I’d hate to use the word “clone” here, but “Planetary Annihilation” certainly takes a lot of ques from the “Supreme Commander” series. That’s not necessarily a bad thing…I’ve put hundreds of hours into “Supreme Commander 2” alone. For one, it’s an RTS that gives both sides a mission critical and destructable commander unit. Secondly, there are two resources…metal and energy (“Supreme Commander” had mass and energy). Furthering that fact, metal can only be harvested on particular spaces on the map, similar to how mass was collected in “Supreme Commander”. The structure types are similar, with the ideas revolving around regular and advanced constructor units being nearly identical…bottom line, if you’ve played “Supreme Commander” before, you’ll be able to jump into this without a problem. To be fair, “Planetary Annihilation” does take things to a whole new level: space and the ability to colonize other planets.
At present, “Planetary Annihilation” is in the development stage. You can still purchase the game and begin playing now through Steam’s Early Access program, but you’ll experience the bugs and crashes one would expect from unfinished games. As a plus however, the game is 40% off until March 6, 2014. I snatched it up in the off-chance that the final retail price would be more expensive than $30.00 (the sale price). If you’re strapped for cash or want to check out the game in action first, then feel free to check out my gameplay videos below.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gHDlAbpLFE
They seem similar because both Supreme Commander and Planetary Annihilation are based on the old-school RTS game Total Annihilation. Supreme Commander was produced by Chris Williams, the main guy behind Total Annihilation, and Planetary Annihilation was made by people that were huge fans of Total Annihilation.
Total Annihilation had Metal and Energy, metal patches you can build extractors on, a single, powerful commander unit, etc.
So both are “clones”, to some degree, anyway, or perhaps homages is the better word, to Total Annihilation.
Just to clear that up…
Gah, I meant Chris Taylor, not Williams.