Just recently Gas Powered Games released their latest and greatest gaming title. This game was of course Supreme Commander, a highly explosive RTS (Real-Time Strategy) game designed to create nothing other than pure chaos. Prior to the release of Supreme Commander my favorite RTS game to have been released in recent times was Company of Heroes, a game that offers not only stunning visuals but also extremely exciting game play. For me Company of Heroes came in under the radar and I never really knew much about the game till it hit me.

What a surprise that was, expecting very little I got a lot out of this game and despite being so detailed I was amazed at how modest the system requirements were. Unfortunately, Supreme Commander was nothing like Company of Heroes when it hit shelves. The game was highly anticipated and incredibly demanding, making it a difficult game to accept. However, after diving into a few skirmish battles I quickly warmed up to Supreme Commander despite its ridiculous system requirements. Though over time (2 weeks) I am already starting to get over the game and although there are so many units featured in the game, the end result always seems to be the same.

Although it is fun building hordes of units and then sending them towards your enemy, I soon got over this method. The maps are also much the same and the terrain is bland overall, really creating very little excitement. So it is my opinion that Supreme Commander is a good RTS game with potential, but I want a GREAT strategy game like Company of Heroes and who is going to deliver it? Well while I might sound a little crazy here it could be EA, yes EA with Command & Conquer 3. In fact C&C3 was the last RTS game I expected to be impressed with for a few reasons.

First of all I was one of the biggest fans of the original Command & Conquer game. This game was the very reason why I developed an interest in computers. So many hours were spent playing C&C Gold online, countless hours. I even started a web site about the game called the “Command & Conquer Legion” which evolved into Legion Hardware as I became more interested in the hardware that ran my games. Anyway, ever since the original there have been almost no RTS games that have captured me quite like C&C did. The Red Alert series were good but I missed GDI and NOD. Having pre-ordered C&C Tiberian Sun and waited for what seemed almost forever, the game disgusted me!

Command & Conquer Generals was a great game I felt, but again I missed the original C&C story involving GDI and NOD. By now I had lost all hope that Command & Conquer would return and be as great as it once was. However, today EA have restored all hope with the recent release of the Command & Conquer 3 demo, which I can safely say I have really enjoyed! However, after testing Supreme Commander I was a little worried that playing Command & Conquer 3 at the next LAN might not be possible unless everyone came into a large sum of money. After having briefly tested the demo I am sure this will not be an issue.

Given that we only have the demo at this stage the testing has been kept to a minimum. However, I did test 10 graphics cards on four processors (2 AMD/2 Intel). Once we have a full-version copy of Command & Conquer 3 I will update this article with more results. The testing is a little different to how it has previously been done here at Legion Hardware. The game is locked at a maximum of 30fps as RTS games need no more than this. Therefore, rather than take the average frame rates like we normally do, I have recorded the lowest frame rate. The quality settings have also been limited as there was no need to test the game with the low-quality settings.