To some, it's enough to be a commander. But to others, militaristic exultation is more difficult to grasp...some need to not just command, but command supremely.

THQ and Gas Powered Games' new RTS, Supreme Commander, is the brainchild of Total Annihilation veteran Chris Taylor. And it's also the topic of our Frankenreview for this week: the only review you will ever need to read about SC, complete with a money back guarantee of total review supremecy. So hit the jump to see if Taylor's new game is any good. Hint: it's really freakin' good.

Sci Fi Weekly
Where conventional RTS games split tactical and strategic layers into a "zoomed-in" tactical window and a strategic "zoomed-out" minimap, Supreme Commander integrates both into a single, uninterrupted view. Want to see the entire map at once? Roll the mousewheel back a few times. Close-up? Roll it forward...As the zoom range increases, your planes, ships and infantry transform into tiny 2-D symbols...like figures on a half-time whiteboard...[it's] Supreme Commander's essential claim to inspiration.

Eurogamer
Just be warned - it's an exhausting game...In striving to be the ultimate RTS, it accentuates everything that those don't get on with strategy games despise the most. It's a game of constant management on multiple fronts, of the paper-rock-scissors combat mechanic, of tactical thinking and total familiarity with each of its many units. It's the Bible of RTSes - one man's revered tome is another's tedious gibberish...It's admirable consistency on the game's part, but sometimes, I just wish that it'd give me a bit of a break.

Actiontrip
Supreme Commander features impressive looking explosions and highly detailed unit models, on top of a variety of additional visual effects...[but] anybody out there not packing a dual-core rig and a reasonably powerful GPU, is in for frequent frame-rate issues (as soon as units start appearing in hundreds on the battlefield) ...[but] players will become hooked on Supreme Commander's fluent gameplay, without worrying about the game's overall appearance.

Strategy Informer
AI is always the Achilles heel for RTS games, and even Supreme Commander cannot escape...it can fall short on occasions especially if island battles are involved, they'll pour out ground units but then 'forget' to actually transport them. This means you'll be seeing a real mess pile up on their shores, which can become easy pickings for some well placed battleships off the shoreline...it can also hinder performance as the computer becomes bogged down with so many creations needing CPU time.

Rocky Mountain News
My favorite aspect of Supreme Commander is how well it handles the issuing and queuing of multiple commands.It's easy to tell one unit to go out and build a factory, then repair a unit, then build some wall, then reclaim destroyed units without having to follow it around, constantly issuing new orders.And it's just as easy to command multiple squads of units from around the map to launch a coordinated attack on a single target...[but] I found the single-player campaigns; there is one lengthy campaign for each faction, unnecessarily limited.

Command Supremecy sounds like a keeper if you are an RTS buff and have the computer to handle it. Too bad I only fit one of those two categories. Mark Wilson