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Top Real-Time Strategy Games of All Time?
Decaffeinated Jedi writes "GameSpy is running a feature looking at the editors' picks for the top real-time strategy games of all time. Included on the list are such classics as StarCraft, Command and Conquer: Red Alert, and Age of Empires. The article looks at each game's significance to the genre as a whole, as well as offering some reader feedback on the editors' choices. Why not grunt rush their server, have a look at their picks, and share some of your own RTS favorites here?"
nuff said.
Up until #4 warcraft 3 every game on the list was crap. They should have inserted warcraft 2 at #4 warcraft 3 at #5 and warcraft 1 at #6. The original C&C should have come in at #7. The rest can stay the way it is.
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I had several issues with Total Annihilation that apparently the gamespy editors overlook or praise.
Although gamespy liked the graphics, I had a big problem with them. Yes, it was 3D, which made for some beautiful maps. However, the units, IMO, were plainer than plain. They were all boxey and ultimately had very little character (as contrasted to Starcraft, where eveything was quite distinct and enjoyable to look at, and listen to).
Then you've got this comment "You don't just order an attack -- you send in a WAVE of hundreds of units, a wall of steel death that will fill the screen with awesome-looking explosions for minutes on end. You can build a nuclear missile capable of destroying a screen full of units, but it's worthless to build just one: Typically, you send them over in batches of a dozen or more. Obscene? YES. That's Total Annihilation! Every game was non-stop action, carnage, and brutality at a level never seen before or since. ". While I am sure there was lots of strategy involved in competitive TA play, this statement belies that fact. Mass and attack has very little strategy to it. Weapons that destroy an entire screen full of units, that can be mass produced, is not much in the way of strategy. Its like asking a 12 year-old and a 40 year-old their favorite movie. One is going to say "Super death explosion 12" while the other is going to say "Mystic River".
Perhaps, I'll dust off TA and give it another try. Being a Blizzard fan, I never really got into it all that much.
However, I was a little disappointed not to see mention of one of the best RTS pre-cursors, Sun Tzu's Ancient Art of War. That game had many of the elements that are in current games and did it back in the mid 80s.
Also, another game not mentioned was 7 Kingdoms or its sequel. While I could never really get into it, it did have a number of really interesting features that I would love to see in future games, such as spies that took on the enemies color and could be integrated into their force.
How could they make that the first pick! I played the game and I have to say that I have never been so bored in my life. I think that the hallmark of a great game is that you're immersed by it from the very first click. To put that game in and not include Warcraft 1 or 2 is offensive.
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Warcraft 1 lacked ease of use compared to Warcraft 2. Most notable point : No ability to right click movement. Thats right, everytime you wanted a group, which was limited to FOUR, you had to click 'M', and left click. Not only that you couldn't group units using the now standard Ctrl-# method, so juggling troops in the middle of a battle was a near impossibility. There was no "attack movement" either so strategies generally degraded into throwing armies at your opponent and then spending time telling each unit to engage the enemy over and over. Warcraft 1 was the equal of Warcraft 2 in an Alpha stage, a shoddy piece of crap which kept people playing because of the art and graphics. It didn't help that the only differences were their spells either, or the fact that all your building had to be connected to your town hall by ROADS... which had to be built (read : waste of money) INDIVIDUALLY (read : the computer will unfairly bum rush you).
To say every game before Warcraft 3 on the list is crap is ignorant. Dune 2 crap? Yeah, ignorant.
Honestly, just play it - superb atmosphere, superb gameplay but never really took off - seems people weren't so hot on first person perspective for these things. Personally, I think it just makes it wonderfully immersive.
Also, I tend to get annoyed with the number of RTS games where you're winning wherever you go, mopping up every last unit of resistance and levelling the battlefield. Battlezone isn't like that - you're constantly battling to get out of the level alive and achieve the objectives before you get overpowered. That crucial difference leads to a very different mindset that I find more enjoyable in the long-term because you don't tend to end up with levels where you're hanging around for ages desperately trying to build up the army for the last final push, knowing you'll make it eventually just by storming the base and killing them all. You have to get it right just to live, and that's a victory in itself.
Superb game - if you can track it down, do.
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
Perhaps it wasn't included because it's not an RTS?
The only game to have 3 completely different types of armies, buildings are done completely different, and everything is balanced across the boards? I think you are quite mistaken.
Rushes kinda killed the game, cause its a way for a decent player to discourage those that learn. Experts playing never even rush, cause if your opponent knows how to defend it, you are toast.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Did you ever play against a human opponent? Preferably one who liked the game and knew what s/he was doing?
I ask because I'm a viciously good TA player and I don't think I've EVER seen a successful "mass rush" without thought behind it--as in scouting, diversionary attacks, and multiple fronts.
Sure the AI sucked. But for pure strategy/tactics, it's much better.
And as for Starcraft/Warcraft, I have yet to see a successful player who doesn't use a pre-memorized (And usually researched online) build order for the first five-ten minutes of the game at least. There is no strategy there, just speed.
Personally, I like TA and AoEII for the same reason--the early rush is hard but doable, there's no "build order" that's going to get you units fast enough to make a difference, and you actually have to think about your attacks.
I like TA better because it rewards truly long-term planning. In Warcraft/Starcraft, you knew you had to keep your units at the unit limit, or you were going to get just plain outnumbered--but if you hit the limit, you couldn't (by definition!) be outnumbered.
In addition, you had to balance your resource collection units against your combat units, which is really artificially limiting with the small unit counts you were allowed.
AoEII has this problem to a lesser extent, since a 200-unit (max) barrier is harder to hit than a 75-90 unit max.
But TA has a 500-unit max. And if you're playing a skilled opponent, you never had time to reach it, and you never knew exactly how your numbers compared to the enemies without scouting, feinting, and being very careful. THAT'S the depth I like.
Your mileage may vary, but TA was a great game in terms of raw strategy and helping take the mundane details off the hands of the player (allowing for actual sweeping strategies instead of incessant tactical clickfests).
"America has done some terrible things. But I know that Americans don't cheer when innocents die." -Dave Barry
Dear god.
They put out a half finished game and made you wait 6 months before it was playable.
The AI was laughable. It was so poor at resource management it cheated on every difficulty level, evey easy. It was totaly incapable of building an army, it would simply spam buildings and vills with the occasional military unit thrown it.
Nealry every age was hopelessly unbalanced, for a game that stressed how important counter units were, Persian cavarly would dominte everything on the battle field for 3 or 4 ages only to finaly be replaced by another unstoppable army.
Maybe they fixed it in 2.0 patch/Expansion pack but i never stuck around to find out. There were far better games out there, like ones that a person could stand to play.
To put EE on there and snub good games like Warcraft II or Stronghold Crusader or even Cossaks, is inexplicable.
Just a note: All RTS are tactical games. There are few strategic elements to them.
TA had build orders too. It just wasn't popular enough for them to become common. any game like this, when faced with high levels of competition eventually optimize their strategies. TA does have less variety fo units. The only varibales for th euntis are range, damage, speed, and hitpoints. If it had the 20,000 players daily that Starcraft or Warcraft has it too would start having commonly used strategies. Pre-canned build orders still won't help much if you can;t get the timing down or have the manual dexserity to manage you units. TA made it very hard to micro manage because of the latency and the slow response from units.
Even at it's height, TA didn't have many "skilled" player because it didn't have that many players. Notice: cave dog went out of business. The sales were poor. It's well though of becaus eit has that "blow shit up" Quality a lot of us nerds enjoy.
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