#43
Change YoY: -3 My Rating: 9.1/10
There was a time once when real-time strategy was perhaps my favourite genre of video games, with series like Command & Conquer, KKND, Age of Empires, Starcraft, Warcraft, Total Annihilation, and many others occupying much of my gaming time. Out of all of them, the two that always stood out were Command & Conquer and Total Annihilation. They were the ones I spent by far the most time playing, and the ones that I still go back to play every once in a while. In terms of gameplay, Total Annihilation feels decidedly old-school today, but that's a large part of why I like it so much. There's still some level of complexity to it, but not too much to the point that playing becomes exhausting and focused too heavily on micromanaging everything. The music by Jeremy Soule is also excellent, creating just the kind of epic atmosphere perfectly suited for galactic warfare.
In some aspects, Total Annihilation does show its age, the graphics are naturally dated by today's standards considering it was released 25 years ago and it was one of the first games of its genre to go full 3D, and the AI can be quite frustratingly stupid at times, but unlike so many other games of the era I can still go back and play it without issue and have a fun time.This is especially true if you have others to play with you, as these multiplayer matches can result in some of the most ridiculously massive battles I've ever seen in any RTS game, especially if you've installed some mods that raise the unit limit into the thousands per side. When you have five different players launching their attacks on each other at about the same time, the resulting chaos is something quite amazing to behold, and almost impossible to control, and nearly as difficult to survive.
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