More than 25 years later, this is still a big favorite among Windows 9x enthusiasts. Cavedog Entertainment, a division of edutainment game giant Humongous Entertainment, originally first released this underrated gem in 1997. Over the years, it has sold more than a million copies. It won several awards and recognitions from publications, including GameSpot. It should be nominated for greatest game of all time very soon.
The game's story features an intergalactic war that spans over centuries between two factions projecting their power of their ideologies, with the ARM rebellion protect humanity in opposition of the CORE Empire's subjugation. Players play as commanders from each faction constructing factories deploying war machines and massive weapons made from electricity and metal, harvested from the terrain and the battlefield. The impressive and bountiful campaign additionally has both sides presenting thrilling objectives and struggles within the conflict while also decently showing off players about the units they will eventually encounter. Uniquely, there are no characters within the story, only the player and the opposing commander.
Total Annihilation was atypical from other RTS at the time in 1997, where most games were made in a 2d isometric flat world or top down format, the map is made replicate a 3D environment (actually 2d with special code to simulate depth) but most importantly care was put into the physics of the environment! Every entity is a 3D model and given authentic movement (making smooth turns instead of snapping instantly, or slowing down and tilting on inclines and aircraft manuvering instead of hovering still and projectiles having real collision), and they all have very smooth animations compared to using 2D sprites. This was an impressive feat back then and it holds up to modern RTS titles. And regarding the projectiles, every projectile has ballistic physics integrated within them where they obey collision and need to actually land to damage, its a gamechanger in that engagements become unpredictable but fair thanks to terrain blockage or a missile overshooting a fast target. Stray projectiles also don't distinguish from friendly or enemy, so troops can't easily be walking into crossfire and are encouraged careful positioning.
For its time, its was a very innovative for strategy games packed with many features that RTS don't often replicate. From the dynamic economy system, expansive collection of units, to the realistic physics and epic effects that blew players away. The overall content is massive from units, maps to the expansions providing hundreds of hours of gameplay. Now let's examine each of these in detail.
The graphics for the time feature the rough models that perfectly nail the unit's design even with low polycount, and immersive effects like the explosions and the animation for many of the buildings and units are satisfactory seeing the tiny details animate like factories actually building the unit you see, forests burning from intense explosions, tanks tilting from firing or turrets rising and closing themselves. Honorable mention also goes toward the audio and musical effects encapsulating the chaotic atmosphere of the destructive battles, from the intense and calm orchestral pieces to the heavy explosion and firing sounds that strike an impact. The opening intro also best exemplifies this experience Total Annihilation brings.
The large maps are mostly quite open, allowing you to fill the vast spaces with armies. Some maps also have unique modifiers like high wind speeds for boosted energy economies, low gravity maps altering ballistic trajectory, or terrain entirely covered of metal floors allowing extractors placed anywhere.
The economy system, while tricky to balance, is unique in that it lets you constantly churn out waves of units without actually needing exact resources to afford construction. Metal is simply extracted from deposits or wreckage while Energy generated from wind/tidal generators, geothermal plants or solar panels. These mechanics are self sufficient and transfer directly into storage meaning there is no processing time to collect resources to be converted. Another flexible feature in this system is the ability to invest additional resources onto construction where the build times can be shortened significantly. Now it doesn't feel static to wait on completing units when you can simply command engineers to assist factories.
Much like Command & Conquer, you play as two factions each with their unique arsenal:
- ARM: The human race defending their right over biological preservation. Units are: the Brawler a fast assault aircraft that rains rapid fire bullets onto foes, the Fido an agile and sturdy robotic dog with a mortar cannon that hits hard, the Spider a bot that stuns enemies and scales steep cliffs, or the Annihilator a laser tower with a fast beam penetrating the toughest armour and built in radar striking from afar and the ability to close itself to deploy shield from heavy fire.
- CORE: Cybernetic faction of individuals who transferred consience to artificial constructs for immortality. Their army mainly focuses on heavy armour and accurate lasers but expensive and sluggish to deploy. Notable units include: The Goliath a sluggish tank armoured with resilient amounts of health and lethal explosive shells, Pyro a fast flamethrower bot that melts heavy armour, the Warlord a Battleship with a deadly combination of laser guns and gauss cannons or the Intimidator, a large artillery cannon with immense range and volatile payload.
Instead of using static HQs, players take control of Robotic Commanders that act as a mobile constructor and defensive unit, established as early game offence or defence. It can construct factories on the spot or fire the instant kill Disentegrator Gun and can capture and convert opposing units. Also the commander is irreplaceable as their destruction will be an automatic defeat by default. There are some pathfinding issues like units getting stuck on wrecks or firing at walls and not correcting their firing angle at times, though these are easily amendable by reissuing commands.
Effort was also put into the controls and AI for commanding units, for example patrolling engineers automatically repair injured objects or reclaim items (if either storage is empty), setting units to roam freely. But more importantly, units firing while moving is a huge benefit that gives them a sense of being not as reliant on player input or micromanagement. You could even assign unconventional commands to units like make a tank shoot aircraft or anti-air missiles fire at land targets! Skirmish AI, however, isn't the most challenging. They have difficulties preparing against early rushes and only are a threat if left alone to actually build (which is slow as they don't have good economy management) and are prone to having their commander wander off getting picked off by gunship spam.
Wreckage of units and environment props actually has a purpose, they can be reclaimed by engineers or commanders to directly transfer into storage. Instead of waiting for resources to accumulate, you can just reclaim resources and they are mostly abundant within the map with foiliage providing energy and wrecks or rocks for metal. Conversely this dynamic allows opponents to recover their losses quickly if players lose their army at the enemy's territory.
The build orders are not restricted. It enables flexible openings while also not worrying about replacing a lost building that is requirement for certain tech. That means you have alternate options on what factory type you can build at the start. Either you can start building Air units, tank production or get a head start on building economy.
A plethora of creative arsenal ranging from diverse engineer types, long ranged artillery cannons, underwater tanks, battleships to heavy laser bots and nuclear missile launchers! The team also added additional units through patches and expansions bringing it up to 300 units in total. The varying unit types have a distinct charm that makes themselves unique than just health speed values, their traversing capabilities. Bots for example can climb hills better than tanks, hovercraft can cross water but have slow turning speeds leaving them vulnerable.
The fog of war system has some realistic features like units line of sight being blocked by terrain or increased sight on high elevation. Another intuitive detail is that engagements can also be taken without needing to physically see the enemy, you can use radar towers to spot their signatures in the minimap and target them from afar. Or another feature is by countering radar signals with jammer vehicles that block radar from detection.
Total Annihilation lets commanders amass armies without any restriction (aside from a unit population cap of 200). The population cap is already at maximum level meaning you don't need to invest in buildings to extend the cap and can start growing right away. There are no unit there is no arbitrary limitation imposed on any unit, you can build as many of them as they have a population value of 1.
The game had two expansions, beginning with Core Contingency, released on 30th of April 1998, which further increases the diversity of both faction's unit rosters and implements new category of units: Hovercraft and Seaplanes. Amphibious Hovercraft like transport ships, hover tanks or the Seaplane aircraft that can dive underwater. It also added few things to improve the gameplay like Flak turrets that demolish gunship raids, spy bots to safely gain vision or aquatic variants of turrets or economy buildings. This also contains the Krogoth, a mighty CORE assault bot that decimates armies through it's sheer durability and varied weaponry as an ultimate alternative to building quantitative armies. In addition there are also several maps and a campaign that focuses on CORE's contingency operation to vanquish the galaxy. The last expansion, Battle Tactics, was released exactly two months later that had small content additions and campaign pack focusing on particular combat scenarios to essentially introduce players on specific strategies and encounters, as well as teach other tactics, and additional gameplay features.
This is a gem that deserves more attention than it already has. Other than that, this is really awesome. Now go play it.