds of units that can be in play at once, the real-time multitasking of the game makes every battle a challenging test of problem solving skill.

Supreme Commander is not a simulation game. It does offer a realistic change of pace to similar real-time-strategy games, however, in its scope and size. Typically in this type of game units are unrealistically sized and unit ranges are not proportionally accurate because of the screen size available the player. However using Supreme Commander's innovative zoom feature, units are mostly of believable sizes and possess reasonable ranges, making it one of the more believable real-time-strategy games to date.

Supreme Commander is an extremely popular game, especially among real-time-strategy fans. It has won a variety of awards including E3 2006's Best Strategy Game, and PC Magazine Editor's Choice, receiving a popularity score of 91%.

Campaigns can be played on three difficulty levels, and the AI during skirmish matches can be set to a number of different modes. The speed of the game is also adjustable, allowing a precise level of challenge to be set making it accessible to any player.

Players familiar with Total Annihilation will feel completely at home. The two games have clear similarities is design and even many of the shortcut commands are shared between the two games. Players new to the game might have trouble with steep learning curve and may want to begin at lower difficulties after spending some time with the tutorials.

Supreme Commander received an E10+ from the ESRB with descriptors for Comic Mischief, Fantasy Violence and Mild Language.