A decent RTS that doesn't do a whole lot to advance the RTS genre despite its claims otherwise.
The games biggest editions are the zoomable map that can zoom way in and way out, much further than any other RTS allows, being able to preload build orders, and a fancy waypoint system but really beyond that this game is a very classic old school RTS, you even get to build single units at a time instead of squads and there is no territory to hold.
The first thing you are going to notice when you load up the game is how small the units are and how graphically ugly the the game is. Really this game looks like something from the early 90's at best. It has been written that this no PC out there can handle this game graphically but that is false. The real truth is that not comp can handle the the amount of units this game can have on a map. The game allows you to se the unit cap for a player to a max of 1000 units, mutiply that by how many players you have and that mean you can have a ton of units that your PC needs to keep track of. This wears on the CPU more that the graphics card. Trust me this game doesn't tax your GPU much at all because while unitsand bulding have some detail the map it self is almost completely flat and void of terrain features. by far the plainest I have seen in awhile. There are no hills, some trees but they are so tiny that they are insignifcant. There are mountains but those are only there to act as walls for which land units must go around instead of over.
Now as I said earlier the game is very much a classic RTS. which isn;t a bad thing but if you were expecting something innovative you will be mostly disappointed. There are 3 factions in the game, the UEF, Cybran Nation, and the Aeon Illuminate and they all have a lot of units, more than most RTS's out there by a long shot. The problem is that for the most part they are mostly diffect in how they look more than anything making the armies pretty much generic. there are some subtle differences but nothing huge. The Game is is actaully split into 4 tech levels with 3 and 4's units having the biggest differences, however there isn;t all that many units in those levels either, maybe like 2-4. The level 4 tech is pretty impressive and is probaly the biggest eye candy in the game.
Also many stuff is ungradable, except it is done in a way that is more comlicated than need be. Fot instance you have a graound defense gun turret, called point defence, it can be upgraded a few tech levels, but instead of being to atually upgrade the existing model the game forces you to have to build a brand new one, that appies to most building stuctures types too with the exception of mass exatractors.
An eve more annoying almost insane inclusion is having to create a different builder unit per tech. You start at tech 1 engineer ok, now in order to build tech 2 structures you must first upgrade one of you units fatories, ground, air, or sea, then you can buld tech 2 engineers, you have to build them from scratch too, you can't upgrade the older mosel despite that they are almost graphically identical and do the same things. if you want to build tech 3 you have to repeat this process,....um yeah. This is one of the most pointless editions to an RTS I have ever seen. Also because the differne tech level engineers look almost the ame and the graphics are so tiny its hard to just pick them out with ease (I'm using a 22 inch screen btw). Sure you can zoom in, but why should you have to? Thats just a wast of time. Honestly you would have to wonder if they actullay really made these maps bigger or just made the units tiny to create the illusion of it being bigger. At any rate I would much rather have larger units that I can see and pick out easily than 1000 tiny units.
As far as resources go, you only have 2 in this game. Mass and energy. As I said before your Mass extractors can be upraded 3 times, these foprtunately were done the right way and you don;t have to build a completely new structure. poswer on the other hand there are like 3 power plant techs, each gets bigger in size and that is probably why they could do a direct structure upgrade, but still you can't help but feel that this didn;t have to be this way. You also have storage structures for both mass and energy. Basically these increase the the amount you faction can, increase the cap if you will because you can only hold so much which is an ok feature but it also mean more micromanagement. Sound-wise the game is ok. it has some pretty big booms at time but nothing too spectacuar.
Because of the design of this game you never really feel like you are in the shxt and rather above it all looking down from like you are a bird or something. Overall SupCom is ok RTS but no where near the best that is out there because it it pretty much doesn do anything better than games that already out there. You name it, style, substance, graphics, sound, presentation, story, unit varity, faction variety. the only thin it seems to have done is make things overcomplicated in areas that didn't need it.
If you are in the mood for a classic playing, and looking RTS then this is game. If however you are looking foir the best moden RTS out there right look elsewhere cause in the end this game is just as overhyped as TA itself.