For a long time now having played RTS games such as Command and Conquer and Starcraft I have wondered why they focus so much on normally one area of a world which limits the grand scale of the game. However last year I found Paradox Interactive’s Supreme Ruler series.

I found Supreme Ruler 2020 to be a fantastic idea for a game, with you taking control of a country and leading them through either a war across the world, or simply making the country prosper and becoming a world superpower through economical means. However the game has some massive flaws which made it frustrating and at occasionally pointless to play. The game would often run slowly on even powerful quad core machines especially in the latter stages, which was mainly due to how the game rendered all the landscape with the cpu, which was already swamped trying to crunch the fantastic amount of information the game provides.

Therefore I was most excited to find out the sequel to 2020, Cold War, would use the gpu far more therefore freeing up the cpu to process the vast amounts of data allowing you to get further in the game before it starts to slow. As a personal preference I think the Cold War is a far more interesting setting than the slightly futuristic setting of 2020 and Paradox have done fantastically to adapt the game to the more chilly times.

The game fully simulates the two major spheres of influence of the time with countries swinging their allegiance between the two at critical points of history according to your actions. I can’t say that this aspect is completely realistic as some countries do seem to swing a bit too rapidly, but this is an issue im sure paradox will address in patches. The game also allows full launching of a countries nuclear arsenal so if you are one of the few countries at the time to be technological enough to do so you are at full liberty to turn the heat up on the Cold War.

No 1960′s strategy game should consider itself ready for release if there is no reference to the space race in my opinion so I was thrilled to find out that the game not only has the space race in it but you are at full liberty to change history and make a Russian the first man on the moon.

Overall Supreme Ruler: Cold War is an impressive step forward from its predecessors’ and I am even more excited for what the future of the franchise might hold. The game adds enough features to make it a worthy purchase for anyone who bought 2020 and it is definately worth a download of the demo for anyone who likes games such as Hearts of Iron or Command and Conquer 3′s Global Conquest mode.