Total Annihilation: Commander Pack

I great game. awesome sound effects and still addictive to play. Easy to install and no issues with W7 32bit. After a bit of seraching I found the Raven pack and the 500 unit patch. Both worked fine. I am gonna go now as I want to to spend a few more hours re-living my mis-spent youth.

I remember playing this obsessively on my old OS 7 Powermac. I couldn't have been older than 11 or 12. The memories this brings back are icnredible, as is the game itself, accompanied be an equally incredible soundtrack. A must buy for anyone.

I loved this game from the first moment I played it; absolutely amazing scale. The scope of each battle still leaves my jaw-dropped. Supreme Commander is the only game that can come close, but this, this wins out every time.

This isn't just any old strategy game, it has elements that makes it unique, even after all these years since it was released, it still stands out and retains features unique to it that make it a lot of fun. The first thing you will notice is the graphics. The terrain is much nice looking than other RTS games from the same era, it has smoothly rolling hills and avoids having a grid look to it but a more natural look which I remember impressing me at the time. The units, when you first start playing you have a couple units to choose from, but as you progress you will notice more and more and soon you'll be overwhelmed by the incredible variety of units you have to choose from, this includes base defenses as well as vehicles etc. At the time you could download more units online, then there's the expansion packs that add even more. This is probably the only game I know of where you can have an entire base in the water (with expansion pack). I once played against my brother and defeated him by constructing my entire base in the water. Another feature I loved was the ability to recycle destroyed units. They don't merely become random debris on the field, but destroyed enemy units can become a source of metal, you can recycle their units you destroy (as well as your own) and use the metals to create more, you can also use things like trees, rocks etc... the game doesn't stick you with one path to victory, you have many you can take. Need energy? Burn down some trees, create solar or wind generators, need metal? Find a deposit, or perhaps extract it from some rocks or destroyed units, or if you live on a world with a metallic floor, just extract it from anywhere you wish, then there's the water generators... you get the picture. Everything counts as a unit in this game, including base defenses, so you have to plan things out, you can't just build 10000 base defenses, or you won't be able to build as many units as offense. You need to balance things out. You can have a lot of units in game, no worries there. Also the map sizes can be HUGE. For the price, with two expansion packs included? If you ever liked RTS games you NEED to buy this one, it's simply the best RTS ever made, and when compared to newer RTS games, you'll probably play them once and that is it, this is one you'll keep coming back to.

it has many features which still amaze me today. if you've played Supreme Commander, it 's almost exactly the same, except with worse pathfinder. if you like RTS games this is a must buy. i first got the game when i was in elementary school in 2000, two years after it's release. at that time, it was the grestest thing since sliced bread, and it still is. it's best moments are thrilling and explosive, with wreckage filling the playable area, and shards of Kbot dancing across the vast, unyeilding landscapes. it slwoest are filled with easy resource managent tht has depth but lacks complexity, making it easier to collect resources than it's cousins. all units are rendered in 3 dimensins using polygons. it has so many units it takes time to learn their advantages and dis advantages. navies are fully fleshed out and work similarly to land units. the tech tree is not, consisting simply of building the next teir from the base construction units. one beautiful strateg i worked out early on is that if you use a transport plane to pick up a construction unit produced by an ally or enemy of the opposite faction, you can order your commander to capture the unit without putting it down, which makes the process much easier, as the AI is rather manic in its movements, and NEVER sits still unless it's trapped by other units. when you capture it, it retains the ability to create it's faction's units and you can have arm teh when you're core or core tech when you're arm. this is fantastic, and i haven't seen it since. i thought i'd share that little gem with you as it also makes the game more fun when you have every unit at your disposal. finally, there is the music, which changes tracks depending on what is happeneing in-game. if you're in combat, the music plays some sweet ochestral battle music, and when building, they mellow out, and play peaceful, almost mournful music. definately one of jeremy Soule's best works. must buy 9/10. why nine? pathfinder is really rather stupid sometimes as units will refuse to take the easy path. this is solved i suppose through the ability to queue orders, but i advise keeping spaces in your base structure so your units can get through, and the enemy AI wil just build wherever, and have no general structure to it's bases even to the level of trapping it's units sometimes, and will build land units in excessive numbers on island maps for ome reason, and them line them all up on the beach. though the AI isn't partiularly intelligent, it can still be tough to beat. neat feature: metal maps are made of metal, and that means you can put you extractors ANYWHERE. cool, right?