[Longplay, No Commentary] Total Annihilation (PC, 1997) 1080p Hard CORE Campaign Play-through

Total Annihilation is a real-time strategy game originally released in 1997 for Windows. It is arguably one of the defining titles of the genre which was criminally overshadowed by other more popular titles of that era. "What began as a conflict over the transfer of consciousness from flesh to machines escalated into a war which has decimated a million worlds" is probably one of the most epic and apt introduction in the history of gaming. The second video of this series will cover the galactic war from the perspective of CORE.

The game, as its title suggests, is all about total annihilation of enemies, a bit too literally most of the time. Mission objectives usually revolve around building up forces to destroy every single enemy unit on the map, throw in some capture objectives occasionally. Story-wise, well, the player must lead their faction from one system to another in their quest to annihilate the enemy. How the war came about was not mentioned in the game, though it was explained in the game manual so do give it a read to have a better understanding of the game universe. I love the sound department; the music and attacks all sound great, just that they might break down when too many things happen at once. There are balancing issues with this game that gives rise to a certain meta, where certain units are fielded pretty much every time while others are rarely seen. Spamming cheap low level units are also sometimes more favourable than building their higher level counterparts. Next, being a game that's turning 24, the control scheme is showing its age. Lastly, while the pathfinding is not frustratingly bad, you will find units colliding into each other more often than not, and they might even go to unexpected places when traversing cramped space, so it still leaves a lot to be desired.

Despite these flaws, I enjoyed playing this game.* It reminded me of Supreme Commander, another RTS game about large armies of machines fighting each other to their demise. It turns out SupCom is actually the spiritual successor of Total Annihilation, no wonder the similarities. I recommend RTS fans who missed this game to give it a go, you'll probably love it.

* The CORE campaign felt worse designed in comparison to the ARM campaign, where the difficulty spike in a few missions were totally horrendous and luck actually played a key role in passing those missions. It was incredibly frustrating, but the sense of achievement after beating them still made it worthwhile, I guess.

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Specific mission timestamps:
0:00:00 Intro
0:02:47 Mission 1: The Commander Reactivated...
0:06:16 Mission 2: Vermin
0:16:45 Mission 3: Ambush!
0:27:14 Mission 4: Enough Is Enough
0:42:19 Mission 5: Barathrum!
0:54:49 Mission 6: The Cleansing Begins
1:16:51 Mission 7: Pulling The Noose Tight
1:31:46 Mission 8: The Push To Aqueous Minor
1:48:51 Mission 9: The Purgation Of Aqueous Minor
2:02:27 Mission 10: The Gauntlet
2:22:47 Mission 11: Isle Parche
2:40:06 Mission 12: A Traitor Leads The Way
2:58:11 Mission 13: Rougpelt
3:01:21 Mission 14: Scouring Rougpelt
3:13:44 Mission 15: Xantippe's Abyss
3:35:40 Mission 16: Departing Rougpelt
3:51:34 Mission 17: The Lost Isle
4:16:08 Mission 18: Slolam Pilago
4:32:57 Mission 19: The Vebreen Fleet
4:52:21 Mission 20: The Gate To Aegus
5:11:40 Mission 21: Aegus...Empyrrean's Guardian
5:26:45 Mission 22: A Big Empyrrean Welcome
5:31:04 Mission 23: The Fortress Falls
5:57:54 Mission 24: Surrounded And Pounded
6:17:54 Mission 25: Empyrrean's Final Stand
6:39:24 CORE Victory, Credits