Total Anhilation Old But Not Dated (Total Annihilation (PC))

Member Name: Meshek

Product:	Total Annihilation (PC)
Date:	12/01/02 (336 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: True 3d Terain, Many Units, Construction Units

Disadvantages: Graphics a bit dated.

This game all although a few years old now is still more advanced in many respects to comparativly new strategy games such as Red Alert 2.

Firstly TA (Total Anhilation) has true 3D with view and range of shots increased the higher up you do. RA 2(Red Alert 2) only has basic cliffs. (i.e. only two possible hights). Secondaly in TA units actually build the buildings (and hence are vnerable while in construction) as compared to simply placing the building when it is finished in RA2. the TA methos is superior as it means you can increase the speed of building easily by building more construction units and you can build anywhere on the map provided the construction units can get there and do not die before the building is built. Thirdly the resource system in TA is superior to RA2. (The two resources in TA are energy and metal) Buildings do not use power unless they are doing things e.g. building or shooting. This is better because it means after a sustained attack on an enemy base the energy in the enemys stores will be depleted and his guns will sop working. Whereas in RA2 you either have enough power or you don't and if you do you will never run out of energy and so it is possible to build impenetrable bases. A fourth aspect where TA is better is that with the units you can download from there site there are over 4 times as many units as RA2. This allows a greater range of strategy as there are huge numbers of planes, boats, land units and hovercraft to chose from whereas in RA2 you are moreless limited to land. One area however where RA2 is better is graphics as it uses new features invented quite recently. However TA played at a high resoloution still has quite good graphics.

In my opinion TA is better than RA2 and is certainly cheaper being now that it is on budget. If you have not played given TA a go in the past do now, you really can not go wrong for £5.

Summary: