Hot take: Total Annihilation, the 1997 Game of the Year, was far better than Age of Empires I/II AND Starcraft. Nothing came close to the same level of immersive music and graphics for years.
Hot take: Total Annihilation, the 1997 Game of the Year, was far better than Age of Empires I/II AND Starcraft. Nothing came close to the same level of immersive music and graphics for years.
29 Comments
I am playing it now (just discovered it’s on Steam lol). I always remember being salty that AOE took the limelight from this absolute gem of a game.
Agree to disagree
Jeremy Soule, of Elder Scrolls fame, composed the music.
It’s my all time favorite RTS. The game physics and unit control is probably the best ever. The community support and 3rd party stuff was huge. I loved making and sharing maps back in the day. http://taucp.tauniverse.com/taucp.htm is still available and I highly recommend it.
yeah yeah its all fun and games until the core t3 defence turret takes a million years to unfold while your base is destroyed
I dunno about flat better than a juggernaut like AoE2 but it is an utter gem of a game that still holds up well to this day.
A damn fine RTS, no doubt. Was also the precursor to Supreme Commander. Another fantastic RTS.
RTS Goat. I still play it all these years later. Killer OST, fun as hell gameplay, and endless replayability.
Loved it. Precursor on so many levels, first to have an orchestra to play the music to be converted into MIDI, the projectile physics, the intro cinematic, the flow-based resources.
The Krogoth mission on Hard kept me entire nights.
I wouldn’t rank it against AoE and StarCraft, which I loved as well. Different time and pace. I’m actually super glad they didn’t compete against each other.
I remember having a 7 hour match against my brother in this. It was in an almost stale mate. Any ground force got chewed up by the long range super cannons. Air attacks shredded by countless flak turrets. It only ended due to Core’s less accurate long range cannon occasionally overshooting, and out ranging the Arm’s version.
BAR, ZeroK and a host of upcoming titles to look forward to!
I won $5k (in 1998 money) in computer hardware in a gaming contest with my brother playing this game….good times.
i played this so much, me and friends used to download 3rd party units from fileplanet and have massive wars, good fucking times!
Total Annihilation was way ahead of its time. Such a good game.
Beyond All Reason is basically a free to play TA remake with a very active multiplayer scene. Encourage anyone that loves TA to check it out!
Peewee supremacy.
Nothing like flying in, picking up the enemy commander and then waiting to be shot down. GG
Never played it, does it have a decent map editor like Starcraft did?
Like with a trigger editor and what not because that was my jam just making maps and trying new things.
But…Starcraft had incredible music, and looked much better imo
This kinda looks like Warlords Battlecry II/III, which was amazing game. I guess they took inspiration from this game.
The best 1997 game is Netstorm.
The first Dark Reign was another MVP RTS at the time.
Love that game, LOVE that soundtrack.
How about Total Annihilation: Kingdoms?
Starcraft was WAY more balanced. TA was WAY more fun. Played a ton of TA with friends.
I still to this day randomly hum to myself the ‘+sing’ cheat tune.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j3S7xdKVmA&ab_channel=heiseheise](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j3S7xdKVmA&ab_channel=heiseheise)
Not a hot take at all. By far the best RTS game ever made.
Great game, I remember calling out to work when it came in the mail. Got laid off but still worth it
I loved the ability to reclaim units and fauna for energy and metal.