This game could pass as being made within the past few years if it just had HD resolutions. Plays great in DOSBox, and the graphics have an iconic and appealing look to them: I love to just zoom up close on the gold in my treasure room and stare at it sometimes. The gameplay is smooth and addictive, and everything is really intuitive. I never played this game - or really this era of games - as a kid, but I really can't stop myself playing it when I open it up now. Must buy!
I've been playing this game since I was a small child. It was one of the first PC games I installed on my own computer from CD-ROM, and I played countless hours upon hours against the computer, and even some games online in the 2010's using various third-party online clients. I think the fantasy setting, the asymmetrical gameplay, and the beautiful graphics are all amazing and stand out for its time. The gameplay feels crisp, and there's lots of varieties to the units and races. The expansion pack is included here, adding a fifth race to all game modes and a new fun campaign to play. There's also a map maker included in the install directory (Cartographer) which lets you make custom maps for multiplayer rather easily and quickly. The game does have its faults, however. The controls are a little counterintuitive compared to giants in the field like StarCraft for example, and there are situations where the asymmetrical gameplay makes some races highly, highly favored over others depending on the map layout. For example, playing Aramon on an island map is torture, since you have very few units that can effectively cross water or do battle not tethered to walkable land in general. My main gripe has been my gripe with the game for the past 20 years: it's pretty unstable. Alt-tabbing out of the window, or even pressing the wrong button on the multiplayer screen, will freeze the game or crash it to desktop. Ironically, the older Total Annihilation is more stable on modern computers than TA:K is. This isn't GOG's fault at all, though I wish that this game, or at least Total Annihilation, would be adopted by the Good Old Game preservation efforts to keep the games stable on modern computers. Overall, I think for the price this game is sold at on here, it's a great game to pick up. Just make sure when you sit down to play that you're prepared to play for a long while without alt tabbing, or to save very often, as there will be crashes at some point while playing.
