Dune 2 ---> Command and Conquer ---> Total Annihilation. Growing up with this progression of RTS games, TA was clearly the apex. It's hard to describe how much more mind blowing it was than even those previous 2 giants. The simulation aspect, the game systems, the music, the multiplayer experience... It was sublime, but short lived. Almost feels like it deserved the fame Starcraft got, it had so much going for it. It's hard to express just how mind-blowingly epic TA's game features were when it came out. The sounds and explosions and simultaneous actions occurring on your screen... There was nothing else like it. How special the Boneyards galactic conquest experience was in a "pre-bot" multiplayer gaming world, what a game! Of the games inspired by TA today, BAR is about the closest you'll find to TA's game systems in a modern game, but it's still in alpha and lacks much of the original charm and pacing... but it's free! SuppComm and Zero K and various TA Spring versions are all games to explore if you like TA, not to mention TA Escalation which... Is TA, basically.
Starcraft was a more balanced game, destined to be a competitive banger. TA is great, my favourite RTS from that era (and still my favourite type) but SC has that rock-paper-scissors gameplay, the quick item movement, pathing etc. - it's a different beast.
In case anyone here doesn't already know, Beyond All Reason is the modern version of this game. It is open source. It is free. It is awesome. It has an awesome community that is involved from memes to development.
I never liked the presentation of supreme commander, and planetary annihilation is just a flawed concept of a video game. Always wanted a proper TA sequel, so be nice if this was it.
@@pacman_pol_pl_polska I just gave it a go, the interface needs some work but everything else plays alright. Certainly better than PA. I used to play with MODs on TA so all the extra and super units fit right in to what i remember.
Fantastic video! I can attest to the testosterone boosting effect of this game. It was only after I broke into the top ten on the ladder for this game that I met my wife. I didn't need to tell her my ranking to receive her affection, the pheromone boost from playing TA was all it took. This game is still kicking and has it's own multiplayer client called Total Annihilation Forever. You can still play the OG version (with the expansions) or you can pick up one or both of the two most popular mods - Escalation for those who want a T3 and T4 experience, and ProTA for those who want a more balanced and modern version of the original. Both mods include community pathfinding fixes. For those who want to play the campaign, ProTA has a fully functional campaign with some additional challenge. Some quality of life features common to modern RTS are also present (hotkeys and UI improvements.) Happy gaming!
Dude, I waited so long for someone to post a good TA review on here, I was almost ready to teach myself video editing to try and make my own. Fuckin stoked to find a new reviewer to cycle through my list between Mandalore and Grimbeard
It is insane o me think that Total Annhilation was actually released a year BEFORE Starcraft 1, I mean look at this game, its fuckign visionary. TO me this game was for RTS was Elite was for 3D games:a glimpse into the future. I would sell my family into slavery to have a chance to get my hands into its source code so I could find out what sort of witchcraft and black magic they did to make this game in 1997 work, what sort of forbidden knowledge is hidden within its codemay never be known to the general public. IN an alternate timeline, TA becomes what Starcraft is to us today and RTS would't have died, and we would be watching koreans fight the most batshit insane games ever in several tournaments. 11/10 probably the greatest RTS ever made, willteahc my own kids to play this so they cna grow chest hair at 10 years old (yes, including the girls).
It is, but it's partially fixed in the most modern unofficial TU mod site's made patch. Also if you're interested in playing Total Annihilation Escalation, it has it fixed too.
@@AKU666 ugh BAR gets mentioned on EVERY TA video, it's not a replacement or "modern version" of TA. It's so far from that. BAR is a community project that is an homage to TA, it's poorly executed in so many ways, partly because it is a community project made by various people in their spare time, partly also because the people making it are modders not serious players of TA and don't really understand how TA plays. And yeah, TA pathfinding is vastly improved with the community patch.
My grandpa got a disc of Total Annihilation for free with his Windows 98' pc. After playing it at my grandparent's home he gave it to me when we got a pc that could run the game. And what a game. I played this game so much into the early 2000's and after that with all the available mods. Insane. Thank you for covering this game🙏
All hail to the commander abduction strategy. Create an airbase and a transport ship, fly to the enemy base and if there is not enough anti air capacity and the commander is not moving (most certainly building something), grab it. Yes, you can transport enemy units. At this point, you basically have won.
The most fun trick with that is to just hover over their base. Either they can't shoot it down and you've won, or they shoot it down and their commander explodes in their base... so you've won. A friend of mine had the both of us hold each other's commanders hostage in that manner once, so we couldn't betray the other without MAD ensuing in a nominally FFA battle.
I've been playing the game since it came out in 1996 and later got the expansion. Tried my hand in designing my own maps even and eventually found out about mods, modern patches and downloadable maps and units. I've played the campaign probably over 80 times by now, blasted the glorious Jeremy Soule soundtrack multiple times on max volume and gave myself several eargasms at the explosion sfx's and overlapping peewee machineguns became the perfect symphony in my ears, and im a die-hard Core fanatic. All I can say is this video made me once again realize that (g)oldies like this gem never die and the abrupt realization that we'll never quite get something like this ever again. I mean yes, Supreme Commander was great and BAR is good, but it ain't TA or has any of it's magic. I had a blast watching this video and in honor of it I'll quickly play a few matches again. PvP. Good hunting and glorious explosions to you, fellow commander. May your D-gun hits be legendary.
As a kid, I also had hours of fun playing skirmish on metal only maps. I could never get through the campaign, or win on normal maps. I came back two decades later, armed with knowledge of advanced concepts such as "map control", "scouting" and "control groups" that I'd learned from playing SC2 pvp. I could finally enjoy the other 75% of content that the game had to offer, and it was amazing. Haven't played TA in a while now but I often play Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance Forever, which I found out about because of my second dive into TA.
@@atomicpsycho1589 I've already played it a bit about a year ago, it's a lot of fun! There's probably been a bunch of updates since then, so I'll definitely have another look at it soon.
TA was a HUGE step ahead, with the 3D terrain heightmap, 3D units, and 3D projectile trajectories. Coming from C&C's all-2D versions of those was just incredible. Then The Core Contingency came out...🤯 And then, of course, the TAUCP. 🤤
This was a game I played so so much as a kid back in Australia and yet I didn’t know anyone who ever played this here, Such an amazing game, I remember setting up narrow maps and forming giant Maginot wall style layered cannons & spamming the attack area with the giant behemoth cannons. And watching the ai struggle to even walk towards your base, forming their own wall of corpses. ❤ Ahhhh good times. Also the explosions in this game kicked ass. I tried BAR but it’s definitely not the same, more of a StarCraft esque experience. This game will forever be one of my favourite of all time, on par with the OG Deus Ex for me. Keep up the good content mate!
Great video about a great game. It a relief to see someone reviewing this old masterpiece. Now I would recommend you trying Total Annihilation: Escalation. A mod that make the game twice or thrice as big and hard. A stuff for true crazy fans. But a few slight correction that I'd like to make: 1. Missile turret spam won't work against gunship spam. Those flying tanks (especially the Arm one, which is the most broken unit in whole game alongside Flash) do not take nearly enough damage and melt missile turrets in seconds. Flak turrets are there for a reason. 2. There isn't "a chance a wreck will appear". It always appears with exceptions based on 2 damage threshold. If damage is high enough (like hitting a scout vehicle with a Guardian), the field of debris will appear instead. Less metal, but could be walked over. If damage is even higher (like hitting a scout with Big Bertha or anything hit with a nuke), the wreck will not appear at all. You can build your offense and defense based on this knowledge to make it harder for enemy to reach you or make it easier for you to reach your enemy. Also, wrecks can be destroyed - and sometimes the best use of Big Bertha is a glorified demolition tool. 3. Missile won't work and artillery will struggle against heavy units such as Core Goliath. Sometimes you will need heavy laser turrets and late-game beam guns if you play defensively. Of offensively, since at least the Arm has a mobile version of beam gun turret. 4. There is "select Commander" button so you won't lose it on huge maps. Its shift+c, I think. 5. You have committed a horrible terrible no good crime of not mentioning the Vulcan and Buzzsaw in all their glory. Those are the most epic artillery pieces ever put in any game. Because nothing screams: "DIE!" louder than an rapid-fire super-heavy super-longrange piece of doom disguised as an artillery.
I hope your channel grows and you make it big. The in depth commentary coupled with witty jokes and dry humour was very enjoyable to watch, keep it up man
When Core Contingency was released my parents informed mini me that they would buy it for my birthday if I learned how to spell the word "annihilation." I have never forgotten
This was a trip down memory lane for me. Ah the nostalgia. Thank you mate :) I would recommend all those TA aficionados like myself to try Beyond All Reason (BAR) which is, in my opinion, the best spiritual successor of TA. Imagine a redo of TA, focusing on fixing all the shortcomings, and adding pure and unadulterated carnage, plus loads of experimental units. That's BAR. Edit: One nice feature of TA, is that once the game started, you could swap the game CD with a music CD and listen to the tracks from your favorite band. I used to play it at the sound of Linkin Park and OffSpring :)
The way the first third of this video is "me and my three-years-older brother used to play this game wrong in the exact same, identical way that you and your three-years-older brother used to play this game wrong" to me, directly, as an individual, is pretty wild
I remember shooting the Big Bertha and watching the bullet accidentally hit one of those fast scouting airplanes a peeper I think. I would be impressed if I saw that in a modern RTS.
It's funny, because a little while later in the 2010s me and MY brother would dance the same dance in Planetary Annihilation. One of the sequels of this game. Siblings must war.
I'm enjoying your content. Your presentation and energy is very enjoyable! This is not a game I'd ever typically be interested in but I greatly enjoyed hearing about it and your childhood. Thank you for sharing!
Man, very happy to find this video. Currently replaying the campaign for the first time in probably 2 decades. I’ve been very surprised how well it holds up. Hope to see a Core Contingency video from you sometime
I haven't played TA since I was a kid, I got totally steamrolled by the enemy during the campaign... I play SupCom since years and I'm afraid I'll never stop. Seeing this I now understand SupCom wasn't just a spiritual successor but pretty much all mechanics mimic TA with many many more active units. I'm still super bad and turtling instead of controlling anything, but just love these games :-)
My first ever RTS game on PC ever, got a disc copy for my 11th birthday from my uncle Eddie, he said "this is the real stuff" up until that point I was just a lil halo gamer. Safe to say this game became my favourite game so fast. Core tattoo on my arm. ARM SCUM!!!
I had totally forgot about this game. One could say, the memory of this game had been Totally Annihilated. But after seeing a vid and learning of the great community around this game (and the fantastic work to keep this gem alive), I got really hyped. So I picked it up along with the Escalation mod. And maaaaan was I in for a treat! I haven't had this fun with a game in many years!
For those who don't know, Beyond All Reason is a spiritual successor that is in development right now. It's free to play, and a very good remake of this wonderful classic.
In terms of RTS, this game is on an entirely different level compared to other major RTS titles. It offers so much more and is much more flexible. The capture feature for when you want to build both ARM Maverick's AND CORE Krogoth's, The sort of 3rd person shooter style when you go on a Commander D-gun rampage, or a stealth aproach with the cloaking mechanizm. Or flat out flood the fuild with units on mass scale. Every feasable method is possible in this game. I've tried other RTS's and had fun doing so, but none came close to TA. This game has it all and is still stading strong.
I bought TA the day it came out. It's been one of my favorite games of all time. I never understood why it showed wind speed, until about 4 minutes into this video. I'm going to fire up TA right now, find a windy level, and build my first wind turbine. Should be an achievement.
Wow. I remember going to my neighbor's house walking into his room and seeing him playing this game on his computer. 12-year-old me was so flabbergasted. I'll never forget playing through the entire campaign and getting to the last mission on the metal planet and I just could not do it. I tried for days. Then one day I booted it up and my saved file was gone. I remember I think I even called cave dog trying to figure out if I could recover my file. Remember crying that night
This video was such a pleasure to watch. I was born in 96 and as soon as I was old enough to I played the shit out of this game with my brother too. Thank you SO much. Loved being able to revisit that.
This game has to be one of the inspiration behind the Supreme commander games (if not the same devs) because damn, a whole lot is similar. Tech levels, Resources style, commander unit (nuclear explosive death included) and overall scale. Im suprised i didnt come across it sooner, i know i would have loved it.
It was indeed the same devs. Chris Taylor left Cavedog Entertainment after releasing TA: The Core Contingency and eventually went on to found and lead Gas Powered Games, which developed Supreme Commander. (I don't have the full credits list out with me, but I imagine that Chris also poached many of the same devs from TA to work on SupCom with him as well.) In fact, if the rights for TA weren't rotting in Intellectual Copyright Hell™ owned by whatever faceless corporation happens to have it, SupCom would very likely have been the Total Annihilation 2 we never got in our timeline.
In 1997 my roommate bought this game. He showed me the box and asked me if I wanted to try it. I wasn't sure. Then he showed me the introduction and I was like OH HELL YEAH! I loved playing the Arm! Flash and Panther tanks were my go-to ground troops while I cranked out thousands of planes and would send waves using Ctrl+P. I didn't play the campaign much it was the 1-1 and LAN parties where we spent our time. Some friends and I tried to play again via Steam and GameRanger during COVID in 2020 but we were sadly unsuccessful. All hail Big Bertha!
Oh and I hit my brother's Krogoth with my commander's D-gun once as he came around the corner. The resulting explosion killed my commander and cost me the game but it was epic!
btw a fan project exists of this game now, its currently not on steam but is in development, its called Beyond all Reason (BAR). Although some stuff is different, it attempts to be a fan-made remake of this game and I think it does it very well.
For those unaware, BAR- Beyond all reason IS this very game (including the expack) and is free and available to all, with a still very active playerbase. It has proper skirmish and a lot of singleplayer options too, in case you just wish to try it out a bit. See ya'll there!
@@werdna5258 lol seriously. BAR is made by the TA community. And "poaching"? The game is goddamn free with 0 micro transactions or anything. As an old TA fan, I am just directing any other TA fans that are interested to this. Stop being an insufferable prick.
I used to main core on this at lan parties back in the day, and the only thing that ever scared me was brawler swarms, luckily I managed to get revenge once we started playing with core contingency.
Idk how I came across this video but it was a good one. TA was one of my childhood games. I think it came out the same year I was born? But my cousin introduced it to me when I was like 5-6. In essence, this video was very relateable lmao. On a different note, I had no clue that Barathrum would give metal anywhere. I love these old games that had no real guides on them and we had to figure stuff out on our own. I would have never known without this video.
This is one of the rare vids were i would to hit the like button all 5 min. I loved this game to play and spend hundreds of houres on the map editor and the unit download website too.
You can kidnap enemy commanders, but the game won't let you capture them (turn them to your side). Can only capture units that cant themselves capture other units. But yes... Picking up the enemy commander in your transport is a valid tactic. And hilarious if you pull it off. easily avoided by the other player by just setting a very short patrol route, in which case the commander will shoot down the transport. But if that player isn't paying attention... You now have a flying nuke. Use it wisely 😂
@@JamesFaction haha those where the times! How do I think I could capture an enemy commander, with my commander, while he (? 😛) was on my transport. In any case I was attacking with planes and a bunch of L1 Transports with hopes one would catch the commander 😛😛
Spring RTS. Open sourced rts heavily, HEAVILY TA inspired, though a bit buggy(for me, at least) now. You get higher resplution and get to play with camera angles, as well as different mods(unti packs, basically) where you can have mega units, or play a ww2 rts, instead (Spring 1944). Check it out, it costs nothing!
Did you write this yourself? On god brother you write this review like it's fucking poetry. Some of the best writing I've heard for something like this. Just write random bullshit and make it a video, I'd love it.
I appreciate your comment :) - I do write my own stuff. Mostly it's basically coffee fueled purple prose with minor direction. But after watching this like 6 times - for proofing / editing / ect. - there are some parts that are like nails on a chalkboard to me. Things I cannot understand how I missed lol. Always room for improvement. Again - Thank you!
I'm so glad I got this one on release instead of Starcraft and Tibsun. Don't get me wrong, those aren't bad games either, and rightfully are fondly remembered. But playing (especially with 5000 unit cap mod) TA on metal maps is just something else entirely, even against AI. In other game, there is early game, mid game and late game. In TA, it's nuclear race on crack while you try to churn as much units as possible. Like, literal blocks of factories pumping robots and tanks, one battalion at the time? I think main issue with TA was that it basically had no story, at least until expansion (I loved CORE ending). Speaking of story, play SupCom and FA. Hell, even SC2 is guilty pleasure. And FAF is your go-to online robot genocide simulator. [edit] Few things: GOG version works well on modern PCs, even music plays. ARM are at least partially organic (may even be fully living human), everything started because they DIDN'T want to be computer people. Not sure what's up with pain receptors, maybe it's like Pacific Rim? I think unofficial patch added you one of functionalities of SupCom, ie superzoom. Fun fact, same people that made TA made SC. Go play those too.
Dear friend, i am from Ukraine and surprisingly i played this game when i was 6-8 years old. And i really enjoyed your video! Thank you for a sweet sweet piece of nostalgia you gently brought to me!❤
The lore needs to be corrected, because it's less about space nazis that want to kill the opposition, and that the other side are robots that keep plants around for nostalgia. The lore is essentially that humans figured out a way to transfer human consciousness into machines, and there was a moral war that broke out over this. The Core is the faction that was originally the overarching human government, and it tried to mandate the transfer as a public health concern. The Arm is the resistance to this and are still actually humans, refusing to give up their bodies and wanting to remain fleshy meat bois. The key difference here is on the battle field, an Arm commander has an actual human pilot inside while the rest of the units on the field are robots. The other key difference is the Core commander is also a robot but with a human consciousness piloting it. So no, the Core doesn't want to brutally kill everyone and make people hear the screams over the radio. It's also worth noting that the Core planet Core Prime is actually Earth. We thousands of years from now had turned the entire planet into essentially a planet sized station.
Total Annihilation is my most favorite game forever! I was loved in it , since I have play it at first time in 1999 year! It's awesome , most pleasant RTS which I ever seen !
I'm from Poland, baby! And .. my story with this game is mostly the same 😂 Even the fido. I had this game on every computer😅 But.. after I discovered and get used to Beyond all reason(fan remake) , i left the game in to the sweet memories
Yall gotta check Beyond All reason!!!!! The updated version of TA It’s this but updated!!! This game was awesome but bar is FREE and is almost exactly like this but even better!!!
Your voice reminded me of the English translation voice actor I heard in the Animes Expelled from Paradise and Cowboy Bebop: The Movie. Anyways, this fan spiritual sequel protect of Total Annihilation (TA) called "Beyond all Reason" (BAR) I discovered last year, caused me to dust off my old laptop, and play TA again after quite a few years. From what I have seem, the modernization from the old game is quite good. I was able to slide right into BAR and enjoy watching other people playing it, unlike the Supreme Commander games and Planetary Annihilation replays. I've been a CORE Commander since day one. Overall, they are slower, but heavier. But I have only played against another person 2 times. Later, fans started to make their own units. And eventually, they made some that are quite good. Now, I have all manner of units and weaponry that one can think off. But since I have those unit editing tools fans also made, I can change them, to make them fit in better in the overall picture. The pathfinding issues caused me not to like the Naval Combat much. And focus on playing on maps with a more simple layout. Whenever I download a user created map for instance, those are the ones I look for. The way BAR choose to handle the pathfinding means, I do like how the Naval Combay works there. When units get clumped up, they push each other out of the way. A little finiky, but it works. Otherwise, there are commands there that causes unit groups to assemble in formations. The best mod for Total Annihilation I've seen is Total Annihilation: Escalation. The focus of that particular mod is super units. So much so, it features a complete Tech Level 4, bash of units. It gets too crazy on large scale battles involving teams. But a 1v1 on a reasonable sized map, it's manageable. The first RTS game I played, was *Herzog Zwei* in the Sega Genesis. One of the first of it's kind. Many didn't know what it was. But once me and my dad figured things out... The rest is history.
BAR isn't TA tho. It feels like a cobbled together bunch of units by different makers (because it is). Its an homage to TA... But it doesnt really feel like TA. The physics arent great, the unit interaction as you said is funky. The explosions look very nice tho.
Absolutely! TA was his first soundtrack to be recorded live (actually *the* first live-recorded orchestral soundtrack in all of gaming, IIRC), and now nearly 25 years later, it's still the one I consider his best work, even over his work on The Elder Scrolls. The TA soundtrack was literally the first thing I put back in as soon as I downloaded BAR. Speaking of BAR: a lot of people share the sentiment that "BAR is good, but it just isn't the same as TA," and I have a very strong suspicion that it is solely due to the current art and music direction of BAR, which currently leans towards a blend of the low-poly cartoonishness of Planetary Annihilation and the goofy irreverence of its predecessor, the Spring engine. No hate towards the BAR devs -- it's unfair to compare an essentially free indie game to a publisher-funded 90's RTS, and what they've accomplished with such a tiny budget is a goddamn triumph. However, where SupCom is probably a bit too hard-scifi and PA/BAR are a bit too toy-like, TA's masterstroke is in evoking a deathly, straight-faced gravitas over what is fundamentally an irredeemably ridiculous premise (à la Warhammer 40,000). I hope BAR manages to reach a similar point once the core game is feature-complete and they can polish up the art assets. IMO, the gameplay feel is more than ready (it's downright among the best I've seen in ANY RTS), the missing piece is the look and music.
Great review! Totally agree. And the most important thing to type early is: +shootall. I did not know about this despite the tutorial. Combine that with the energy-hungry targeting facility and good radar, takes a load off your wrist stress.
My favorite thing was to make BOATLOADS of brawlers that would inevitably slow my poor PC down to a crawl LOL PS Also love TA: Kingdoms. Has it's own feel to it, and also music by Jeremy Soule.
When i first played this game i didn't understand what resources were. so i just kept building workers... workers have passive resource generation. 3/4 of my unit count was flying constructors. best. game. ever.
I would recommend playing it's spiritual successors, Supreme Commander, Beyond all Reason and ZeroK all 3 are amazing games, and both BAR and ZeroK are free.
One of the first rts games I played and closer to total annihilation is supreme commander,which I believe to be an amazing spiritual successor to this game.(please do a review on that game and its follow ups)
Dune 2 ---> Command and Conquer ---> Total Annihilation. Growing up with this progression of RTS games, TA was clearly the apex. It's hard to describe how much more mind blowing it was than even those previous 2 giants. The simulation aspect, the game systems, the music, the multiplayer experience... It was sublime, but short lived. Almost feels like it deserved the fame Starcraft got, it had so much going for it.
It's hard to express just how mind-blowingly epic TA's game features were when it came out. The sounds and explosions and simultaneous actions occurring on your screen... There was nothing else like it. How special the Boneyards galactic conquest experience was in a "pre-bot" multiplayer gaming world, what a game!
Of the games inspired by TA today, BAR is about the closest you'll find to TA's game systems in a modern game, but it's still in alpha and lacks much of the original charm and pacing... but it's free! SuppComm and Zero K and various TA Spring versions are all games to explore if you like TA, not to mention TA Escalation which... Is TA, basically.
Starcraft was a more balanced game, destined to be a competitive banger. TA is great, my favourite RTS from that era (and still my favourite type) but SC has that rock-paper-scissors gameplay, the quick item movement, pathing etc. - it's a different beast.
In case anyone here doesn't already know, Beyond All Reason is the modern version of this game.
It is open source.
It is free.
It is awesome.
It has an awesome community that is involved from memes to development.
I played it feels like zerok more then TA
@@suddenlythatenderman5800 It's all TA.
I never liked the presentation of supreme commander, and planetary annihilation is just a flawed concept of a video game. Always wanted a proper TA sequel, so be nice if this was it.
@@blakearius BAR is TA on steroids.
And these are good steroids. Not some chinese poop.
@@pacman_pol_pl_polska I just gave it a go, the interface needs some work but everything else plays alright. Certainly better than PA. I used to play with MODs on TA so all the extra and super units fit right in to what i remember.
Fantastic video! I can attest to the testosterone boosting effect of this game. It was only after I broke into the top ten on the ladder for this game that I met my wife. I didn't need to tell her my ranking to receive her affection, the pheromone boost from playing TA was all it took.
This game is still kicking and has it's own multiplayer client called Total Annihilation Forever. You can still play the OG version (with the expansions) or you can pick up one or both of the two most popular mods - Escalation for those who want a T3 and T4 experience, and ProTA for those who want a more balanced and modern version of the original. Both mods include community pathfinding fixes. For those who want to play the campaign, ProTA has a fully functional campaign with some additional challenge. Some quality of life features common to modern RTS are also present (hotkeys and UI improvements.) Happy gaming!
Dude, I waited so long for someone to post a good TA review on here, I was almost ready to teach myself video editing to try and make my own. Fuckin stoked to find a new reviewer to cycle through my list between Mandalore and Grimbeard
You should still teach yourself NOW! and make your OWN videos about TA, i want more channels that make videos like these! (his video is good btw)
It is insane o me think that Total Annhilation was actually released a year BEFORE Starcraft 1, I mean look at this game, its fuckign visionary. TO me this game was for RTS was Elite was for 3D games:a glimpse into the future.
I would sell my family into slavery to have a chance to get my hands into its source code so I could find out what sort of witchcraft and black magic they did to make this game in 1997 work, what sort of forbidden knowledge is hidden within its codemay never be known to the general public.
IN an alternate timeline, TA becomes what Starcraft is to us today and RTS would't have died, and we would be watching koreans fight the most batshit insane games ever in several tournaments.
11/10 probably the greatest RTS ever made, willteahc my own kids to play this so they cna grow chest hair at 10 years old (yes, including the girls).
Consider Supreme Commander
I still love and play this game. But after almost 30 years the unit pathfinding is still the absolute worst I have ever seen in an RTS.
It is, but it's partially fixed in the most modern unofficial TU mod site's made patch. Also if you're interested in playing Total Annihilation Escalation, it has it fixed too.
It is one of the big reasons to go air instead.
In Beyond All Reason (remake of TA) we are trying pretty hard to solve pathfinding problems and seems like we are succeeding (I'm a tester there).
As someone else said, try the mod Total Annihilation Escalation! Among other tons of other stuff, it also fixes most of the pathfinding issues
@@AKU666 ugh BAR gets mentioned on EVERY TA video, it's not a replacement or "modern version" of TA. It's so far from that. BAR is a community project that is an homage to TA, it's poorly executed in so many ways, partly because it is a community project made by various people in their spare time, partly also because the people making it are modders not serious players of TA and don't really understand how TA plays.
And yeah, TA pathfinding is vastly improved with the community patch.
This game is timeless. Even with it's poor pathfinding, it's a BANGER. GO PEEWEES!!! FORWARD FOR THE ARM!!!
My grandpa got a disc of Total Annihilation for free with his Windows 98' pc. After playing it at my grandparent's home he gave it to me when we got a pc that could run the game. And what a game. I played this game so much into the early 2000's and after that with all the available mods. Insane. Thank you for covering this game🙏
I got the TA demo for free with Windows 98 as well, favorite game ever since.
All hail to the commander abduction strategy. Create an airbase and a transport ship, fly to the enemy base and if there is not enough anti air capacity and the commander is not moving (most certainly building something), grab it. Yes, you can transport enemy units. At this point, you basically have won.
The most fun trick with that is to just hover over their base. Either they can't shoot it down and you've won, or they shoot it down and their commander explodes in their base... so you've won. A friend of mine had the both of us hold each other's commanders hostage in that manner once, so we couldn't betray the other without MAD ensuing in a nominally FFA battle.
You can set it do you live on
I've been playing the game since it came out in 1996 and later got the expansion. Tried my hand in designing my own maps even and eventually found out about mods, modern patches and downloadable maps and units. I've played the campaign probably over 80 times by now, blasted the glorious Jeremy Soule soundtrack multiple times on max volume and gave myself several eargasms at the explosion sfx's and overlapping peewee machineguns became the perfect symphony in my ears, and im a die-hard Core fanatic. All I can say is this video made me once again realize that (g)oldies like this gem never die and the abrupt realization that we'll never quite get something like this ever again. I mean yes, Supreme Commander was great and BAR is good, but it ain't TA or has any of it's magic. I had a blast watching this video and in honor of it I'll quickly play a few matches again. PvP. Good hunting and glorious explosions to you, fellow commander. May your D-gun hits be legendary.
As a kid, I also had hours of fun playing skirmish on metal only maps. I could never get through the campaign, or win on normal maps.
I came back two decades later, armed with knowledge of advanced concepts such as "map control", "scouting" and "control groups" that I'd learned from playing SC2 pvp. I could finally enjoy the other 75% of content that the game had to offer, and it was amazing.
Haven't played TA in a while now but I often play Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance Forever, which I found out about because of my second dive into TA.
You have to check out BAR (beyond all reason)! the remade TA, but better.
@@atomicpsycho1589 I've already played it a bit about a year ago, it's a lot of fun! There's probably been a bunch of updates since then, so I'll definitely have another look at it soon.
TA was a HUGE step ahead, with the 3D terrain heightmap, 3D units, and 3D projectile trajectories. Coming from C&C's all-2D versions of those was just incredible.
Then The Core Contingency came out...🤯
And then, of course, the TAUCP. 🤤
On the soundtrack, it was composed by Jeremy Seoul who went on to compose the sound tracks for such games as Civilization and Skyrim
Oh the days when RTS gaming ruled the pc world. KKND, Dune 2000, Dark Reign, C&C series...
This was a game I played so so much as a kid back in Australia and yet I didn’t know anyone who ever played this here,
Such an amazing game, I remember setting up narrow maps and forming giant Maginot wall style layered cannons & spamming the attack area with the giant behemoth cannons. And watching the ai struggle to even walk towards your base, forming their own wall of corpses. ❤
Ahhhh good times. Also the explosions in this game kicked ass.
I tried BAR but it’s definitely not the same, more of a StarCraft esque experience. This game will forever be one of my favourite of all time, on par with the OG Deus Ex for me.
Keep up the good content mate!
Great video about a great game. It a relief to see someone reviewing this old masterpiece.
Now I would recommend you trying Total Annihilation: Escalation. A mod that make the game twice or thrice as big and hard. A stuff for true crazy fans.
But a few slight correction that I'd like to make:
1. Missile turret spam won't work against gunship spam. Those flying tanks (especially the Arm one, which is the most broken unit in whole game alongside Flash) do not take nearly enough damage and melt missile turrets in seconds. Flak turrets are there for a reason.
2. There isn't "a chance a wreck will appear". It always appears with exceptions based on 2 damage threshold. If damage is high enough (like hitting a scout vehicle with a Guardian), the field of debris will appear instead. Less metal, but could be walked over. If damage is even higher (like hitting a scout with Big Bertha or anything hit with a nuke), the wreck will not appear at all. You can build your offense and defense based on this knowledge to make it harder for enemy to reach you or make it easier for you to reach your enemy. Also, wrecks can be destroyed - and sometimes the best use of Big Bertha is a glorified demolition tool.
3. Missile won't work and artillery will struggle against heavy units such as Core Goliath. Sometimes you will need heavy laser turrets and late-game beam guns if you play defensively. Of offensively, since at least the Arm has a mobile version of beam gun turret.
4. There is "select Commander" button so you won't lose it on huge maps. Its shift+c, I think.
5. You have committed a horrible terrible no good crime of not mentioning the Vulcan and Buzzsaw in all their glory. Those are the most epic artillery pieces ever put in any game. Because nothing screams: "DIE!" louder than an rapid-fire super-heavy super-longrange piece of doom disguised as an artillery.
I hope your channel grows and you make it big. The in depth commentary coupled with witty jokes and dry humour was very enjoyable to watch, keep it up man
When Core Contingency was released my parents informed mini me that they would buy it for my birthday if I learned how to spell the word "annihilation." I have never forgotten
Fun fact the guy who did the VA in the game also did VA for the sniper from tf2.
This was a trip down memory lane for me. Ah the nostalgia. Thank you mate :) I would recommend all those TA aficionados like myself to try Beyond All Reason (BAR) which is, in my opinion, the best spiritual successor of TA. Imagine a redo of TA, focusing on fixing all the shortcomings, and adding pure and unadulterated carnage, plus loads of experimental units. That's BAR.
Edit: One nice feature of TA, is that once the game started, you could swap the game CD with a music CD and listen to the tracks from your favorite band. I used to play it at the sound of Linkin Park and OffSpring :)
The way the first third of this video is "me and my three-years-older brother used to play this game wrong in the exact same, identical way that you and your three-years-older brother used to play this game wrong" to me, directly, as an individual, is pretty wild
You want me to believe a game called "Total Annihilation" is completely ran on renewable energy to launch nukes?
Yes, it's possible!
I remember shooting the Big Bertha and watching the bullet accidentally hit one of those fast scouting airplanes a peeper I think. I would be impressed if I saw that in a modern RTS.
It's funny, because a little while later in the 2010s me and MY brother would dance the same dance in Planetary Annihilation. One of the sequels of this game. Siblings must war.
I'm enjoying your content. Your presentation and energy is very enjoyable! This is not a game I'd ever typically be interested in but I greatly enjoyed hearing about it and your childhood. Thank you for sharing!
Man, very happy to find this video. Currently replaying the campaign for the first time in probably 2 decades. I’ve been very surprised how well it holds up. Hope to see a Core Contingency video from you sometime
I haven't played TA since I was a kid, I got totally steamrolled by the enemy during the campaign... I play SupCom since years and I'm afraid I'll never stop. Seeing this I now understand SupCom wasn't just a spiritual successor but pretty much all mechanics mimic TA with many many more active units. I'm still super bad and turtling instead of controlling anything, but just love these games :-)
My first ever RTS game on PC ever, got a disc copy for my 11th birthday from my uncle Eddie, he said "this is the real stuff" up until that point I was just a lil halo gamer. Safe to say this game became my favourite game so fast. Core tattoo on my arm. ARM SCUM!!!
That’s awesome! I hope you are still playing TA now. If not take this as your calling to come back :)
I spent countless hours on this game when I was a child. From 97-2004 at least. That soundtrack will never leave my mind.
Unironically a banger of a Christmas Gift ❤
I had totally forgot about this game. One could say, the memory of this game had been Totally Annihilated. But after seeing a vid and learning of the great community around this game (and the fantastic work to keep this gem alive), I got really hyped. So I picked it up along with the Escalation mod. And maaaaan was I in for a treat! I haven't had this fun with a game in many years!
For those who don't know, Beyond All Reason is a spiritual successor that is in development right now. It's free to play, and a very good remake of this wonderful classic.
Absolutely beautiful final message
Might have to visit this game now
In terms of RTS, this game is on an entirely different level compared to other major RTS titles. It offers so much more and is much more flexible. The capture feature for when you want to build both ARM Maverick's AND CORE Krogoth's, The sort of 3rd person shooter style when you go on a Commander D-gun rampage, or a stealth aproach with the cloaking mechanizm. Or flat out flood the fuild with units on mass scale. Every feasable method is possible in this game.
I've tried other RTS's and had fun doing so, but none came close to TA. This game has it all and is still stading strong.
Glad to see this getting some coverage
I bought TA the day it came out. It's been one of my favorite games of all time. I never understood why it showed wind speed, until about 4 minutes into this video. I'm going to fire up TA right now, find a windy level, and build my first wind turbine. Should be an achievement.
Great video, good B roll and comments with a good pacing! I hope to see you in other favourit games
Wow. I remember going to my neighbor's house walking into his room and seeing him playing this game on his computer. 12-year-old me was so flabbergasted. I'll never forget playing through the entire campaign and getting to the last mission on the metal planet and I just could not do it. I tried for days. Then one day I booted it up and my saved file was gone. I remember I think I even called cave dog trying to figure out if I could recover my file. Remember crying that night
This video was such a pleasure to watch. I was born in 96 and as soon as I was old enough to I played the shit out of this game with my brother too. Thank you SO much. Loved being able to revisit that.
This game has to be one of the inspiration behind the Supreme commander games (if not the same devs) because damn, a whole lot is similar. Tech levels, Resources style, commander unit (nuclear explosive death included) and overall scale. Im suprised i didnt come across it sooner, i know i would have loved it.
It was indeed the same devs. Chris Taylor left Cavedog Entertainment after releasing TA: The Core Contingency and eventually went on to found and lead Gas Powered Games, which developed Supreme Commander. (I don't have the full credits list out with me, but I imagine that Chris also poached many of the same devs from TA to work on SupCom with him as well.)
In fact, if the rights for TA weren't rotting in Intellectual Copyright Hell™ owned by whatever faceless corporation happens to have it, SupCom would very likely have been the Total Annihilation 2 we never got in our timeline.
In 1997 my roommate bought this game. He showed me the box and asked me if I wanted to try it. I wasn't sure. Then he showed me the introduction and I was like OH HELL YEAH!
I loved playing the Arm! Flash and Panther tanks were my go-to ground troops while I cranked out thousands of planes and would send waves using Ctrl+P. I didn't play the campaign much it was the 1-1 and LAN parties where we spent our time. Some friends and I tried to play again via Steam and GameRanger during COVID in 2020 but we were sadly unsuccessful.
All hail Big Bertha!
Oh and I hit my brother's Krogoth with my commander's D-gun once as he came around the corner. The resulting explosion killed my commander and cost me the game but it was epic!
never before has such a deadpan line delivery brought me to tears so easily as the end of this video what the hell
btw a fan project exists of this game now, its currently not on steam but is in development, its called Beyond all Reason (BAR). Although some stuff is different, it attempts to be a fan-made remake of this game and I think it does it very well.
BAR players have low T.
It fucking sucks.
I played one game of skirmish with med difficulty AI. I got massacred so bad that I never played the game again.
@@cruelolol You can set AI smartness to medium or easy - default setting is hard (though non-cheating)
For those unaware, BAR- Beyond all reason IS this very game (including the expack) and is free and available to all, with a still very active playerbase.
It has proper skirmish and a lot of singleplayer options too, in case you just wish to try it out a bit. See ya'll there!
Except that it is not this game at all. Go poach on some other RTS video.
@@werdna5258 lol seriously. BAR is made by the TA community. And "poaching"? The game is goddamn free with 0 micro transactions or anything. As an old TA fan, I am just directing any other TA fans that are interested to this. Stop being an insufferable prick.
I used to main core on this at lan parties back in the day, and the only thing that ever scared me was brawler swarms, luckily I managed to get revenge once we started playing with core contingency.
I support and love you. Good luck with your channel
Idk how I came across this video but it was a good one. TA was one of my childhood games. I think it came out the same year I was born? But my cousin introduced it to me when I was like 5-6. In essence, this video was very relateable lmao.
On a different note, I had no clue that Barathrum would give metal anywhere. I love these old games that had no real guides on them and we had to figure stuff out on our own. I would have never known without this video.
This is one of the rare vids were i would to hit the like button all 5 min. I loved this game to play and spend hundreds of houres on the map editor and the unit download website too.
You could kidnap an enemy Commander with a transport plane, and then capture him with your commander while hovering with the llane
You can kidnap enemy commanders, but the game won't let you capture them (turn them to your side). Can only capture units that cant themselves capture other units.
But yes... Picking up the enemy commander in your transport is a valid tactic. And hilarious if you pull it off. easily avoided by the other player by just setting a very short patrol route, in which case the commander will shoot down the transport. But if that player isn't paying attention... You now have a flying nuke. Use it wisely 😂
@@JamesFaction haha those where the times! How do I think I could capture an enemy commander, with my commander, while he (? 😛) was on my transport. In any case I was attacking with planes and a bunch of L1 Transports with hopes one would catch the commander 😛😛
I love TA Kingdoms that was my jam
Great content as always Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
I like the way you make these episodes, like a lot!
Keep it up!
Spring RTS. Open sourced rts heavily, HEAVILY TA inspired, though a bit buggy(for me, at least) now. You get higher resplution and get to play with camera angles, as well as different mods(unti packs, basically) where you can have mega units, or play a ww2 rts, instead (Spring 1944). Check it out, it costs nothing!
Recently got interested into Total annihilation just by watching its badass opening. found this video at a great timing.
Ahhh… the music… the sounds… the graphics… the gameplay… no internet… Pentium II… VooDoo II… brings me back!
The commentary in this video is legendary. I feel so related
This is just OG supreme commander, I love it
Supreme Commander is Total Annihilation for transvestites.
This is my all time favorite RTS. And I just learned about Beyond All Reason and my dream of a updated looking TA has come true 😃
Did you write this yourself? On god brother you write this review like it's fucking poetry. Some of the best writing I've heard for something like this. Just write random bullshit and make it a video, I'd love it.
I appreciate your comment :) - I do write my own stuff. Mostly it's basically coffee fueled purple prose with minor direction.
But after watching this like 6 times - for proofing / editing / ect. - there are some parts that are like nails on a chalkboard to me. Things I cannot understand how I missed lol.
Always room for improvement. Again - Thank you!
You and your channel and this video are brilliant. Thank you.
TA units can shoot and move at the same time.
used to play this on dialup. would have 20 hour nuclear bombardment marathons with most of our bases set to queue up hours of builds.
A absolute gem of a game, easily my first favorite.
The prelude to Supreme Commander.
To rusted warfare 🦾
I'm so glad I got this one on release instead of Starcraft and Tibsun.
Don't get me wrong, those aren't bad games either, and rightfully are fondly remembered. But playing (especially with 5000 unit cap mod) TA on metal maps is just something else entirely, even against AI. In other game, there is early game, mid game and late game. In TA, it's nuclear race on crack while you try to churn as much units as possible. Like, literal blocks of factories pumping robots and tanks, one battalion at the time?
I think main issue with TA was that it basically had no story, at least until expansion (I loved CORE ending). Speaking of story, play SupCom and FA. Hell, even SC2 is guilty pleasure. And FAF is your go-to online robot genocide simulator.
[edit]
Few things:
GOG version works well on modern PCs, even music plays.
ARM are at least partially organic (may even be fully living human), everything started because they DIDN'T want to be computer people. Not sure what's up with pain receptors, maybe it's like Pacific Rim?
I think unofficial patch added you one of functionalities of SupCom, ie superzoom. Fun fact, same people that made TA made SC. Go play those too.
Modding this game was the beginning of my career as a software engineer. ♥️
This maybe the best Total Annihilation video on the internet
Dear friend, i am from Ukraine and surprisingly i played this game when i was 6-8 years old. And i really enjoyed your video! Thank you for a sweet sweet piece of nostalgia you gently brought to me!❤
If you want more Total Annihilation; look up Spring, Balanced Annihilation, and Zero-K
one of the greatest RTS ever made and the father of supreme commander
Warzone 2100 might be that RTS car game you mentioned at the start
The lore needs to be corrected, because it's less about space nazis that want to kill the opposition, and that the other side are robots that keep plants around for nostalgia. The lore is essentially that humans figured out a way to transfer human consciousness into machines, and there was a moral war that broke out over this. The Core is the faction that was originally the overarching human government, and it tried to mandate the transfer as a public health concern. The Arm is the resistance to this and are still actually humans, refusing to give up their bodies and wanting to remain fleshy meat bois. The key difference here is on the battle field, an Arm commander has an actual human pilot inside while the rest of the units on the field are robots. The other key difference is the Core commander is also a robot but with a human consciousness piloting it. So no, the Core doesn't want to brutally kill everyone and make people hear the screams over the radio. It's also worth noting that the Core planet Core Prime is actually Earth. We thousands of years from now had turned the entire planet into essentially a planet sized station.
Loved me some TA. If you want to play an updated version, check out Beyond All Reason.
That's a review this game deserves. Thank you!
A less unhinged sseth.....is the vibe I'm getting here. Gonna binge every thing else if you don't mind?
my testosterone has increased by 13% while watching this video and doing push ups, will watch more
Jermey Soule....the guy who scored Elder Scrolls Skyrim
Total Annihilation is my most favorite game forever! I was loved in it , since I have play it at first time in 1999 year! It's awesome , most pleasant RTS which I ever seen !
I'm from Poland, baby! And .. my story with this game is mostly the same 😂
Even the fido.
I had this game on every computer😅
But.. after I discovered and get used to Beyond all reason(fan remake) , i left the game in to the sweet memories
"Ambush in the passage" ftw
Still the best rts game ever conceived. Hey Ruby_Rooz have you tried the escalation mod? It edpands the exponentially!!
Thank you. I needed this.
Yall gotta check Beyond All reason!!!!! The updated version of TA It’s this but updated!!! This game was awesome but bar is FREE and is almost exactly like this but even better!!!
Your voice reminded me of the English translation voice actor I heard in the Animes Expelled from Paradise and Cowboy Bebop: The Movie.
Anyways, this fan spiritual sequel protect of Total Annihilation (TA) called "Beyond all Reason" (BAR) I discovered last year, caused me to dust off my old laptop, and play TA again after quite a few years.
From what I have seem, the modernization from the old game is quite good. I was able to slide right into BAR and enjoy watching other people playing it, unlike the Supreme Commander games and Planetary Annihilation replays.
I've been a CORE Commander since day one. Overall, they are slower, but heavier. But I have only played against another person 2 times.
Later, fans started to make their own units. And eventually, they made some that are quite good.
Now, I have all manner of units and weaponry that one can think off. But since I have those unit editing tools fans also made, I can change them, to make them fit in better in the overall picture.
The pathfinding issues caused me not to like the Naval Combat much. And focus on playing on maps with a more simple layout. Whenever I download a user created map for instance, those are the ones I look for.
The way BAR choose to handle the pathfinding means, I do like how the Naval Combay works there. When units get clumped up, they push each other out of the way. A little finiky, but it works. Otherwise, there are commands there that causes unit groups to assemble in formations.
The best mod for Total Annihilation I've seen is Total Annihilation: Escalation. The focus of that particular mod is super units. So much so, it features a complete Tech Level 4, bash of units. It gets too crazy on large scale battles involving teams. But a 1v1 on a reasonable sized map, it's manageable.
The first RTS game I played, was *Herzog Zwei* in the Sega Genesis. One of the first of it's kind. Many didn't know what it was.
But once me and my dad figured things out... The rest is history.
BAR isn't TA tho. It feels like a cobbled together bunch of units by different makers (because it is). Its an homage to TA... But it doesnt really feel like TA. The physics arent great, the unit interaction as you said is funky. The explosions look very nice tho.
Jeremy soul best scores.
Absolutely! TA was his first soundtrack to be recorded live (actually *the* first live-recorded orchestral soundtrack in all of gaming, IIRC), and now nearly 25 years later, it's still the one I consider his best work, even over his work on The Elder Scrolls. The TA soundtrack was literally the first thing I put back in as soon as I downloaded BAR.
Speaking of BAR: a lot of people share the sentiment that "BAR is good, but it just isn't the same as TA," and I have a very strong suspicion that it is solely due to the current art and music direction of BAR, which currently leans towards a blend of the low-poly cartoonishness of Planetary Annihilation and the goofy irreverence of its predecessor, the Spring engine. No hate towards the BAR devs -- it's unfair to compare an essentially free indie game to a publisher-funded 90's RTS, and what they've accomplished with such a tiny budget is a goddamn triumph. However, where SupCom is probably a bit too hard-scifi and PA/BAR are a bit too toy-like, TA's masterstroke is in evoking a deathly, straight-faced gravitas over what is fundamentally an irredeemably ridiculous premise (à la Warhammer 40,000).
I hope BAR manages to reach a similar point once the core game is feature-complete and they can polish up the art assets. IMO, the gameplay feel is more than ready (it's downright among the best I've seen in ANY RTS), the missing piece is the look and music.
A total annihilation 2 would be awesome. Maybe a bit simpler than SC and with as quality music as TA.
God damn Yamato Gun. Happy Holidays everyone.
bar brought me here. had no idea these games are basically identical
lol, ive been looking for this game for more than 20 years.
Great review! Totally agree. And the most important thing to type early is: +shootall. I did not know about this despite the tutorial. Combine that with the energy-hungry targeting facility and good radar, takes a load off your wrist stress.
My favorite thing was to make BOATLOADS of brawlers that would inevitably slow my poor PC down to a crawl LOL
PS Also love TA: Kingdoms. Has it's own feel to it, and also music by Jeremy Soule.
played through all campaigns back in the day. so much fun 🎉
When i first played this game i didn't understand what resources were. so i just kept building workers... workers have passive resource generation. 3/4 of my unit count was flying constructors. best. game. ever.
this game's soundtrack is just EPIC
0:01 OMFGLMFAO!!!!!
what an awesome this game was. my 2nd favourite RTS.
Starcraft, TA, then AOE 2
Great video, Ruby!
I would recommend playing it's spiritual successors, Supreme Commander, Beyond all Reason and ZeroK
all 3 are amazing games, and both BAR and ZeroK are free.
Love Flash Tank Rush & Brawler Swarm
One of the first rts games I played and closer to total annihilation is supreme commander,which I believe to be an amazing spiritual successor to this game.(please do a review on that game and its follow ups)