The Robots vs. the Clones

It would be fair to say that I am not exactly a bleeding edge gamer, I suppose. I play Doom (the old one, not Doom 3), I play Dune 2000, and I still play this old chestnut. Total Annihilation is an old-fashioned Real Time Strategy game. Two sides slugging it out without much of a resource hit, I'm happy.

The rationale is that the two sides of a lengthy and terrible war have been slugging it out for centuries. One side is the CORE, a people, maybe or maybe not human at one time, have transfered their consciousnesses into robotic bodies. The ARM (these acronyms don't seem to have any meaning so don't stress over them) are the faction opposed to robotization in order to support their war effort have turned to cloning. Not much to admire on either side, but no matter, really.

TA is on old game. The graphics are 640x480 resolution with a top down false 3D perspective. If you've played Command and Conquer or it's knock offs, there will be nothing new to you here. Controls are mostly mouse driven with a few keyboard shortcuts for some of the more esoteric functions, nothing that requires exceptional dexterity or coordination.

There is a 28 mission solo mission pack (If I remember correctly) split between both sides which range from simple training scenarios to large multi-hour bloodbaths. There are also on-line and skirmish play options although I'm not sure how many people are still playing this game on-line any more.

Despite it's age I still have fun with TA. A big part of the fun for me is the wide variety of units. There are close to two dozen ground units and perhaps a dozen air and sea units available on each side. More if you can find the now-scarce "CORE Contigency/Battle Tactics" add-on package. There are also add-on units and utilities available on-line. Not everything is available from the get-go, though. Another thing I like is the the graphics. Believe it! They might be low-rez 640x480 but the developers made the most of the limited slate on which they have to draw. Everything looks fine and the explosion effects are particularly cool, even now. The intro and final movies are pretty cool too but look a bit chunky on modern monitors.

If possible you should get the V3.0 edition which allows you access to a scenario without completing the one before it. If you're reading this, your system probably can run TA. I run this on WIN98se so I can't say for sure if there are any compatibility problems with XP or WIN ME. I also can't say for sure if it will run on NT setups. Linux and Apple users: fagetabadit.

So anyway if you're looking for an old-school low-resource hit RTS game for a lap-top or something like that or if you're up for a stroll down memory lane grab old old copy of TA and enjoy.