To be blunt, quite possibly the best game ever. 150 units with the release version, including Aircraft carriers, Fusion Reactors, Factories, Aircraft, Submarines, Boats, Cloakable units, Huge long-range artillery guns, Massive lasers, Pumping guns, and Thundering explosions. Everything is presented in a lovely 3D environment, with hand painted terrain. Units rock and shake over the rough terrain, and shudder and roll when getting hit by the vast array of weapons.

The weapons include Mortar, Plasma batteries, the almighty D-Gun, Heavy Lasers, The Annihilator, the Big Bertha, Starburst missiles, Nukes, Anti-Nukes, EMP Starburst Missiles, Torpedoes, Flak Guns, Missiles and much, much more.

Behold your huge squadron of 50 Hawk Fighters, invisible to radar, come shooting through the tall lava spires and dodging incoming missiles from the enemy aggressors. Your Hawks are level 2 aircraft, and soon leave the Enemy aircraft behind. Your Hawks thunder on, and come into range of the target. They fan out, and fire their twin missiles, wreaking havoc on the Fusion Reactor. The Reactor blows, taking out the nearby defences. Then you command your almighty ground forces to move. Smoke and Debris is flying everywhere. The kill count goes psycho, and keeps flashing as it updates. The enemy is struck a heavy blow, until he pulls out his bigger weapon. The Doomsday Machine is finished building. You watch in horror as your kill count slows, and the Enemy's start to kick in. It starts to tick over, faster and faster, as your once mighty army falls into wreckage.

And all this can happen. when ground units and boats blow up, they leave wreckage. Aircraft leave a massive blast of debris, and the smoke from the wreckage is blown by the wind which also affects your wind generators. Tide effects your Tidal generators, and wreckage can get sucked up by Construction Vehicles, Contraction K-Bots, Contraction Aircraft, Contraction Boats or the Commander

The Story line goes like so: The galaxy is reigned with a scientific hand, and peace is everywhere. The almighty government men decide to preserve everyone's brain in big machines, so no-one can die. A group of rebels decide this just isn't too cool, and flee to the outside of the galaxy, and band together as the Arm. the opposition, the Core, just doesn't like this, and they go to war. for 4,000 years the galaxy is ripped to shreds, planets drained of their resources. You join start your campaign as either the Arm on the brink of destruction, or the Core nearing the end.

So you start the game, pumped up after getting the game, and you straight away put the resolution at 1240*768. you know it goes higher, but you don't want your PC to go too slow. Your leave shading, anti-aliasing and shadows on. "Sounds good" you think. You start a campaign as the Arm, and while the level is loading you think happily about how the game only used 30mb of your hard-drive space. The level is loaded, and after reading the breifing, you see the excellent terrain, and your superbly crafted 3D units. your orders are to establish a guard around the Galactic gate at the top of the map. Your select your units, and happily notice that you can scroll the screen while dragging a selection box around the units. You decide to just take one type of unit in, so you click your Rocko, and hit <Ctrl> <Z> to select all of your Rockos. you send them marching up to the galactic gate, and as the march along they fire there rockets at targets while still walking. A small group of Core rebels appear to your side, and you quickly order your fast Peewees to flank the units. Your idea pays off, the enemy is caught unawares, and is surrounded and destroyed. You Rockos reach the Galactic gate first, but have a hard time getting up the surrounding hill, so your Peewees stride up easily, as they are light and built for rough terrain, and beat the Rockos. "Victory". "Wow, cool" you think.

But there is SO much more. You have to see the fluid motion of units, the shuddering explosions as a unit is rent from end to end, and the beautiful terrain they gets scarred as you battle and rage across the whole map.

Maps go up to 64mb size, you can set the max amount of units, telling a factory to move somewhere means the units it produces will go there, aircraft turn and slide and do barrel rolls, all the while dodging enemy missiles aimed at them from the mirriad of Surface to Air units.

And, then you could invest in Total Annihilation: The Core Contingency. You pay $30 for 75 new units, and 25 missions as well as heaps of new multiplayer maps. There are new features, new guns, more destruction. Take the Mighty Vulcan. It takes about 1 hour to build with one contraction unit. it has 4 huge barrels, can shoot half way across a map, and shoots near two times a second. It's shells do incredible damage, taking out units in one shot. Couple it with a radar targeting system, and you are nigh-invincible. But beware, if it is built in a valley, the walls will block your shots. And it drains 14,000 energy a second while shooting. And watch it shoot! shells scatter around, shells bigger than some small units. increase the game speed to +10, and see true hell break loose. Enemy encampments can be destroyed in mere minutes. And see the ear-curling curses in a multiplayer game if you start firing a Vulcan one screen from the enemy base. You see, you've built it there, hidden with radar jammers, and started firing while your enemy was attacking you. his attention is averted, and he thinks the losses he is getting is from his attack. WRONG!

But you cant appreciate the excellency of TA unless you play it. Go and get it, Now.

*Australia's leading PC Magazine

Great review Axeman! We want more!