Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance PC review

Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance for PCSupreme Commander: Forged Alliance is a standalone real-time strategy (RTS) PC game expansion to Supreme Commander from Chris Taylor’s Gas Powered Games. Forged Alliance adds new gameplay features to the game, several new units for the three pre-existing factions, and is further optimized for increased performance on PCs.

System: PC
Genre: Real-time strategy
Release dates: November 6th 2007 (USA), November 23rd 2007 (EURO)
Players: 1-8
Developer: Gas Powered Games
Publisher: THQ
Origin: America

Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance screenshot
First off, if you’re going to play this stand-alone expansion for the multiplayer you can even pick it up without having played the original, although the original serves as the perfect warm up for this expansion where you can unlock your full arsenal in battle. However, if you’re picking this up for the plot, then you’ll really need to play the original Supreme Commander first, since Forged Alliance picks up the storyline directly from the cliffhanger endings of the original game.

The story of Supreme Commander continuesThe last days of man are at hand. Two years after the Infinite War the once great warring nations now lie in ruins, and humanity’s hope for a brighter future is nothing but a bitter memory. A new, seemingly unstoppable enemy, supported by the zealots of The Order, now seeks to eradicate mankind; United Earth Federation (UEF), the Aeon Illuminate, and the Cybran Nation (Recyclers) alike. With their backs against the wall and staring into the abyss, the tattered remnants of Humanity’s forces must put aside old hatreds and band together as they prepare to make one last desperate stand. One last chance. An alliance forged in blood, steel and hope, they turn to face the dark.

Featuring an all-new single-player campaign, a new faction called the Seraphim, and new multiplayer features. More than one hundred new units will give players access to cutting-edge strategic options, including fully realized navies, orbital weaponry and advanced counter intelligence technologies.

Watch the Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance launch trailer.

Supreme Commander is focused on using a giant bipedal mech called an Armoured Command Unit (or ACU) to build a base, if you’re a Command & Conquer player you can recognize it’s similar to an Mobile Construction Vehicle (or MCV). You then upgrade units to reach higher technology tiers, which will lead to you controlling a more powerful army to conquer opponents. Forged Alliance uses the original game’s mechanics and expands on them with new possibilities, strategies, and improvements. The most notable addition to this expansion is the addition of a new faction, the Seraphim. The Seraphim, being technologically superior than even the Aeon, will have stronger units (including four experimental units), but fewer of them than the other races. All of the original factions, the United Earth Federation, the Cybran Nation and Aeon Illuminate, return and receive a number of new units including one new experimental unit each. Other new content includes new maps.

The original Supreme Commander allowed you to employ all four traditional battlespaces – air, information, land and sea. The fifth and last battlespace, space, could only be used indirectly. Forged Alliance expands upon space warfare by adding orbital weaponry to the player’s arsenal. Several improvements to the controls and behind the scenes mechanics have been made as well. The interface has been revamped, as well as improved pathfinding and aircraft flight dynamics.

Watch a Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance coalition video.

So what are the main features of Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance?

* New Playable Faction: The Seraphim will offer a completely new playable faction in multiplayer games and serve as the main threat during the new single-player campaign. The Seraphim are a cunning and devious race with advanced technology and are true masters of quantum technology. New weapons, new strategies, new conquests!

* New Units: 110 new land, sea, air, base and experimental units evolve armies to address strategic weaknesses or become the ultimate expressions of factional military doctrine.

* Warfare on an Epic Scale: Fully realized navies, orbital weaponry, advanced counter intelligence technologies, suicide weapons and sneak attacks give commanders unprecedented, deadly new capabilities in what is already one of the most strategic RTS games on the market today.

* New Multiplayer Maps: 12 new multiplayer maps provide new battlegrounds or players to prove their supremacy.

* New Single Player Campaign: Play through a brand new single player campaign as you gather your forces to save mankind from extinction.

Opposing forces move closer to considering unthinkable alliances. Watch some more Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance gameplay footage.

In conclusion let’s see how much fun Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance is on a scale from 1 to 10?

FUN FACTOR – 8.5
If you own Supreme Commander, you shouldn’t be reading beyond this sentence, buy Forged Alliance now! Almost all units available from the very beginning, even T4 units, and the different races including the new more powerful Seraphim allow you to build from even more after you capture them. On the downside is that with so many units around, you won’t be using the T1 and T2 units anymore because they become useless. I’ll tell you this, with this (standalone) expansion pack you’re getting improved performance, better visuals and a more polished graphical user interface. A very fun story and multiplayer modes. Thanks to the new experimental and other units for each faction, it’ll satisfy your need for hectic and gigantic screen-filling battles!

Graphics – 8.5
The animations have been improved over the original, lots of little touches everywhere. Of course you’ll need a more powerful graphics card to be able to run it all. But the point is that even if you don’t, you’re now getting an even flashier version of Supreme Commander delivering such a sense of scale that you’ll get drawn right into the gameplay and that’s what good visuals should do.

Audio – 8.0
The background music presents with you an action-fueling orchestra. As you’d expect, there are loads of standard sound effects that create a good ambiance, as well as weapons fire and explosion impacts that make the battlefield thunder.

Ingenuity – 8.0
The game’s user interface is great, all the information you need is at your fingertips. And I won’t need to tell you how handy the strategic zoom function is once you’re used to controlling it with the mouse.

Replay Value – 8.5
Six missions in single player, 12 new maps for skirmish and multiplayer that has great GPGNet matchmaking, 110 new units to play with in both offensive and defensive varying battles. You can tell the expansion has improved upon the original in almost every way (nukes do take too long to load, but that’s minor) and it’s all very well balanced to deliver epic battles. So expect to get about ten hours of gameplay out of the story mode alone and at least double that playtime in multiplayer, which allows for statistics checking and match replays for you to improve your strategies.