Review: Total Annihilation
1. Background and Summary
Total
Annihilation (TA) is a real time strategy (RTS) game that tries to satisfy the
gamer who enjoy playing games on a very large scale. Imagine combining the large
and epic style of game play that comes with games such as Civilization but in a
real time fashion, providing adrenaline pumping fast action. Like most RTS
games, the game starts out slow as each player gets only one unit, the
commander. This unit is the game’s start and end, the only way to remove a
player from the game is by destroying their commander. The unit building
supports several styles of gaming though that RTS games offer. Those players
that like to rush are able to enter battle as fast as within a minute, one can
even start to charge with 10 seconds, just by having the commander build the
most basic of structures and leave that to build the rest of the base, and have
the commander attack, as the commander is the most powerful unit in the game
(this method though is not practiced so often by rushers since it is very risky
as one may lose the commander and the game instantly). This game was also one
of the first RTS games to provide online game play and Cavedog
Entertainment(the company that produced the game) was
the first company, in the
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A battle on a metal world (Provided by GameSpot) |
A naval battle (Provided by GameSpot) |
Though initially the game as released by the company supported large epic like battles, lots of gamers out there decided that what is given is not enough, and many development tools were created to provide the game with additional units and maps. This took the game to a completely different level and though the game was very successful at the time already, this is what put the game at the top of the charts on many gaming magazines’ polls. This took the game from having more than 150 units and the ability to control 250 units at a time, to having way over 1000 units and being able to control up to 1000 units at a time. Maps took a completely different spin just to be able to support a game for the new game rules. No RTS out there at that time came close to this, and this opened a road to games that followed its style. Here are links to the two major fan sites that were dedicated to this:
To better portray how large scale the game
got observe the number of units on the screen currently, then observe the top
left corner which shows the map.
The yellow box their stands for the current
place where one is zoomed in on and the blue, white, red, and green dots
represent units.
If you look at the bottom left side of the
screen you will see that the game has only been running for 17 minutes.
2. Game Mechanics and Storyline
The game mechanics are rather simple and the game has a very fast learning curve, allowing a person to quickly step into the game. Performing well in the game is a different story. The game progresses by constructing new units which perform various tasks such as construct other units themselves, mine resources, attack, or perform various other tasks (such as radar towers). There are two kinds of resources to manage, metal and energy. These resources are collected and temporarily stored up to a certain capacity. To be able to attack and build more units, the player needs to be able to store a large amount of these resources as well as produce a large amount per unit of time. For example, if the player is building a specific unit that may require energy and metal, and his army is substantially large to use a certain amount of energy, if after taking into account all these needs, the player produces less energy than he is using his stores will become emptied out and he won’t be able to use his units to fire weapons that use energy to operate, and in addition some of his units will begin to shut down eventually. So resource management is an important part of the game’s mechanics. As mentioned earlier, the commander is the most powerful unit in the game, as he (actually I say he in a bias, he may be a she or even an it) can build, reclaim, as well as attack units. On top of it he carries a disintegration gun that uses up a huge amount of energy and instantly destroys anything in its path, and upon destruction instantly destroys anything in is proximity (useful tactic in free for all games).
The storyline is very simple. There are two sides, the Arm and the Core, and both are fighting for total domination of the universe. To do that anything short of the total annihilation of the other side is unacceptable. The game comes with a campaign mode with 25 missions that allow the player to play on both sides to start learning some tactics and familiarize themselves with all the units that both sides have. Other than that there isn’t much else, the game isn’t big on story.
3. Final Thoughts about the Game and the Company
The game was a grand hit with fans of RTS games and still has a big gaming community. It’s unfortunate that Cavedog went out bankrupt during the production of TA2 due to poor management, but the developer of Total Annihilation has announced a new project he is working on with Gas Powered Games called Supreme Commander. To find out more about it visit this site: http://supcom.gaspowered.com.