Total Annihilation

Total Annihilation was one of the first ever RTS games that I'd played when i was young. Total Annihilation was developed by Cavedog Entertainment and released on the 30th September 1997 for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS. Total Annihilation is a top view RTS that is based in galactic and futurists times where all organic life has pasted away and only two Robot fractions fighting over resources of "Metal" for millions of years. The game's campaign story is told mostly out with small battles and a couple of slides of before them, but apart from these small amounts of text, the online, skirmish and campaign is all the same. Which is to build up a force of robots and to annihilate the other fraction, the types of armies are divided into navy, vehicles, mechs and air-force. Resources which are collected is "Metal" and "Energy". A player starts of with a set of resources and/or forces and a Commander. The Commander is the primary unit used to make building to collect resources and 

creating other building units and armies.

Once a player has made them selfs a force the battles begin to the last robot standing. This is where the fun really begins, units being queued and rally into a battlefield that raged on for long amounts of time for the fight over "Metal" scraps so that the player can make more units. Ultimately the end goal is to destroy the other fractions or players with the most advanced units technology path, which will demolish and player with nuclear launches, long range devastating cannons and massive amounts of high tech units. Many hours can be played into these battles, which might result in a player to turtle up ( build up their ultimate force) and have a final large attack to finish the enemies.

Personal rating:
Graphics: 7/10
For its times Total Annihilation had sophisticated graphics for a 15 year old game compared to where we are now, but nonetheless removes from the enjoyment of destroying armies with your own superior one.
Sound: 6/10
Sound in this game not one of its strong point while experiencing the game, the sounds are just rehashed explosions and gun fire repeated over and over again. This resulted me to mute the sound while playing. The sound and music was only in good use in the campaign will in the cinematic scenes.
Gameplay / Overall: 8/10
Any RTS lover will lose themselves in this game for the sheer enjoyment of creating a large base and army and annihilating the other forces. All the main mechanics of a true RTS is in this game and will make any new comer or veteran to fall for this game.

A great community that is very active http://www.tauniverse.com/