Rating: 
Summary: Cool Game
Review: This is one of the best games I've ever played. All the buildings/characters are unique which makes for great gameplay. The special effects, like explosions, guns, missiles etc. are also outstanding. I like the way the game is set up, it is easy to get around/learn to play. If you are interested in buying, or like stagety games this is a must-have.
Rating:
Summary: A Truely Great Game
Review: This is one of those oft-overlooked jewels. Total Annihilation (TA) is quite simply one of the best games of all time. It has true 3d, compared to the fakey 3d employed by Starcraft. Terrain affects everything -- what you can see, what you can shoot, where you can go.Cavedog made a brilliant move when they released the specs for making new units. Anyone can build their own unit, and many people have -- giving the average user hundreds, if not thousands, of new ways to alter the game. Where Blizzard and Westwood released new maps, Cavedog released new units (and a few maps, but still). You can change the game into a low-tech battle between humans, or into a battle whose largest machines of destruction require unimanginable amounts of resources. The diversity is truely amazing. As to resources, the TA series is the only one I know of that has limitless resources. That is, you build, say, a solar collecter, and every second you get 20 energy. This is somewhat different from the typical harvesting-style of resource management, and provides an interesting economical model for those who enjoy that aspect. TA has a great balance of land, sea, and air. All too often games focus on only one or two of those three, but TA has got that down. Depending on the map, you can have battles entirely fought in any one of those three, or some combonation thereof, or all three. This can make games very interesting. Finally, TA has the best queueing system of any RTS game, bar none. You can set the next fifty moves for a given unit, _including_buildings_ (for builder units), and then leave it alone until it finishes. Time and again I've wished for this ability in other games. Small things like the interface make a big difference. All in all, a truely great game.
Rating:
Summary: THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER RTS GAME LIKE THIS
Review: This is the MOST fun and BEST RTS game avaliable. It beats Starcraft, Homeworld and Warcraft by a mile. Those three games can't even BEGIN to compare with Total Annihilation. You play this game and you will never lose or win in the same manner. This game is a true war game in which you have to coordinate your forces based on how the computer or opponent. you play against on the internet. There is no one way of win or lose in this game. As much sci-fi based this game is, it is also EXTREMELY realistic in terms of war tactics and the like. Yes this game came out during the holiday season of 1997. It is now almost 6 YEARS AND THERE IS YET....I STRESS YET ANY OTHER RTS GAME THAT CAN MATCH THE FUN, QUALITY AND STRATEGIC VALUE THIS GAME PROVIDES THE SERIOUS RTS GAMER...PERIOD, PERIOD, PERIOD. There will never be another RTS game like it.
Rating:
Summary: THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER RTS GAME LIKE THIS
Review: This is the MOST fun and BEST RTS game avaliable. It beats Starcraft, Homeworld and Warcraft by a mile. Those three games can't even BEGIN to compare with Total Annihilation. You play this game and you will never lose or win in the same manner. This game is a true war game in which you have to coordinate your forces based on how the computer or opponent. you play against on the internet. There is no one way of win or lose in this game. As much sci-fi based this game is, it is also EXTREMELY realistic in terms of war tactics and the like. Yes this game came out during the holiday season of 1997. It is now almost 6 YEARS AND THERE IS YET....I STRESS YET ANY OTHER RTS GAME THAT CAN MATCH THE FUN, QUALITY AND STRATEGIC VALUE THIS GAME PROVIDES THE SERIOUS RTS GAMER...PERIOD, PERIOD, PERIOD. There will never be another RTS game like it.
Rating:
Summary: The Best
Review: This must be one of the best games of all time. There are so many different things you can do with it. So many different stragies for conquering the oppent. So many units, maps, and maps and units that can be downloaded off the internet. I'm obsessed with it. its so fun. Just some times the AI becomes a bit boring because of its "not knowing what to do" Still the maps have so much detail allowing for many different land, air and, sea attack stratgies. The expansion packs and the game just must be haved. I definately recommend it!! Happy Gaming!!!!
Rating:
Summary: An Overview of Total Annihilation
Review: Total Annihilation is the best real time strategy game ever made. Using real-world physics to create over 150 units, TA surpasses newer games like Command and Conquer: Generals. There are 25 campaign missions for both sides (Arm and Core), with Total Annihilation: The Core Contengency, and Total Annihilation: Battle Tactics, the expansion packs, you get over 100 more missions. When you get tired of the 150+ units and the 200 unit limit (and believe me, you will!), you can download a patch that raises the unit limit to 500 from www.tafansite.com. The company that made TA, Cavedog Entertainment, has gone out of business. Currently Infogrames holds the copyrights. You can also download new units from www.tafansite.com/unitshop/.php. www.cavedog.com/totala/, the official TA website, offers the TA 3.1x patch which gives you new units and fixes some bugs.
THE OUTCOME OF THE GALACTIC WAR IS YOURS TO DECIDE!
Rating:
Summary: One of the best games ever
Review: Total Annihilation, though now an older game, was one of the best Real Time Strategy games ever made. I still play this game, and recommend it to anyone that would like to see what RTS games are all about. I hear talk that TA II will be coming out sometime in the next year. I hope they can live up to this game - its going to be hard to follow.
Rating:
Summary: Doesn't Get Old
Review: When Total Annihilation was released, it set the bar for real-time strategy. The brainchild of Chris Taylor (Dungeon Siege), its fully-3D game world was- and arguably remains- unsurpassed in the strategy genre, and the ambitious scope of the game remains incredible. To date, there are many elements in Total Annihilation that have never been successfully re-implemented. The game resources are pretty simple- you've got metal and energy. Metal can be scavenged, mined, or generated with metal makers that essentially turn energy into metal. Power plants generate energy. You start with a special unit- the Commander- that can build all basic buildings and produces a small amount of resources. This unit will remain your most powerful for some time, due to the almighty D-Gun he packs around. In this way, TA beat Blizzard's Warcraft III to the 'hero' RTS concept by some 3 years. Once you have resources, you can start building your army. Here is where TA is a really one-of-a-kind game. Your options are simply jaw-dropping in scope. Choose from scores of unit types, each with unique handling and weaponry. Fight on land, sea, or in the air or, if you don't like making units, just build from the awesome array of defenses available. Long before titles such as Shogun: Total War promised hundreds of 3-D units on the battlefield, TA already had it! You can engage in truly epic battles alone or with friends. Before starting, however, it's recommended you take a bathroom break and keep food and drink at hand. Most other RTS games are a paper-rock-scissors setup with one specific unit owning another, and being owned by something else in turn. This means victory is often decided by what you chose to build. To some extent this is true in Total Annihilation as well, but you have so many capable units to pick from (and can deploy so many) that it's pretty hard to lose as a result of a poor or unlucky choice. This also means that battles tend to be long, fast-paced, and utterly vicious. If you want to risk your builders, there's going to be metal hulks to salvage out there. Count on it. Since it takes so long to win and the Commander makes a rush suicidal, you generally gain the upper hand by deploying some sort of terrifying superweapon. These range from fixed long-range plasma cannons like the Big Bertha to nuke silos and immense mechs like the Krogoth. Once you have one or more of these, you can quickly gain the upper hand. That is, of course, if they don't have one as well. The longest multiplayer games I have ever played were Total Annihilation. The next longest- on large C&C Tiberian Sun maps- got so boring I nearly fell asleep. Despite this, I've never had that problem with TA. Multiplayer is the best part of TA, but there is a long campaign for each of the two sides as well. These two factions, CORE and ARM, aren't just mirror images of each other. Their units all look very different and some have no equivalent on the other side. Overall, however, the armies are amazingly well balanced. The computer is pretty good at base building and not so good at defending, but AI overall is quite decent. If you don't rush in and blow up all the AI's power plants, it can put up quite a good fight later in the game. There's a skirmish-type mode available, as well as multiplayer. A LAN or high speed connection is recommendable for this, since it tends to bog down later in the game. The graphics are still good, even in comparison to many new releases like C&C Generals. Literally everything is 3-D, and effects are well done- extremely so for the time this game was released. Dead units will leave burned-out junk on the battlefield that persists until someone comes to reclaim it. Projectiles streak all over the battlefield whenever a firefight breaks out, and when you fire nukes it really looks and behaves like a nuke should. When TA came out, many computers couldn't take the load in the latter stages of a long game due to the massive amount of units, structures, and debris. This gives you some idea of how revolutionary the technical aspect of the game is. The Total Annihilation soundtrack merits some extra note. Created by well-known game composer Jeremy Soule, it is some of his best work and remains some of the best music I've heard anywhere- not just in games but in movies and assorted classical compositions. The music really sets the mood, and changes dynamically depending on whether your army is in action. Even if you despise strategy games of all sorts, I'd recommend you fork over the $10 for Total Annihilation just to get the soundtrack. It really is that good! Simply put, Total Annihilation was and remains a revolutionary real-time strategy game. If you appreciate the genre, you should own a copy. Period.
Rating:
Summary: 3 years old and still the best!
Review: You've probably heard of (or even played) other strategy games like Starcraft or Command & Conquer, and they were great fun, so why should you get this one? Because after playing Total Annihilation (TA for short), you'll never go back. (120 unique full-3D units battling among acid lakes and abandoned cities intrigue you? Read on.) The story isn't really important here (basically, you fight as Arm or Core to rid the galaxy of the other guys in a 4000-year blood feud), but the giant robots, tanks, etc. allow for some spectacular explosions and heavy weaponry. A nuke's explosion annihilates everything on an 800x600 screen, unless your opponent has missile defenses, which are vulnerable to a strategic bomber strike, unless your opponent has flak cannons... and that's just the beginning! TA's most important feature is its impeccable balance and rush defense. Instead of starting with a single construction unit, you have your persona, the Commander, the most powerful weapon on the battlefield. Your Commander can take down nearly anything the opponent sends at you for ten minutes by himself, meaning no early-game rushes will win you the game. And once you can defend yourself, you'll see that neither of the sides has the upper hand. There are no game-breaking units, because everything has a delicate speed/power/cost balance; during the course of a typical game you will use over two dozen unique units! TA also stands out for its amazing realism. Warfare among the trees can start forest fires, which damage units around them and spread according to the same wind speed and direction which turns your turbines at varying speeds. Explosions produce shrapnel which arcs realistically and damages units hit by it. Every weapon has an area of effect, and shells often miss fast-moving enemy units and crash into hillsides or even your own troops! Aircraft act like real planes: bombers can take out several targets at once, but then have to swoop around for another pass, fighters do barrel rolls to avoid enemy fire, and seaplanes run along the surface until they have the speed to get airborne. For seasoned strategy veterans, you'll be happy to know TA has over TEN DOZEN unique units. That's more units for each side than all the races in Starcraft have combined! Instead of researching new technology, just build a different factory to access a new slate of units! Your options include two levels each of vehicles, robots, aircraft and ships; free downloads on the company website give you everything from hovercraft to minelayers to resurrector units to underwater fusion plants. The maps in TA are bigger than any of the competitions (up to 63 by 63 screen lengths), allowing for full-scale, 4-6-hour epic battles. Players routinely run into the 500 unit limit! To control all this, the interface is amazingly easy: just hold Shift to queue up unlimited orders for anything, from factories to infantry to construction units. Want your guy to repair this building, move to that area, build a radar tower, and then patrol the area? Would you believe five clicks? (Not just waypoints, but a starting target, repair order, and patrol route direct from the factory!) In conclusion, there has never been a better time to pick up the "best game of all time" (PC Gamer magazine). For ten bucks, you can find more fresh gaming experience than you can in the forty bucks you'd pay for the latest two-dimensional Warcraft knockoff with 30 guys that all look the same. And when you're ready, you can check out the still-active fan following (over 300 players every day on the MSN Gaming Zone).
Rating:
Summary: 3 years old and still the best!
Review: You've probably heard of (or even played) other strategy games like Starcraft or Command & Conquer, and they were great fun, so why should you get this one? Because after playing Total Annihilation (TA for short), you'll never go back. (120 unique full-3D units battling among acid lakes and abandoned cities intrigue you? Read on.) The story isn't really important here (basically, you fight as Arm or Core to rid the galaxy of the other guys in a 4000-year blood feud), but the giant robots, tanks, etc. allow for some spectacular explosions and heavy weaponry. A nuke's explosion annihilates everything on an 800x600 screen, unless your opponent has missile defenses, which are vulnerable to a strategic bomber strike, unless your opponent has flak cannons... and that's just the beginning! TA's most important feature is its impeccable balance and rush defense. Instead of starting with a single construction unit, you have your persona, the Commander, the most powerful weapon on the battlefield. Your Commander can take down nearly anything the opponent sends at you for ten minutes by himself, meaning no early-game rushes will win you the game. And once you can defend yourself, you'll see that neither of the sides has the upper hand. There are no game-breaking units, because everything has a delicate speed/power/cost balance; during the course of a typical game you will use over two dozen unique units! TA also stands out for its amazing realism. Warfare among the trees can start forest fires, which damage units around them and spread according to the same wind speed and direction which turns your turbines at varying speeds. Explosions produce shrapnel which arcs realistically and damages units hit by it. Every weapon has an area of effect, and shells often miss fast-moving enemy units and crash into hillsides or even your own troops! Aircraft act like real planes: bombers can take out several targets at once, but then have to swoop around for another pass, fighters do barrel rolls to avoid enemy fire, and seaplanes run along the surface until they have the speed to get airborne. For seasoned strategy veterans, you'll be happy to know TA has over TEN DOZEN unique units. That's more units for each side than all the races in Starcraft have combined! Instead of researching new technology, just build a different factory to access a new slate of units! Your options include two levels each of vehicles, robots, aircraft and ships; free downloads on the company website give you everything from hovercraft to minelayers to resurrector units to underwater fusion plants. The maps in TA are bigger than any of the competitions (up to 63 by 63 screen lengths), allowing for full-scale, 4-6-hour epic battles. Players routinely run into the 500 unit limit! To control all this, the interface is amazingly easy: just hold Shift to queue up unlimited orders for anything, from factories to infantry to construction units. Want your guy to repair this building, move to that area, build a radar tower, and then patrol the area? Would you believe five clicks? (Not just waypoints, but a starting target, repair order, and patrol route direct from the factory!) In conclusion, there has never been a better time to pick up the "best game of all time" (PC Gamer magazine). For ten bucks, you can find more fresh gaming experience than you can in the forty bucks you'd pay for the latest two-dimensional Warcraft knockoff with 30 guys that all look the same. And when you're ready, you can check out the still-active fan following (over 300 players every day on the MSN Gaming Zone).
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