I love to play a good RTS and this is the first one where I've real felt that the best strategy will win the game. Other RTS games seem to focus on getting to the point were you can overwhelm the enemy with a certain force.

In SupComm:FA an enemy attack can be destroyed with the right counter attack force. And a big attack may just be the cover for a sneaky incursion to your base. Gathering intelligence is actually meaningful and vital to win the game.

Each time I've lost I've always seen how I might have won. This has resulted in a lot of close games between my friend and I.

The only problem is that this can be daunting to figure out how the economy works and how to best use your forces. But a play through the campaign mode will help to sort this out for you.

Talking about campain mode - it is a bit dull, but has some fun moments and makes for an enjoyable trainer before you get into the real game multi-player!

Also this is a standalone add-on pack so you can buy this if you want to play against friends that own this or the original Supreme Commander.

All up the best RTS I've played to date. Nothing is more fun than laughing at a friend as 5 of your experimental unit (super units) cush his entire army and base to win the game.

the game is great but the mulity player really lets it down.which is such a shame as playing real people is the main point of the game

This is the latest incarnation of the Total annihilation Farnchise by Chris Taylor, yet another great addition to the series.
The graphics haven't changed very much since supreme commanders release date but in the forged alliance stand alone expansion you get an extra race to play as the "Sephrim", who have some reaslly unusual looking units, most of which really show off the fact the the Sephrim are an Advanced alien race, with very surreal Flying saucer like flying units, and great looking crome skins, the original factions are the too, UEF, and so on.
There has been quite a few noticable upgrades to the UI "user interface" on this installment of the game to give the user an even better view of the battlefield on screen.
As with the first supreme commander game you can easily Zoom in and out, to be able to see the entire battlefield and micro manage your units, with build ques, patrol patterns and formations etc, all being able to be viewed from the world veiw using different overlays which can be toggled on or off as the user see's fit.
The sound track is good or bad depending on your taste, the thumping orchestral sounds that are played when the battles heat up are great, but having to listen to the orchestra four four or five hours can be annoying.

The game ran extremley well on my entry level gaming PC, running max resolution 1440x900 75hz, with max units and players (8) on the largest map on the game 80km x 80km.
The system ussed to test had the following base specs.
Vista 64bit OS
intel quadcore 2.66ghz, 2GBDDR2 Ram, 512Mb Nvidia 9800 Geforce video card, 7.2 creative sound card, 24inch widescreen lcd max VGA res 1440x900@75hz.

All in all a highly enjoyable Realtime battle startegy game, that is great for wasting days of your life on.
there is nothing more forfulling than seeing the huge explosions when your units are annihilating the enemy!!!.