Looking Back: Total Annihilation

We all have our favorite little old video games that we describe as “gems” and hold an unsettling amount of fond feelings for. This is a safe place for those feelings, yes, a place where you can let those feelings of nostalgia and creepy game love quietly slither out from whatever rock they were hiding under in the back of your brains. I too have a frightening amount of old(ish) games that I have funny feelings for. The one that I’ll be discussing today is an old school RTS game called Total Annihilation. Now most of you have probably heard of it but were too busy ramming your faces into your computer screens whilst playing more popular games like Age of Empires or Warcraft. Well TA says you all can suck it. Total Annihilation was released by Cavedog in 1997 (yes it was out before Starcraft) and while it may not be as popular as some of the fan saturated games listed previously, it was a game that was way ahead of its time. TA sported massive maps, an impressive soundtrack, 3D environments and units, tons of multiplayer options, and a substantial amount of campaign missions, a ridiculous amount of units which they continued to add onto as time went on, as well as multiple other things. When I dug up my old strategy guide for TA which I bought when I was like 7 I knew this was the perfect candidate for my first article.

But I decided to refresh my mind about the game since it had been so long since I’d last played it and I had always thought as a kid that I was the only person who played it since I knew nobody else who had even heard of it, so I took a glance at the wiki. “Damn” was the first word out of my mouth as I scrolled down to the reception section of the wiki, it was packed with praise and to my surprise TA had won a ton of awards including several pretty significant ones like “1997 Game of the year” on Gamespot and even made it onto a top-ten games of all time list on a Gamespot as well. My thoughts on this were mixed. Here I had set out to write an article telling all you people to go find this old game that nobody knew about only to find out that everyone knew about it! But those feelings of shame and guilt faded away when I realized that I don’t give a damn. If you have played this game chances are you liked it, save a few of you who are too silly to recognize the contribution to the genre this game made. To those of you who haven’t heard of this game I would like to tell you this *ahem* If you are a fan of RTS games at all, even a little, pick up this game. You may have to buy it online for some stupidly high price for all I know but this game is worth every penny and definitely carries my stamp of approval. It provides more solid entertainment than most modern games of the genre do which is a very difficult thing to do, this game was years ahead of its time.