Total Annihilation: Total Testosterone Booster

In case anyone here doesn't already know, Beyond All Reason is the modern version of this game. It is open source. It is free. It is awesome. It has an awesome community that is involved from memes to development.

This game is timeless. Even with it's poor pathfinding, it's a BANGER. GO PEEWEES!!! FORWARD FOR THE ARM!!!

Fantastic video! I can attest to the testosterone boosting effect of this game. It was only after I broke into the top ten on the ladder for this game that I met my wife. I didn't need to tell her my ranking to receive her affection, the pheromone boost from playing TA was all it took. This game is still kicking and has it's own multiplayer client called Total Annihilation Forever. You can still play the OG version (with the expansions) or you can pick up one or both of the two most popular mods - Escalation for those who want a T3 and T4 experience, and ProTA for those who want a more balanced and modern version of the original. Both mods include community pathfinding fixes. For those who want to play the campaign, ProTA has a fully functional campaign with some additional challenge. Some quality of life features common to modern RTS are also present (hotkeys and UI improvements.) Happy gaming!

Dude, I waited so long for someone to post a good TA review on here, I was almost ready to teach myself video editing to try and make my own. Fuckin stoked to find a new reviewer to cycle through my list between Mandalore and Grimbeard

All hail to the commander abduction strategy. Create an airbase and a transport ship, fly to the enemy base and if there is not enough anti air capacity and the commander is not moving (most certainly building something), grab it. Yes, you can transport enemy units. At this point, you basically have won.

My grandpa got a disc of Total Annihilation for free with his Windows 98' pc. After playing it at my grandparent's home he gave it to me when we got a pc that could run the game. And what a game. I played this game so much into the early 2000's and after that with all the available mods. Insane. Thank you for covering this game🙏

I've been playing the game since it came out in 1996 and later got the expansion. Tried my hand in designing my own maps even and eventually found out about mods, modern patches and downloadable maps and units. I've played the campaign probably over 80 times by now, blasted the glorious Jeremy Soule soundtrack multiple times on max volume and gave myself several eargasms at the explosion sfx's and overlapping peewee machineguns became the perfect symphony in my ears, and im a die-hard Core fanatic. All I can say is this video made me once again realize that (g)oldies like this gem never die and the abrupt realization that we'll never quite get something like this ever again. I mean yes, Supreme Commander was great and BAR is good, but it ain't TA or has any of it's magic. I had a blast watching this video and in honor of it I'll quickly play a few matches again. PvP. Good hunting and glorious explosions to you, fellow commander. May your D-gun hits be legendary.

I still love and play this game. But after almost 30 years the unit pathfinding is still the absolute worst I have ever seen in an RTS.

TA was a HUGE step ahead, with the 3D terrain heightmap, 3D units, and 3D projectile trajectories. Coming from C&C's all-2D versions of those was just incredible. Then The Core Contingency came out...🤯 And then, of course, the TAUCP. 🤤

This was a game I played so so much as a kid back in Australia and yet I didn’t know anyone who ever played this here, Such an amazing game, I remember setting up narrow maps and forming giant Maginot wall style layered cannons & spamming the attack area with the giant behemoth cannons. And watching the ai struggle to even walk towards your base, forming their own wall of corpses. ❤ Ahhhh good times. Also the explosions in this game kicked ass. I tried BAR but it’s definitely not the same, more of a StarCraft esque experience. This game will forever be one of my favourite of all time, on par with the OG Deus Ex for me. Keep up the good content mate!

As a kid, I also had hours of fun playing skirmish on metal only maps. I could never get through the campaign, or win on normal maps. I came back two decades later, armed with knowledge of advanced concepts such as "map control", "scouting" and "control groups" that I'd learned from playing SC2 pvp. I could finally enjoy the other 75% of content that the game had to offer, and it was amazing. Haven't played TA in a while now but I often play Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance Forever, which I found out about because of my second dive into TA.

Dune 2 ---> Command and Conquer ---> Total Annihilation. Growing up with this progression of RTS games, TA was clearly the apex. It's hard to describe how much more mind blowing it was than even those previous 2 giants. The simulation aspect, the game systems, the music, the multiplayer experience... It was sublime, but short lived. Almost feels like it deserved the fame Starcraft got, it had so much going for it. It's hard to express just how mind-blowingly epic TA's game features were when it came out. The sounds and explosions and simultaneous actions occurring on your screen... There was nothing else like it. How special the Boneyards galactic conquest experience was in a "pre-bot" multiplayer gaming world, what a game! Of the games inspired by TA today, BAR is about the closest you'll find to TA's game systems in a modern game, but it's still in alpha and lacks much of the original charm and pacing... but it's free! SuppComm and Zero K and various TA Spring versions are all games to explore if you like TA, not to mention TA Escalation which... Is TA, basically.

I hope your channel grows and you make it big. The in depth commentary coupled with witty jokes and dry humour was very enjoyable to watch, keep it up man

Man, very happy to find this video. Currently replaying the campaign for the first time in probably 2 decades. I’ve been very surprised how well it holds up. Hope to see a Core Contingency video from you sometime

Great video about a great game. It a relief to see someone reviewing this old masterpiece. Now I would recommend you trying Total Annihilation: Escalation. A mod that make the game twice or thrice as big and hard. A stuff for true crazy fans. But a few slight correction that I'd like to make: 1. Missile turret spam won't work against gunship spam. Those flying tanks (especially the Arm one, which is the most broken unit in whole game alongside Flash) do not take nearly enough damage and melt missile turrets in seconds. Flak turrets are there for a reason. 2. There isn't "a chance a wreck will appear". It always appears with exceptions based on 2 damage threshold. If damage is high enough (like hitting a scout vehicle with a Guardian), the field of debris will appear instead. Less metal, but could be walked over. If damage is even higher (like hitting a scout with Big Bertha or anything hit with a nuke), the wreck will not appear at all. You can build your offense and defense based on this knowledge to make it harder for enemy to reach you or make it easier for you to reach your enemy. Also, wrecks can be destroyed - and sometimes the best use of Big Bertha is a glorified demolition tool. 3. Missile won't work and artillery will struggle against heavy units such as Core Goliath. Sometimes you will need heavy laser turrets and late-game beam guns if you play defensively. Of offensively, since at least the Arm has a mobile version of beam gun turret. 4. There is "select Commander" button so you won't lose it on huge maps. Its shift+c, I think. 5. You have committed a horrible terrible no good crime of not mentioning the Vulcan and Buzzsaw in all their glory. Those are the most epic artillery pieces ever put in any game. Because nothing screams: "DIE!" louder than an rapid-fire super-heavy super-longrange piece of doom disguised as an artillery.

I'm enjoying your content. Your presentation and energy is very enjoyable! This is not a game I'd ever typically be interested in but I greatly enjoyed hearing about it and your childhood. Thank you for sharing!

It is insane o me think that Total Annhilation was actually released a year BEFORE Starcraft 1, I mean look at this game, its fuckign visionary. TO me this game was for RTS was Elite was for 3D games:a glimpse into the future. I would sell my family into slavery to have a chance to get my hands into its source code so I could find out what sort of witchcraft and black magic they did to make this game in 1997 work, what sort of forbidden knowledge is hidden within its codemay never be known to the general public. IN an alternate timeline, TA becomes what Starcraft is to us today and RTS would't have died, and we would be watching koreans fight the most batshit insane games ever in several tournaments. 11/10 probably the greatest RTS ever made, willteahc my own kids to play this so they cna grow chest hair at 10 years old (yes, including the girls).

You want me to believe a game called "Total Annihilation" is completely ran on renewable energy to launch nukes?

Unironically a banger of a Christmas Gift ❤

It's funny, because a little while later in the 2010s me and MY brother would dance the same dance in Planetary Annihilation. One of the sequels of this game. Siblings must war.