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.

Read More

Looking Forward: Brink

So many games to look forward to oh what will I pick…ah I’ve got it! Brink. Brink is a game I first heard of while applying to win a 500 dollar gift card to Gamestop and a TV or something and Brink was also included in this bundle. Now my mind at the time was telling me things like “Screw the game I want that big TV” so I ignored Brink until I had it shoved into my face by my roommate some time later. Now, Brink is probably the main source of my excitement for the fall since I am a multiplayer junkie when it comes to violent games, and this is a violent game with plenty of different ways for you to go about being violent. Looking at the cinematic trailer for the game (which is posted up on the main website) the game seems to revolve around various multiplayer modes so you can probably count on this being the main selling point of the game and oh boy do they sell it. The trailer is everything it needs to be, it features the different classes you can play as along with the heavy emphasis on what they call the “S.M.A.R.T.” system. What is the SMART system you may ask? Well it stands for Smooth Movement Across Random Terrain. What does that entail? Well basically it does exactly what it says it does but the best part is that it is actually a very smart system (oho first bad pun) that responds to what the game thinks you want to do. An example used in the video detailing the uses of this system is if you are running toward a gateway that has laser sensors across it and you are looking down slightly the game will interpret this as you want to slide under the lasers instead of running into them with your face as we all have done in the past. The same principal applies to all situations involving the terrain, if you run into a wall with something that you can grab onto and you look up the game will toss you up to said grab able object instead of ramming your head into a wall, even if that was your original strategy. Customization is also a big part of Brink that sets it apart from other similar games like Team Fortress 2. There is a seemingly wide variety of weapons and armor as well as general appearance altering things that you either start with or unlock by doing various things in multiplayer. This gives you the ability to personalize your little fighter and that is always a nice addition to any multiplayer game. Brink is looking quite promising to me and is keeping things familiar from what I can tell about the controls and also making itself stand out with this S.M.A.R.T. system and intricate level designs. Definitely a game you want to keep your eyes on and definitely pick up if you are interested in what they are already showing because I’m sure there is much more on the way. The official site for Brink is http://www.brinkthegame.com/ be sure to check it out!

Read More

Launch Announcement!

Well everyone the day has arrived and we are putting up our first week’s articles over the course of Monday through Friday. The current lineup reads a bit like this. Mondays: Zack’s Looking Forward and Looking Back articles which focus on games that are coming out in the near future and good games that you might have missed in the past. Stack’s The Weekly article will also be posted every Monday giving all you people an update on what we have going on for the upcoming week so you know what to look forward to. Tuesdays will be Darnell’s weekly article (Insert name here) which features a game that sports both a modern and retro title (examples would be things like Mario and Zelda). Wednesdays will be Zack’s Reviews which will be an in-depth look at a newer title so you know what you want to spend your hard earned money on. Thursdays will feature an article written by our own Benji Perkins. Fridays will have a bit of a different mood which Michael’s anime reviews where he takes all those hundreds of anime you all are too scared to watch and tells you which ones won’t forever ruin your perception of Japanese culture. As of right now the weekends are the Team’s time to rest and my time to edit everything they do…wait this doesn’t seem fair…but anyway stay tuned because we will be adding more and more content as time goes on.

Read More