Slashdot Mirror
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?"
I was always a big fan of the original Command and Conquer. The units had a nice variety without bogging you down with too many options and the whole concept of RTS was new and exciting to me. I don't think any C&C quite lived up to the original except Red Alert.
Pretty widgets? What pretty widgets?
There is nothing like building an impenetrable fortress and a huge assault force and then unleashing your army on a neighbour.
I love love love that game. I love it. Love love love. Am I gushing? Sorry. :)
I always save my last mod point to mod up a good troll. You people are too serious.
Not really sure if it fits the RTS genre ... but I still fire up the Atari emulator to put in a round every now and then.
Although it wasn't mentioned in the Slashdot write-up (so as not to spoil the list), the GameSpy editors did pick Total Annihilation as their top RTS game of all time. Personally, I think they hit the nail on the head. I've yet to play another RTS game that has done so many things so right as Total Annihilation. What a blast...
DecafJedi
my weblog: apropos of something
good point, I liked that game a lot, especially the new units that could be introduced and the water units were nicely done but it got to the point where there were to many units for me to remember which was the best for which situation. Maybe I just didn't play it enough.
Pretty widgets? What pretty widgets?
should work quite well on dosbox.
:)
:)
It was just great when it came
too bad I never liked the rts games that came after it as much, imho most of them were lacking in atmosphere.
though, I'd count populous 1 as rts anyways
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
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.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
my mistake, its #1 ...
the slashdot submitter really should have mentioned it, at least...
Newsie, Moderator, www.tauniverse.com
As I said above, I didn't want to spoil the list when I submitted the story. Where's the fun in that? ;)
DecafJedi
my weblog: apropos of something
Homeworld made the list, #6!
:-)
Yay.
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.
Strategy games & adventure games are the only games I ever play.
My current favorite is Rise of the Nations.
Before that Stronghold used to take a big chunk of my time.
The great thing about Seven Kingdoms II was the espionage aspect of the game. Truely unique and made for interesting diplomocy. (Which was always broken in AOE and others).
Also, the concept of character leadership and changing hitpoints was a great feature. If your General had high leadership points, his troops would get extra damage bonus.
It's only failing was lack of single player replayability, IMHO
You have 5 Moderator Points! Use 'em or lose 'em! They will expire before any good stories are posted.
Why didn't this make the list!!!!!???!
When you get to hell -- tell 'em Itchy sent ya!
As I said above, I didn't want to spoil the list when I submitted the story. ./ would spoil anything
Why? Gamespy pays you by the click or something?
I don't see how putting the list on
I picked up Kohan: Ahriman's Gift on a whim and can honestly say it is one of the most interesting of all the RTS's I own. It has depth of play that other RTS's really don't even approach and allows you to actually use strategy and tactics, a concept that is slowly becoming foreign to the so called RTS genre. This is a rant for another day though. If you are interested in trying out this little known wonder, I believe there is a demo out for it. I think you can find it at Timegate Studios. Its an Oldie but a Goodie.
Warcraft II. It's still a fantastic game today, and it's going on what, 9 years now?
I can't say I developed much of a taste for Warcraft III, though. Adding that whole 'hero' aspect just wasn't my style.
RoN is a truly amazing game once you get the basics down. It takes a while to get to a point where you feel "in control" of what is going on--for example, there are five different resources to juggle, and your military strategy needs to change significantly as you progress through the ages. What makes it stand apart from the other games in this list is that there is so much to juggle that you've got a lot more control over how to play out the game than you do in other games. There simply isn't a recipe for "how to win a game"; once you've gone beyond a few basic opening strategies, it's wide open. What's more, there's far less unit micromanagement than in other games in the genre: you send your armies into battle and control formations, but you rarely need to do the "now you attack this here" bit. Some people like this; to me, it goes against the nature of the RTS, changing it from being a game of strategy to being a game of who can click which units the fastest and most accurately.
Warcraft III was pretty and engaging, but it eventually boiled down to the classic Rock-Paper-Scissors style combat that dominates the genre. It's more of an action game than a strategy game, IMHO--gameplay relies on developing and guiding your heroes to determine the outcome of the battle, making it more of a dungeon crawl than a strategic title.
TA deserves that first place award. It's one of the few old-school RTS games I can still play and thoroughly enjoy. I'd love to see the engine updated to take advantage of modern hardware and UI enhancements...
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
The computer is actually hard to beat. Plus, as far as I can remember, its the earliest WARGAMES for any system. The inclusion of a time restriction was a great idea.
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.
In linux libertas
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.
I know the game was always sort of a "sleeper" that never broke it big like heavy hitters such as Starcraft did, but Myth was still incredibly well done, and I've never come across a person who flat out didn't like it.
;)
It's strongest quality was mostly the fact that it cut out all the annoying resource gathering and just let you work on the strategy part of killing your enemies.
I was hoping the ideas it brought to the genre would catch on (I think maybe Sacrifice is the only game I've played since that comes close) but it never caught on.
Doesn't change that it was an awesome game though.. I would have replaced that stinker 'Age of Empires' with Myth on that list any day.
#1 on the list... hell yeah. I still have over a gigabyte of TA stuff, and I play it more than any other strategy game out there to this day. Finally they get something correct :D
I always liked C&C: RA2. With the wonderful actresses.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
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!
Where is Advance Wars for the gameboy?
.. actually that game has caused more stewardesses to ask me to "please turn off your electronic device" more so than anyu other game. Compared to the PC based RTS, its very simple .. but its wonderfully balanced and terrable addicting.
Sure, I've played tons of hours on PC based RTS games and I did my time with the original C&C and Starcraft, but these guys didn't even give a nod to the million+ selling Advance Wars series (which by the way started well before the Herzog Zwei on the Genesis).
Sure its not as 3D pretty as PC based ones, but its portable and majorly addicting. I've killed more flights with that game
Maybe I'm expecting a little too much out of Gamespot, but if they claim to produce a list of top RTS games "of all time!!!" then I would hope they would look a little beyond recent PC based games. What about Utopia on the Intellivision?
These pretzels are making me thirsty.
After doing the AoE expansion pack and some other stuff, he did Empire Earth. Similar idea, but this time "done right".
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
Perhaps it wasn't included because it's not an RTS?
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.
...). In my experience low level harassment from the start, multiple bases and territory control were much surer paths to victory.
I used to play TA tournaments: a LOT of strategy was involved (especially before Cavedog started monkeying around with the balance with the units they released weekly, after Chris Taylor left IMHO things went downhill pretty fast).
Yes, when you see newbies play it's going to be pretty boring, but expert play is a completely different kettle of fish. It =can= happen even among experts that you'll have a pretty sizeable battle where you throw everything at your opponent, but obviously before you do that you have to be pretty sure you're going to win (recon, selective bombing, multiple fronts,
TA's greatest strenght is its UI in my opinion, being able to queue things so easily, creating groups, pathing, guarding and so on gives a lot of flexibility to the experienced player.
Install TA, grab TA:M (TA mutation) and some of the latest AIs (that are MUCH better than the one shipped with the game) and you'll have a lot of fun, believe me.
-- the cake is a lie
1. Total Annihilation
2. StarCraft w/ Brood War
3. C&C Red Alert
4. WarCraft 3
5. Age of Empires
6. Homeworld
7. Close Combat 2
8. Rise of Nations
9. Medieval: Total War
10. Empire Earth
Honorable Mention: Dune 2
Although I can see why TA: Kingdoms didn't make the list, I never understood why it was so badly received by the gamer community. Of all the RTS games I ever played, this one ranks top on my list. It was incredibly fun. There were many interface improvements over TA (which says a lot) and I found the fantasy theme to give us much more interesting and distinguishable units. One thing I disliked about TA was how hard it was to visually identify specific units.
As I recall, the biggest complaint was that most people's computers could not cope with the steep requirements of the game. Most of this was resolved within the same year of the game's release.
"No matter where you go, there you are." -- Buckaroo Banzai
Don't you love it when people don't understand what the RT in RTS stands for?
In case the original poster didn't get the hint, Advance Wars is turn-based, RTS games are (R)eal (T)ime.
While I enjoy Advance Wars and a number of S/TRPGs, they don't belong in a list of RTS games, unless, at the very least, they're actually real time rather than turn based games.
-PainKilleR-[CE]
The missions were pointless. That's what Battle.net was for. That's where the strategy was.
Starcraft balanced recourse gathering, unit and building production, expansion, technological progression, and battle tactics in a clear and elegant way.
In my opinion the only problem with Starcraft was people's tendency to play games with lots of resources (think Big Game Hunters) and sit behind defenses and build carriers. It made it hard to find a game with decent players :)
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
Yes, I loved the original Command & Conquer. It was titled Tiberian Dawn. I bought it from Egghead in 1995 with my college friends. I was a sophomore back and had a 486 DX2/66 then. Boy, did we get addicted! Modem play so often and we never did any studying. :)
Whatever happened to C&C:Twilight or something like that?
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
TA is grossly over rated. It was a game full of neat toys to build. but the AI sucked very badly. It had much less depth then Startcraft/Warcraft2/Warcraft 3/Age of Empires (all of them). IT was a game about massing and super defense. You mad eyour fortress and then waited to accumulate a large force then attack. Even at high skill levels that was the idea. A early game rush was suicide because of the commanders. The interface was alright but not the be all and end all. It was also lacking in production quality. The units were bland uninspired and mostly identical between the two sides. The developement of each side was identical. It was a game specifically for the low skill "mass rush" crowd. The same crowd that loves C&C. Command and conquer had the same problems. the ammount of tank rushed in that game was stupid. There are few other effective strategies.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Tiberian Sun was the sequel to Tiberian Dawn, but, imo, wasn't a very good game. You can probably pick it up for next to nothing now, and iirc they're selling it in a 4-pack with RA2 and the expansions.
If they had decided to do a Tiberian Twilight, it probably got shelved for Generals, and may be something they'll work on in a few years. Last I heard, they're working on a LotR RTS with the movie license and a massively upgraded Generals engine.
Of course, there's also a possibility that we'll see a 3rd Red Alert before we see Tiberian Twilight, given that RA2 and the expansion seemed to do better than Tiberian Sun and that expansion.
-PainKilleR-[CE]
Dune 2... 'nough said. This was the first RTS game I got into, and by far my favorite. I remember playing it for hours upon hours. Perhaps my worst memory is inviting my best friend over (with his computer), and playing the game all night on different computers... pretty sad!
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!
Dune II only getting a honorable mention?? Without Dune II where would the RTS genre be? I remember playing this game and being in complete awe over its originality. It only left me wanting more. This game belongs in the top ten with its fellow RTS games. Screw honorable mentions give it the respect it deserves as one of the top ten RTS of all time.
Dune 2 Warcraft 2 Homeworld Stronghold Lord of the Realm 2 Total Annihilation Starcraft WarZone 2100 Shogun:Total War(Need to try medieval) Speed Chess (Give the old boys their due)
Yeah, Tiberian Sun was my least favorite game. I bought every C&C games (excluding the expansion except Zero Hours for C&C:G).
:)
Thanks for replying.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Warcraft II was basically the benchmark for all RTS games that followed. It was the first RTS game I ever liked and its still one of my all time favorite games.
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
Overall, I wasn't terribly impressed. It had some novel ideas (the spy and mercenary system) but overall it failed to hold the attention of gamers.
The single player campaign (although randomized) was not terribly interesting - human civilizations fighting a war against demons (the Frythans) sounded pretty cliche to me. Plus, when they went for the randomized campaigns they had to ditch something called a storyline .
Outside of the campaign, the gameplay was interesting at first, since you had the opportunity to build and conquer cities and resources (reminded me of Civilization II, much better graphics). The different civilizations had their own unique units but other than that and the city art you could hardly tell you were playing one race or another.
Control of units in battle was annoying as anything, often times pathfinding was poor and terribly slow. Still, large battles gave you a chance to sit back and enjoy listening to the grunts and sounds of battle.
Nevertheless, Seven Kingdoms II must be credited with two things in particular: heros and espionage. The two were fairly well done and added a new perspective as opposed to games of its time.
I know it's labeled a "simulation," but that's just an easy label to give based on its name. (What is the definition of an RTS anyways? You could take the term several ways, and the article doesn't really define it...)
If it counts, it'd be the only game on the table that's not about battle in one way or another.
SimCity was great. SimCity 2000 was better, because its gameplay was considerably deeper. (SC 3000 went a bit too far, I thought, into micromanagement; and so the first sequel in the series reigns to this day.)
You can debate whether or not it's a good thing that the games never really end. I've probably devoted more hours on individual cities than I have on any other single RTS game. I usually only give up when the map is completely urban and completely developed.
It's the sort of game you want to give to kids, because it's not zero-sum and it's not violent.
The graphics are really blocky on a large monitor these days, but the gameplay is as fun as it ever was. (Best of all, you can find it really cheap anywhere that sells old jewel case-only software titles.)
I was getting worried that Total Annihilation wouldn't make the list but there it is at the top of the heap.
I loved that game. The tweakability, AI, unit balance, use of terrain etc really were ahead of it's time. Just that fact that the air units were actually bound by the laws of flight rather than being ground units that floated was revolutionary
My favorite strategy was building a base and stocking it with an assload of Big Bertha cannons and missile defenses, setting both to automatically fire at anything that moved. I'd send scout planes (backed up by construction planes on repair duty) to roam the map. As the planes exposed enemy postions and units, the Big Bertha's would automatically target and pound them into oblivion.
Then I'd leave the computer on for a couple hours and come back to see a complete wasteland with nothing standing except for my base.
Actually, in Brood Wars, I loved playing against people who went straight for Carriers or Battlecruisers. With some good scouting (easy to do against said players) it's obvious what they're doing. And an army of Dark Archons prepped for Mind Control is all it takes to win the game. And, sometimes (this is the part I love) making the other guy cry.
I did this against one player four times in a row.
DecafJedi
my weblog: apropos of something
Yep, a critical patch was released not too long ago. Called the Comprehensive Realtime Accessory Companion Kit (or CRACK), once you install it, you gain access to a new race, the Narcolumbians.
I think Blizzard's AI was absolutely amazing.
Arguably the best AI I've ever played against.
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.
Rise of Nations and Homeworld.
Any other RTS I've ever played I've been able to consistently use overwhelming numbers to beat the other players, be it online or off. Problem is that, yes, there is some strategy involved, and in an evenly matched battle the one who can effectively micromanage special abilities or troops will win. But in all the games I've played (sans the two mentioned, and I've played just about every game called an RTS out there, and some that weren't but still qualified) if you have at least 1.5 times more troops than your enemy, nothing will save you. (I'm talking equally skilled players here, an idiot will lose no matter how many troops he gathers)
Rise of Nations really took the idea of borders to the next level, which made it incredibly hard to effectively attack enemy territory because you could never affect the economy directly (before an assault) of any player with decent skill.
Homeworld because the concept of specific units being effective against other specific units actually mattered. Yes in other games it's been done, and using that to your advantage could mean a win, but it wasn't a critical factor. In Homeworld even basic fighters never really lost their effectiveness against more advanced ships (Fighters ate Ion Frigates for lunch), and combine that with future releases like the Beast infection beam or the cannon you could add to the mining ship, you really had to stop and consider how to make an attack.
I'll throw in two honorable mentions:
#1: Total Annihlation. Although not revolutionary in terms of the engine, the modability and the diverse units (Land, Sea, and Air in a Sci-fi setting) really made this game shine.
#2: Dune 2 and Warcraft 2. These I only mention because they were the games that sparked the RTS industry. Yes others came before them, but these two became so popular that they made the difference. (Just like Half-Life/Couter Strike for FPS, Diablo for dungeon crawls, Falcon series for Flight Combat Sims, etc...)
Forgot to throw in another comment. I'd include the Total War series, but they aren't exactly a pure RTS. And you could win them with massed forces (unless you were fighting across a river or over a castle), the application of strategy wasn't nessecary but it sure in the hell made more difference in the amount of troops you had left than any other game I've played.
Yeah, I guess they forgot to play the game. Whoops. In case anybody was wondering, the source of the mistake is that the demons were going to constitute a 'race' at one point. As it is, they ended up just being a small handful of unbuildable units.
It had the basics of any modern RTS: unit production, real-time movement, multiplayer(only two though).
About the massed units thing...I'm not a fan of that, either. In fact, smaller forces was one of the few things I preferred in Warcraft III over StarCraft. I like that if I attack an enemy with an inferior force, superior management of that force can lead to my victory. With the addition of the hero units, micromanagement became a major focus of Warcraft III, and I love it. Most of the other RTS games out these days don't focus on micro at all, and usually actually make it impractical. I like them anyway, sure, but...ah, well.
How about at least a mention of the original RTS, from the Sega Genesis. Created back in 1989 a little game called Herzog Zwei was created, and it single-handedly implemented most of the things that are a staple of RTS games today. Different units, buying upgrades, getting more resources through capturing bases, and most importantly destroying your opponent. It had air, land and sea units, and was incredibly fun. It was really THE game that created the genre.
classicgaming.com
Never did like the sequal, though. Always hoped to see a combined game in which you had to build your bases and stuff like a realtime, but then had the option of flying various ships from the front seat, sort of like Privateer or Tachyon Fringe.
"Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"
I just noticed that they put Medieval: Total War on the list. I'm not sure why; even they admitted that it wasn't all that strategic in the real-time component. This also brings up the question, "Why not include Myth?" Myth is just as worthy of being on an RTS list as Total War is.
Rob (Note that I didn't use the word "begs," grammarians)
For those that would like to see some great TA games - more than just newbie vs. newbie on an all metal map - you might want to check out the excellent fan-created Demo Recorder. Then, you'll probably want to download some TA game recordings.
"Mass and attack has very little strategy to it." It's amazing you say this and later that you're a Blizzard fan. That's all Starcraft is based on.
Yes, such tactics are easy to stop. REALLY easy. I mean, when you see someone put up a pylon near your minerals after 2 minutes has passed, along with a forge, you know you're not in for much of a fight. BUT, I really prefer playing more skilled opponents. Alas, if I still had my Brood War CD...
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
Got the Warcraft II box set several years back (it includes WC, WC2, and WC2:expansion). Honestly, I thought it was okay but hadn't really had the urge to play more RTS after that. The fact that they didn't make it...well maybe the RTS genre is worth more credit than I gave it.
Agreed, im still playing it on my XP box how many years later. I had this on my 386-25 and will have it on every computer i own EVER! As far as im concerned i rate every RTS games against Dune II, it was that good. But then again i also compare all FPSs against Doom, so take as much salt as you need.
I want 2D games back.
TA reigns supreme!
I can honestly say that I don't understand how StarCraft could come in at #2. I'd been playing and hacking around on TA for a year when StarCraft came and did nothing better than TA. I gave up the SC campaign on the third of fourth map and never went back.
TA I played again a couple of weeks ago and had a good time. Works very well on newer faster machines, though it's a little hard to play over the internet due to the way network play is implemented and the problems with NAT.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Personally, I'm addicted to Majesty. It's like Warcraft, but your units have free will and act according to their own internal AI. So you really have to pay attention to dynamics (e.g. rangers and wizards like to team up with barbarians and go out in large, deadly hunting parties).
I'm not a micro-manager, so this is a lot more fun than watching my units stand still in WC. I just get everything set up, place a few rewards on things I really want to happen, and can trust my heroes to do intelligent things while I work on building my economy. There are a dozen different types of heroes and each type has its own special talents and vices (Elves make you more money, but encourage sloth and prostitution, rangers like to explore the whole board, but often stir up trouble, etc.)
Best of all, there's a Linux version!
Is Opera's find dialogue broken, because I didn't see anyone say 'Sim City'. I suppose that it might qualify better as a simulation, but it's an RTS as far as I'm concerned. All the SCs have been great, but the excellent balance of simplicity and complexity of SC3K makes it a true classic. The original may be easier to pick up and play, and SC4 is certainly a more powerful city builder, but SC4 is amazingly addictive for it's mix of both qualities. Not having the free time I used to, I've practically buried the disc. I know that if I were to run it just once, I'd be hopelessly hooked for months. Any game with that ability, like Poke'mon or Tetris, is deserved of a 'Top 10' list.
Microsoft! Wait till I gather riches to sue you for all the time lost at school playing your game
I'm glad to see TA in the #1 slot. I can still remember clearly the battles that raged at our small computer store. We would get about 6 people together on a large map and dig in. After much probing and spying eventually someone's base would crack just enough to allow in an attacking wedge. From there your allies would scream in with air support and start knocking down base defenses. All this would be happening and then suddenly you would notice your own base just got nuked away! What happened to the anti-nukes!?!?!?! Well while your where happily wreaking havoc on your enemy's base he had invisable bots hanging around your anti-nukes in case you smashed his defenses. And then to top it all off the guy in the corner that nobody thought much about would come stomping in with a dozen game stopping Mech's and everyone would collectively piss themselves.
The game truly did bring a great amount of strategy to the gamer. You had soooo many choices about how to play it. You certainly could try and build a million of one type of unit and form a overwhelming attack force but a well constructed base would chew threw all your units easily. Or you could play the long game and try and outthink your oppenent. Imagine the only precursor to a major attack being your power suddenly shutting down for no reason. Then you look and all your fusion reactor have just been nuked and your radar shows an incoming squad of fighters. All these things and a well balanced load (until you start adding to many extra units) made it a great game indeed.
And with the internet being the place it is now there have been many great addons made over time. TA Demo recorder is one of the best for allied multiplayer IMHO. The whiteboard and signal flare features aloud you to mark areas for air strikes even if your ally couldn't see. "Hit their power!!!! Now!" Or how about the resource sharing that was built into the game? With three allies you could have one person concetrate on base defense, another on ecomony and recon, and another be the war cheif. This worked so well in fact that after awhile (10 hours or so) we had to play a free for all just to give the mind a break.
Heck I should just shut up about this game for now, go try it. Go over to planetannilation.com and see where you can still buy it, buy TA and the Core expansion and get a few friends over and try it out. Demo Recorder is higly recommended but a bit buggy sometimes.
Are there any other Dark Reign fans out there? Dark Reign doesn't look quite as good as Star Craft, but I like the gameplay and units better, and it definitely has a better soundtrack. DR has so many cool features: units that can morph into terrain or disguise themselves as the enemy and slip into the enemy base to steal technology, saboteurs that can dynamite buildings, decoy buildings and units, the water contaminator. What a fun game!
"Give a man a fish and he will ask for tartar sauce and French fries!"
Some guys are trying to make an open-source game inspired on TotalA.
Check their homepage: http://palito.9hells.org
They even have a nice feature comparision table
It looked promising, but unfortunatly the project seems stalled for some months.. volunteers?
It was the first game to have a spiiny rotatay view, you could build hundreds of units, make your own units and the research tech was near infinite along with unlimited units, ranks, ion cannons and real world physics. Plus when it was released it was bug free, the only game i know of today that was and sadly a sleeper hit.
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