Publisher: Paradox Interactive
Developer: BattleGoat Studios
System: PC
Minimum requirements: Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/Vista with DirectX 8.1; 800MHz Pentium III or equivalent; 512MB RAM; 16MB Graphics Card; DirectX compatible Sound Card
Genre: Strategy
Release date: June 17th, 2008
Review by: Andrew Clark

Our world has a tendency to seldom work the way we want it to. Despot rulers have been known to use an iron fist to slaughter the innocent or enact an oppressive police state, fat business executives line their pockets and forget the backs they stepped on to achieve their position, and the cost of gas is just too damn high. As part of the normal populace I’ve often wondered what would happen if I could just run things for a little while. Rearrange a few expenditures; perhaps pour some funding into an experimental technology, or just blow it all on the education system. Would I be a success? And if so why stop there? What about, dare I say it, world domination?

It’s been tried before, a few times actually, with each attempt ending with some other country’s foot planted firmly on their would-be megalomaniacal backs; but what if the keys were handed off to you and no one would get deported or executed? What if every little detail and facet were at your command, allowing you to control assets like military output, diplomatic relationships, or even the land itself?! The reality of global salvation may just be a lofty dream of the idealist, but Canadian based BattleGoat studios recently dangled the keys in front of my face, and I could feel the Napoleon complex inside me twitch. Mine…all mine…

Supreme Ruler 2020; the follow up to 2005’s Supreme Ruler 2010 is much like its predecessor in that it’s a geo-political military simulation, but this time around just about every area has been expanded, polished and refined with surgical precision. The most notable improvement is the addition of a single map, which makes navigation a breeze and puts every available city with a population of over 25,000 at the flick of the mouse wheel. I zoomed in close to my home town and then zipped out to full Earth view and dragged myself overseas and eyed with ill-intent. Not that you have to play globally, as regional play is still available, but when one gets locked into a power mongering state of mind, the tendency is to push it as far as you can.

BattleGoat has pushed in almost every area, from the NASA supplied world map, to the inclusion of 3D models instead of the last iteration’s sprites. It’s all bigger, all better, and the best part is that it’s accurate in the areas that count. Everything from approximate population, global resources and locations are accounted for, plus BG went so far as to hire military advisors to keep them abreast of current and future warfare technologies. This combines together to give strategy gamers an experience which is not only accurate beyond what is traditionally seen in games, but also satisfying in that what you see is basically what there is in real life.