Bitter barrage

Supreme Commander 2, released in 2010, had a tough legacy to live up to, given that for me, as for many others, the three years older Supreme Commander was a revolution in the real-time strategy genre. Instead of accumulating resources and spending them, all we had to do was maintain a clean mass and energy balance. Instead of manually training and commanding individual units, our factories produced our war machine on water, land and air on an assembly line. And these sections, like everything else in Supreme Commander, were divided into three technology levels that we had to reach in the course of the match. Well, a few of the features already existed in the indirect predecessor Total Annihilation from 1997, but most people will probably not be familiar with it - just like me.

If you can't revolutionize the revolution any further and the success of the brand fails to materialize, it's best to go back to basics - or so they thought. Consequently, the unit maximum was massively reduced in the sequel, resource management was reduced to mass market suitability with the familiar spending system and instead of technology levels, upgrades were unlocked via research points gained in battle. What Supreme Commander 1-haters would probably call a sensible reduction to the essentials is, in my opinion, aptly categorized in the following quote:

Games from the Supreme Commander-series

Supreme Commander (2007)

Supreme Commander 2 (2010)

Supreme Commander 2 is as a game that solved the accessibility issues of the first game, bought primarily by people who didn't want them solved.

Tom Francis, in his Supreme Commander 2 review for PC Gamer UK

Game: not a fan - soundtrack: more so. It's not by Jeremy Soule and was therefore clearly penalized by me at the time. During the obligatory listen-through for this review, however, I realized with a pinch of age-related mildness that the OST is actually not that bad. Howard Mostrom, who (with the exception of the score for the spiritual successor Planetary Annihilation) has barely made an appearance in the video game business, is responsible for it.

In his 23-piece composition, Mostrom relies on powerful sounds, such as the Bellum Infinitus from Supreme Commander. His greatest musical ally here is the marching drum, which appears in almost every track. However, where Soule allows vastness and grandeur to shine through in his work, not only in terms of the scale of the conflict, but also glory and heroism, the music of Supreme Commander 2 remains very close to the action.

With the drum as a grounding element, the album seems more chaotic, more agitated. We are closer to the action, more micro- than macro-managed. Mostrom attempts to create the necessary depth in pieces such as The Luthian Sound through the use of chorales, while in Prime Target or Collossus Reveal he relies on orchestral bombast through the interplay of powerful percussion, strings and brass.

Although I would also like to praise the use of a recurring theme, the Supreme Commander 2-soundtrack ultimately does not achieve the class of its predecessor. Too many elements remain repetitive for that. Interesting or even exciting melodies, such as those intoned by Jeremy Soule in abundance - not only in the fast-paced battles, but also in the quiet build-up moments - are mostly sought in vain here.

Of course, I don't want to leave the two bright spots of the OST unmentioned. With its whirring strings, Sneak Attack is reminiscent of a mixture of Earth 2150 and Company of Heroes; it seems dirty and menacing, like a swarm descending on the unsuspecting. United Earth Federation is the exact opposite: Proud, powerful and dominant, this theme comes crashing down on us and, like a Global Union Anthem (Anno 2205), announces who is leading the biggest mechs into battle.

Conclusion: Unfortunately, the album rarely achieves the class of its predecessor, but it is not quite as bad as the game. Nevertheless, fans of sticks drumming on stringed hollow bodies will be better off with the OST for the 2004 sci-fi series Battlestar Galactica - Bear McCreary rules.