Description
It is 4000 years in the future, and the epic battle between the Arm and the Core has devastated the galaxy. Both sides fight on with super-advanced technology, from plasma guns to giant robots to sonar jammers. The only acceptable outcome is total victory.
You, as the Commander of either Arm or Core, must build up your base to destroy the other side, in a game developing the ideas of
Command & Conquer. Unlike earlier titles in the genre, it uses a 3D world in which elevation changes have an effect.
Mission objectives range from taking out specific targets to rescuing hostages to capturing the enemy base and using it in the next mission. Usually you must construct a base, although in some missions you lead an attacking force.
Unlike other strategy games, however, you start out with the Commander, the game's most powerful unit, and must defend him at all costs. Resource collection is very quick and easy, since a single unit can extract metal indefinitely from a mine without ever having to return to your base, while options for producing energy include solar power, wind power, hydroelectric power, geothermal power, and fusion power.
Alternate Titles
- "Total Annihilation: Use Your Senses" -- German title
- "TA" -- Common abbreviation
Part of the Following Groups
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Trivia
Development
Total Annihilation was based on an idea for a game project leader
Chris Taylor first thought of at the age of 14.
Mods
Total Annihilation has a massive base of users who customize and modify the game. Among these is a group called Swedish Yankspankers. This group developed an open source engine that plays multiplayer
Total Annihilation in full 3D. They can be reached at
http://springrts.com/.
Sales
Total Annihilation was a success for Cavedog:
Seattle, WA, October 30, 1997 -- Total Annihilation, Cavedog Entertainment's groundbreaking 3-D real-time strategy game, was simultaneously launched in three languages and 14 countries on September 27, blasting more than 250,000 games into retail stores during its first month of release.
Title
While in development, before the name
Total Annihilation was chosen, the game was referred to as
Really Cool War Game. This name was reused for an
April Fool's Day joke in 1999, when
Cavedog Entertainment supposedly had to rename all their trademarks, including the game's name, due to "a legal snafu with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office".
Awards
- GameStar (Germany)
- Issue 12/1999 - #80 in the "100 Most Important PC Games of the Nineties" ranking
- PC Gamer
- 1997 or 1998 - Greatest Game Of All Time
- April 2000 - #17 in the "All-Time Top 50 Games Poll"
- April 2005 - #34 in the "50 Best Games of All Time" list
- PC Player (Germany)
- Issue 01/1998 - Most Stunning Music in 1997
Information also contributed by
casimps1;
Jeanne;
MachTen,
Maw,
PCGamer77,
Rick Jones and
VitarcusThis entry to the MobyGames database was contributed by
Plix (207) on Feb 24, 2000.
