Bring on the troops

by ERIK LEIJON

In 1997, with Warcraft II and Red Alert still dominating the real-time strategy world (and Starcraft a year away), Chris Taylor’s Total Annihilation provided a much-needed jolt to a genre stagnating from endless copycat cash grabs. It pioneered a lot of functions designed to eliminate tedious duties (and make humongous battles a less strenuous affair), but was memorable for its obscene 3D battles and almost no-limit army building.

A decade later, Taylor has emerged from his bunker to save the RTS yet again. Supreme Commander (PC/THQ, Gas Powered Games) is an expansion on his original concept for TA that further embraces the excessiveness that made it such a wild ride.

The irony is Taylor wanted to make RTSs more accessible to dimwitted gamers such as yours truly, but even though most vehicles tend to act properly on their own and dozens of actions can be placed in queue (the most copied idea by rivals), controlling hundreds of tanks, planes, boats and other units at a time is just as intimidating as micromanaging every repair and upgrade. Supreme Commander only speeds up the chaos, rewarding players who can mobilize their war machines faster.

Another Taylor idea was to allow for the game to play in multiple scopes. The camera can zoom in and out effortlessly with the mouse wheel, but what is impressive is how it’s possible to play from afar, not being privy to the individual battles but better able to manage all of your troops, which often number in the hundreds. One can also put themselves as close to the battlefield as they want, following the eyeball-bursting action from the ground. The graphics are clean and streamlined, but the light show of weapons’ fire and the sheer amount of killing machines involved make for some exciting visuals.

There are three races to the game, but their differences don’t become all that apparent until you begin creating experimental units later on. This game is primarily about attacking strategies and army-creation, and less about harnessing the powers of each race (like last year’s Rise of Legends). Supreme Commander is an RTS made especially for experts familiar with TA. Most of the basic elements of the game are implied and the battles are furious from the get-go. Everyone else might feel overwhelmed by the complex gameplay.

Control Matters

Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters (PSP/SCEA, High Impact) is an action-platformer that doesn’t work. It alleges to be a game built specifically for the PSP, but the convoluted strafing and camera controls are precisely what’s been plaguing all of the PS2 ports for the system. You’ll give up after an hour because of cheap hits.

The levels are too linear, and the character designs are unappealing hand-me-downs from the vastly superior Ape Escape series. Size Matters is a thoroughly disappointing release for a system that desperately needs some homeruns with first-party content.