In any given Internet popularity contest, StarCraft would win hands down. But a full year before StarCraft, the first "modern" RTS was unleashed to the world, and it was years ahead of its time. The name of the game was Total Annihilation, and to this day no game has duplicated its contribution to the genre. Six years, and other games are still playing catch-up!
Technology: Total Annihilation was the first true-3D real-time strategy game, with 3D terrain and 3D rendered units walking, flying, sailing, or even roaming underwater. Hundreds of units could be seen on the screen at once, a remarkable feat for its day. As computers grew faster, TA was able to scale with them, allowing players to crank up their resolution and crank up the unit limits with virtually no top end. Years after its release, the game was still cutting edge.
Gameplay: TA took a "Magic: The Gathering" approach to units and gameplay balance, allowing for (literally) hundreds of units without throwing off the game. That is to say, each unit was balanced on its own: accuracy, speed, range, cost, armor, damage, time to build etc. were all factored in, so no one unit could dominate a strategy. As a result, players had dozens of tactics to choose from thanks to the unit mix. (Some might complain that TA had too many units, but this game was known for gratuitous excess.)
Interface Innovation: While most games shackled players with unit limits and queue limits and a very basic AI, Total Annihilation was years ahead of its time. With just a few clicks you could start executing very complex strategies. You could queue up hundreds of units, order a constructor to build hundreds of different buildings, or order a factory to build planes that would automatically patrol a route as they rolled off the assembly line. In fact, those planes would automatically break off of a patrol to attack an enemy, then circle around to land at a repair station, then zip back into their patrol route -- automatically! The interface allowed gamers to build up obscene armies and bases with such ease that the player was free to concentrate on actual tactics and strategy. In the years since few games have even come close to this level of control.
Leveraging the Internet: We call Total Annihilation the first "modern" RTS because it really took advantage of the online environment, way back in '97, to enhance the game. Each week, the developers released a new unit onto the Internet. That's right! The game subtly changed, week to week, keeping the game completely fresh and opening up (or closing off) strategies all the time. The mapping and modification scene was also encouraged. Even today the massive TA community is still cranking out new units and total conversions.
Pure Style: Total Annihilation is the perfect name for the game. It was TOTAL. Nothing about this game is half-ass: it's like a videogame apocalypse. You don't just order an attack -- you send in a WAVE of hundreds of units, a wall of steel death that will fill the screen with awesome-looking explosions for minutes on end. You can build a nuclear missile capable of destroying a screen full of units, but it's worthless to build just one: Typically, you send them over in batches of a dozen or more. Obscene? YES. That's Total Annihilation! Every game was non-stop action, carnage, and brutality at a level never seen before or since.
If you look back and try to identify the key games that stood out the most in the ten-year history of the genre, it's clear that for its time Total Annihilation was an incredible leap. Unfortunately, its contributions have rarely been duplicated. Perhaps its unfettered gameplay and incredible developer support were just too difficult for other developers to pull off. Rumors stir that TA designer Chris Taylor is cooking up a sequel of sorts... keep your fingers crossed!
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