Blogs Total Annihilation and the four hour adrenaline rush

http://www.bit-tech.net/blog/gaming/2013/02/11/the-four-hour-adrenaline-rush/

 

Now - go get Planetary Annihilation when its released and that 4 hours turn into 10 hour galatic war!

 

I had similar experiences with AoE and some of the C&C's.
Similar playstyles seem to emerge in every RTS game though.
Those Starcraft guys are just too quick for me though, I hardly manaeged to get through the single player campaign.

Most RTS have this quirk, where the units do very well when micromanaged, but very poorly if left alone. You need one guy to watch the base and one to micromanage the assault really.
(but I don't think any game offers this)

Oh, if you like the surroundings to affect the outcome, you might give this ancient game a do "Ground Control".
Line of sight, line of fire, hiding in grass, different hitzones on vehicle's, friendly fire, all in a game from 2000 (and it's free, too!)
Graphics are good if you set the visuals accordingly.

Never got into the second part, something is wrong with the controls.

 

Total Annihilation does. So does Dawn of War.

 

Greetings!

Yep, Ground Control, that was a terrific game!

 

Nice to see some golden oldies. Still running TA along with some friends at the uni. I believe they're bringing out a new patch (3rd party) for it as well.

 

OMG I loved this game sooo much. Probably my favourite RTS from way back when..... ahh good times.

 

Sinking a full five or six hours over a weekend into one sins of a solar empire game is one of the best feelings ever and the pace of the game never goes too fast for me. It really lets me play how I want to play and not just rush units from one base to the next.

 

I have TA installed at the moment, and SupCom, and Forged Alliance. I like them all. There is even a mod that adds TA units to SupCom! You should check it out, I'll link it below. It's not 100% complete but it's worth a try.

Personally I mostly like playing single player campaigns in RTS's. I find that with multiplayer I run in to the same problem you had with Starcraft 2. It's like mudflation and it happens in a lot of games unfortunately. What happens is that 'noobs get pwned' by elites, and they then go on the web and study other peoples build orders and strategies so that they too can be elite. And then you end up where noobs get beaten by elites AND other former noobs. Then it becomes like an arms race where even to just about get by, you need to at least have spent SOME time studying guides and whatnot. And of course, in an attempt to foster community or whatever B.S, they started adding clans to games which in fact just makes everything worse because it territorialises (is that word?) the community. New players immediately look for some elite guild to help them get a leg up in the world, elite guilds look for fresh blood to bolster their ranks, everyone on the whole gets more and more elite, and look for fights with other elite guilds. Etc..etc.

I don't really like that. I miss the casual old days of playing with a few mates who were all the same kind of level as me, and we got so hooked on the game, we developed our own tactics and didn't need online guides. But this is an issue not just limited to RTS's.

It's partly for this reason that overall, I would say my favourite RTS of all time is Tiberium Sun. (Which is now free by the way). It's possible to be elite and pwn newbies, but the game is a bit more brain based and a bit less based on spamming out massive tons of crap and copying someone elses build order. People can do that and can sometimes win, but against a good player you can just respond with a big EMP which disables their huge army, and then quickly send out a few rocket men and stuff and wipe it all out. Or if someone turtles they will run out of money because the tiberium is in fields that you have to go out and devour. Or if someone sends massive amounts of little units to swamp you, one good Cyborg Commando or something can take care of them all.

In the end, it just seems a lot more evenly matched and more balanced to me. I miss Westwood Down with EA.

Anyway, here's that link:

http://supremecommander.filefront.com/news/Total_Annihilation_Mod_Beta_Released;37375

 

TA was the best RTS ever made in my mind. I'm quietly confident its about to be bettered by Planetary Annihilation.

Time will tell!

 

I also have a problem with watching SC2 more than playing it, but play it I do. The magnitudes of difference in play style from my old SC and TA days is absurd, and I had that hit home when I started playing the beta. That said, once I got in to it I was hooked. Nothing is quite like it.

I think between SC2 and FA, I have both possible kinds of RTS game I am interested in covered; one feels more about scale and huge armies, the other about crisp builds and micro. I loved the DoW2 campaigns, but found the multiplayer incredibly boring, and Last Stand was a massive, shallow pile of turd imo.

I would also like to wholeheartedly recommend Ground Control to any RTS fans who have not played it. That game was magical.

And lastly, wtf is Planetary Annihilation and WHY AM I ONLY HEARING ABOUT IT NOW

 

It's on Kickstarter mate, join the revolution!

 

TA was/is my favorite RTS. i remember getting the disc/floppy free with a compaq pc i bought back in the 90's.

Can anyone remember the semi sequel TA:Kingdoms?

 

Wash your mouth out right now! DO IT! And don't mention that word again! Ever.

 

http://planetaryannihilation.com/

the TRUE sequel!

 

Hmmm, the free version of Ground Control seems to have vanished from the net.
Anyone have a link?

 

man i still love Sup Com, me and a few other folks still have large battles agasint the AI ( running a few mods as well ) and games can last a good few hours if your not carefull, and with a few specific unit bans a few of my friends and i had a game on a custom map that took an entire weekend ( all praise to the god who invented pausing multiplayer games ) it was just a sea of artillery, sheilds, and dead experimentals

 

Greetings!

http://www.fileplanet.com/156136/150000/fileinfo/Ground-Control-[Free-Game]
Didnt try it.

 

When I was in college studying computing A-level, we used to play Starcraft over the college LAN after lectures on Friday evenings. There were usually 6 of us and we had a FANTASTIC time.

Then one day, a mate of mine introduced us to TA. It completely took over and I totally agree with the four hour adrenaline rush. The number of times the cleaners/caretaker would kick us out was unbelievable! We were virtually always last to leave. A great game.

Maybe I got old, or maybe games just haven't been as good since. I don't know which it is. But the article is spot on!

 

Thx, I got it on disk, but can't get it patched, and it has audio glitches. I'll try this version.

Anyway, I installed from the disk, and lost 3 hours
Magick still works