It has been a great year thus far for fans of real-time strategy games with the release of not one, but two highly anticipated games: Supreme Commander and Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars. All this RTS goodness, and it's only April! Does this mean that the year is already over in terms of RTS games? No, there are plenty to look forward to—from World War III to alien invasions—and we've compiled a list of the major RTS games to keep an eye on this year.
Keep in mind that this list isn't necessarily exhaustive, and that it's possible for games to be have uncertain release dates (for instance, Halo Wars, the Xbox 360 RTS game based on the blockbuster Bungie franchise, has an undetermined release date that could very well be in 2008). That said, here are the RTS games that you should have on your road map for this year.
Supreme Commander
Supreme Commander was the first major real-time strategy game of the year. Essentially the unofficial sequel to 1997's Total Annihilation, which is often hailed as one of the greatest RTS games ever made, it offers a scale that's both breathtaking and challenging. With battlefields that are often 400 square kilometers or larger in size, the game gives you the room to be creative in terms of how, where, and when you attack the enemy. Now, you can rapidly transport huge armies to any corner of the battlefield to deliver a knockout blow from a surprise direction. At your disposal are futuristic armies, navies, and an air force. You also have mighty experimental units and nuclear weapons that can break a deadlock to turn the tide of battle.
As a multiplayer game, Supreme Commander is fast-paced and cutthroat. You have so much tactical freedom at your command that, really, anything goes. The wild nature of the battles alone makes Supreme Commander ideal for multiplayer, but developer Gas Powered Games also delivered an excellent multiplayer browser called GPGNet that not only makes finding games a snap, but also lets you watch replays of almost any battle ever played so you can take notes and watch the fireworks happen onscreen. Put together the game's substantial single-player campaign, compelling multiplayer, and the sheer size and scope that its battlefields offer, Supreme Commander is a game that RTS fans simply have to play.
Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars
PC | X360
In many ways, Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars is a state-of-the-art homage to 1995's classic Command & Conquer. Tiberium Wars captures all the elements of the original Command & Conquer—from the purposely cheesy live-action cutscenes to the fast-paced real-time strategy gameplay—but it updates the formula with HD-quality video and gorgeous 3D graphics. Fans of RTS games have a great deal of rich content to chew on in Tiberium Wars. The game's lengthy single-player campaign provides hours upon hours of gameplay. You control the armies of the Global Defense Initiative and the Brotherhood of Nod, as well as a new, alien faction, known as the Scrin, which takes an even faster approach to getting deployed and into battle that expert players will appreciate.
Along with the single-player campaign and fast-paced multiplayer, the game packs in 90 minutes of HD live-action cutscenes--a tribute to the cinematic sequences from the original C&C games that featured the likes of Michael Biehn and James Earl Jones. These feature a cast that includes sci-fi icons such as Michael Ironside and Billy Dee Williams, Battlestar Galactica's Grace Park and Tricia Helfer, and Josh Holloway from Lost. In the end, Tiberium Wars is all about delivering a fun, old-school RTS experience with whiz-bang production values. If you spent countless hours of your youth cutting your teeth on the original Command & Conquer games and want to experience that feeling again, all you have to do is pick up Tiberium Wars.
Sins of a Solar Empire
Conquer-the-galaxy strategy games tend to be turn-based mainly because the act of galactic conquest usually takes a long time. Sins of a Solar Empire looks to buck tradition by offering a real-time space strategy experience that's unlike anything seen before. While Sins of a Solar Empire represents the debut game for startup developer Ironclad, the developers there have a strong background and worked on the memorable Homeworld series--real-time tactical games that let you control starships in combat. Sins looks to extend that idea further by letting you command fleets and dispatch them to conquer or defend planets. From what we can tell, the developer is bringing its experience with Homeworld to bear in this new game.
Because multiple battles can flare up all over the galactic map, managing all this mayhem is an interesting challenge, but Ironclad seems to have developed a fairly elegant interface for this. It also helps that the game looks sharp, with battles that feature huge, lumbering capital ships, swift escorts, and plenty of fighter craft zipping by, as well as explosions all around. However, you'll have to balance your faction's research with the need to pump out as many warships as possible. New technology will let you build better warships or churn out ships faster. Meanwhile, a deep diplomacy system should let you stab friends in the back when they least suspect it. Altogether, Sins of a Solar Empire looks like an intriguing and innovative game that explores a subject rarely covered in RTS games.
Medieval II: Total War Kingdoms
As far as expansion packs go, this is a big one. The Total War series has always featured a blend of turn-based strategy and real-time battles, but it's the latter that tends to get all the attention thanks to Creative Assembly's impressive graphics engine. Seeing thousands of warriors clashing on the battlefield can be pretty thrilling, after all. But it's the series' turn-based, strategic gameplay that always brings people back for more. With last year's Medieval II: Total War, Sega and Creative Assembly let you command any one of a number of medieval European kingdoms in the struggle for supremacy. In Medieval II: Total War Kingdoms, Creative Assembly will deliver not one, not two, not three, but four new epic campaigns, along with new factions, 150 new units, and much more.
Kingdoms will have a lot to offer. There's a Britannia campaign reminiscent of the Viking Invasion expansion for the original Medieval, where you'll play as one of five factions seeking dominion over the British Isles. The Teutonic campaign covers German history, as Christian and pagan factions battle for control. The Crusades campaign is set in the Holy Land, and you can play as either the crusaders or the Islamic defenders. And then, most intriguingly, there's an Americas campaign that introduces new Native American factions battling among themselves and against the newly arrived Spanish forces. All things considered, Kingdoms looks like a must-have expansion for an already excellent strategy game.
Share your thoughts on this year's real-time strategy games by leaving us a comment!
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