http://www.gamespy.com/top10/february04/rts/
Warcraft II should have made the list, It was the second best balanced RTS blizzard has released and Warcraft II was the first game that got people into the hole RTS thing.
Starcraft was the game that pushed the RTS thing further. Yes I know that Dune II was the game were all todays RTS decended from.
Warcraft III was great for extra content and a decent story but it just lacked the polish.
Total Aniliation never played it and only glimpsed at it ocasionally in the store back in 1997 ,but Starcraft was the one that caught my eye to actually buy it. I think Starcraft has had a bigger impact on the genre then TA look at Korea and what it did and it is also the best known RTS in the world.
I guess they picked the games they liked the most.
I ranted about this in the WoW thread. I'll post it here too.
To summarize, THOSE STUPID IDIOTS MUST DIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!
(if you couldn't guess, TA vs SC was a major issue in 1997 (yes before SC came out) and 1998...
Gamespy is idiotic. I know that I often disagree with their reviews (their recent score of 3/5 for R-Type Final when IGN and Gamespot both gave it a bit over an 8/10 does not make them look good, for one recent example), but still... I thought they had SOME sanity...
http://www.gamespy.com/top10/february04/rts/
:barf:
Gamespy, Gamespy... what an abysmal list... Empire Earth on the list?? Medieval an RTS (TBS/RTS hybrid guys!)? Close Combat an RTS (its a wargame!)? C&C Red Alert better than Warcraft II? TOTAL ANNIHALATION THE BEST RTS EVER??? Morons, utter morons... that game competed with SC for popularity in early 1998, but it didn't take long for most people to figure out which was the better game.
Where is Conquest (should have done better than it did), Netstorm (I know not many people would put this in their top 5, but I'm one of them), Warcraft II (easily still better than most of the games on their list), Red Alert 2 (better than RA1)... heck, even Warzone 2100 (if that was the name, a early 3d-but-topdown RTS that was pretty fun...) is better than Empire Earth... someone must have hit Gamespy pretty hard with the stupid stick at some point.
And I've played some TA... okay game, but highly overrated among its fans and really not that good. This certainly is reopening some old wars... I remember TA-versus-Warcraft II and then TA-versus-Starcraft... I of course have never thought it was that good and that the Blizz games blew it away... 150 units? Are you insane? What in the world is the point? And its a fairly mindless RTS too, more in the C&C vein... fine for people who just want to see the cool 200 tanks run over the badguys but not so fine for people who want much actual strategy, I should think.
Stupid Gamespy, I thought we won this four years ago... :(
Here is my list. Better than theirs by a lot. :D
1. Starcraft with Brood War expansion
2. Warcraft III: Reighn of Chaos with The Frozen Throne expansion
3. Netstorm: Islands at War
4. Medieval: Total War (assuming it's enough of an RTS to count, which it really is not since just the battles are realtime)
5. Age of Empires (AoE2 is the better game, technically, but I thought it was too similar and never was very interested in it. RoN is also better, probably, but AoE was the first in its class and it was a great first.)
6. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2
7. Rise of Nations
8. Conquest: Frontier Wars
9. Gettysburg (hey if Close Combat counts, why not another realtime wargame that's much better than Close Combat?),
10. ... ah ... I don't know... Warzone 2100? C&C Red Alert? Dark Reign?
Another series not in the top 10 but worth mentioning is Myth.
Oh, and its a good ASM thread! Rare... :)
I find this whole thing to be extremely funny.
It's not funny. TA was SC's biggest rival in its early days...
About as funny as if they said that the Crash series was better than the Mario games.
Pfft, nobody would ever say that.
Exactly! Just like no one sane would say TA is better than Starcraft! Morons...
And its not funny. Remember, you get pretty mad when Gamespy does stuff like this with games YOU care about...
True, but they're not saying about games that we care about [at least not enough to get mad].
Oh, Gamespy says stupid things all the time.
Yeah, that's they are paid to do..oh wait! They don't GET paid! Ahahahahahaha!!! :D :D
Sadly, they DO get paid to write that idiocy... :shake:
WHAT?! Well...that's even funnier!!
HAHAHAHA!!! YEAH PARTY!!!
In the :barf: way, where they are ... in the way... maybe...
This kind of reminds me of the Morons who made Madden 2004 game of the year.
My list.
1.Starcraft broodwar (This was the game that brought glory to the RTS genre)
2.Warcraft II tides of darkness ( this game was what brought everyone into it)
3.Warcraft III the frozen throne
3.Comand and conquere red alert2
4.Age of empires
5.Rise of nations
6.Medival Total war
7. Dune II ( being the first RTS of its kind.)
Not ten? :)
Oh, and WCII may have been the first mega-popular RTS, but I got into the genre with Warcraft I... loved that game, when I saw they made a sequel I had to get it...
Same here , I started with warcraft I but it was number 2 that was the best.
The best? 3 is better than 2, for sure... 2 was great, but 3 is better. So much more variety...
I agree. Starcraft was the first RTS that managed to actually get 3 seperate and distinct groups. Before that, regardless of the number of groups one could choose, generally the ONLY difference lay in stuff like different magic spells or one different unit for the highest tier or something. While it could still be fun of course, it gets old a lot faster than 3 or 4 totally different groups.
I still have a place for Dune 2, since that was the first I played and I loved how utterly new the concept was and blasted through the funitude as House Atreides (nuts, forgot the spelling...), though I have yet to finish the last two levels. I'll say it had a level progression that is a lot like Advance Wars. Throughout the whole game, depending on your house, you select one of 3 levels to play, so there's good replay value in it.
Warcraft 2 I also have a place for, because it was the first I played multiplayer with (though I got the collection with WC1, I never once got the chance to set up a LAN or anything of the sort with that game), though I only played multi a few times due to how hard it was to set up a match in the original. Battle.NET edition is much nicer, with actual match-making and all.
Anyway, just edging out ABF's fave is WC3 for me. I just prefer the way battles are done in that one, what with the hero stuff. SC is close behind though, being the first one I REALLY got utterly obsessed with.
What's with the "TA !!!"?
Total Anihilation. It was the game that got first place.
I would have put Command and Conquer Generals somewhere on that list.
Total Annialation. Stupid unbalanced offence-only game with WAY too many units, and greatly overrated among its annoyingly loyal fans like Gamespy here. It had a bad fantasy sequel, TA Kingdoms, and then the company died.
Oh, and I'm not sure if SC was the first with truly different groups... however it was the first popular one with that, for sure. I don't remember how different the groups were in RTSes with more than two like War Wind... not as much as SC I think though. But I wouldn't automatically say that it was a true innovation without more recearch.
Warcraft I... first RTS I played as I said, I got it in August 1995. So much fun... I really loved it. I later got WC2 in summer '96, and though it's certainly the better game I had some things about it that annoyed me when comparing it to War1...(in nostalgia-value, not in quality or in 'how fun is it to play now' value, both of which WC2 wins easily) because they took out a bunch of cool features from WC1... roads (annoying? yes, but cool to be able to build them), summons, water elementals, the cave levels with their totally different enemy set, bridges, the green water in the swamps, the 2x2 blacksmith, etc... it is certainly the better game, though, and I really loved it. I also like how hard it is... WC2 is a great challenge, and BTDP is the hardest RTS I've ever played. Oh, and WC2 should have had more air units. :)
Multiplayer? I didn't play on LAN, but I did play some WC2 online (a few years after it came out) online on the Zone's Lan Spoofer...it was fun, but didn't keep track of stats or anything. Still, it was online War2... but WC2 and WC1 I mostly played in single player. And unlike SC and WC3 I actually played single missions against the computer... in those games I'd just play online, but without online I played against the CPU. Online players are better, much less predictable... ;)
Oh, and as for SC vs WC3 (both including expansions)... tough, tough question. I guess I chose SC because... setting, I don't know. I love both fantasy and sci-fi. But there are three WC games and only one Starcraft... WC3 does have more variety, it seems, in strategy -- SC feels the same a lot. And WC3 has nicer graphics, CG cinemas, etc... but still... it does have real flaws. It's WAY too easy. SC was a good medium -- not as brutally hard as Warcraft II, but not too easy. WC3 goes way over that line. They should have stuck with an SC level of difficulty. Also, I liked how SC has way more CG cutscenes... I know the WC3 ones are better tied into the story, but the SC ones are still some of the coolest ever done. WC3 has great ones, but not quite as great I'd say... also story. WC3 was such a ripoff of other games. I know SC was hardly original, but at least it was different from what Blizz had done before. WC3 felt a lot like a SC redux in too many ways story-wise. It was a lot less surprising, I'd say. Oh, the WC3 story was good, but truly great like the SC one? No. And the story matters, because the single player campaigns, to me, are a HUGE part of the game. I was pretty dissapointed to beat WC3 in like a month when previous Blizz games had taken much longer, for instance. Oh, and finally, while WC3 definitely has that Blizzard magic... it's just not quite the same as SC...
Oh, and you can't do defence in WC3. I like defence. :)
Warcraft III is the least balance, The NE were a perfect race in ROC but all the others sufferd in some areas and thats why the game was imbalanced then.In TFT it ended castercraft but nerfed the NE to hell, The orcs were good at the begining but now they suck, Humans are the strongest and UD are lacking.With the UD Necros were popular and fun to use but now they are not so useful by themselves.War3 had the most bonus material of all the games so thats why it still desserves a place on the list.
Warcraft II had naval battles and more starcraft style play so it is unigue too itself.
First off, yes I should have said rather that Starcraft was the first I played or heard of with that large a difference in the 3 groups. I certaintly haven't played enough to know it's the first ever with that.
I see what you're saying ABF. First off, I should make it clear I totally agree about the difficulty of the single player campaign, in both Chaos AND Frozen. FAR too easy, well except for the timed defense levels. Those are ALWAYS hard :D. Now, in Chaos I can understand it not being hard until near the end, but still around halfway it should have taken a larger leap in challenge. However, Expansion Packs sold to people who already HAVE the original, so the curve of difficulty, the whole training thing, isn't needed in the least except for new features in the expansion. It almost felt like a re-training. In a sequal with the same engine, I can understand, but in an expansion, if someone isn't good enough, they can play the original campaign that they need to have anyway for the training. Frozen Throne WAS far too easy. Brood War level of challenge would have been perfect for that. Keep in mind I haven't yet completed the Orc Campaign nor have I played the game on hard mode.
As for the FMVs, I'm afraid I gotta disagree. I really didn't like the FMVs in Starcraft (original) that much at all. It wasn't quality mind you. I can look past that well enough. It was the contents. As you said, they didn't really fit in with what was going on in the story most of the time. In fact, a chunk of them were just cheesy, like that stereotypical "space hic" opening FMV. That was just pathetic really. The game certainly made up for those FMVs, and the story WAS great, but I felt the FMVs, in general mind you, hurt more than they helped. Had they just kept the story-specific ones (like the ending of the Protoss campaign) and ditched the cheesy side story stuff (like the guy who killed a zerg with his space jeep and died in classic horror movie fasion), it'd have been fine. Oh yes, I also must make it clear that I DID like the Brood War FMVs, even though there were only 4, because all of them were very well told parts of the storyline. Now as for WC3, I loved all the FMVs because they too were very well told parts of the story, this time done in the style of current day movies (as in, the acting and cinematic style used most often in movies today), also they looked great :D, rivaling Square-Enix in quality (which is something the FMVs in Neverwinter Nights can't say, seriously those look aweful, well for the current day's standards I mean).
I can see what you mean by story recycling, however I myself noticed enough differences to keep it fresh. Not like SC is original in and of itself anyway. All basic story types have already been told (in fact, if I remember from literature class, there's only 6 basic types). It's just a matter of finding ways to make it SEEM fresh and new, and mixing and matching up those basic types.
Anyway, in the end it really came down to multi where I made up my mind there. Again, it's close, but multi edged out above single player. (I too value a single player experience even in this genre.)
Warcraft IIx was way too hard when I was Younger so I would just cheat my way through it.I played it again today(without cheating) and it was a little easier suprisingly not that dificult untill half way.
The Frozen throne was too easy the only challenging level was the last one , but I found ROC last one alot harder. I think the reason is that people generally dislike hard games so developers dont make the levels as dificult as they used too. Dont also forget we have gotten alot better at playing too.
I liked the opening FMV for Brood Wars. The marines are down on the ground fighting the the Zerg and the Zerg are closing in on them and the general guy is up in his space ship watching everything while listening to his classical music.
Quote:I guess they picked the games they liked the most.
*wipes tears from eyes* That was the funniest thing I've read all day... thanks, Grumblie. :D
ASM, either you are really behind the times or you are just spouting off opinions you hear all over the net as your own to make yourself popular. Not only that, you also tend to use these cliche gamer arguments and beliefs in all the wrong places and for all the wrong reasons.
GR, as I said I was only speaking of original SC. The 4 FMVs in Brood War I found great. Even the Terran ending ended up being both hilarious and a meaningful statement on propaganda at once.
Quote:I see what you're saying ABF. First off, I should make it clear I totally agree about the difficulty of the single player campaign, in both Chaos AND Frozen. FAR too easy, well except for the timed defense levels. Those are ALWAYS hard . Now, in Chaos I can understand it not being hard until near the end, but still around halfway it should have taken a larger leap in challenge. However, Expansion Packs sold to people who already HAVE the original, so the curve of difficulty, the whole training thing, isn't needed in the least except for new features in the expansion. It almost felt like a re-training. In a sequal with the same engine, I can understand, but in an expansion, if someone isn't good enough, they can play the original campaign that they need to have anyway for the training. Frozen Throne WAS far too easy. Brood War level of challenge would have been perfect for that. Keep in mind I haven't yet completed the Orc Campaign nor have I played the game on hard mode.
Hard mode should be extra-hard, not normal. It should be a bonus for serious fans... and what they call "Normal" should be called "Easy", for sure. You shouldn't have to play Hard to get difficulty like previous Blizz games. The only actually hard levels in WC3 are the base defence ones. And yes, the expansions should be harder... TFT ISN'T! It is PITIFULLY easy. I haven't even beaten the first campaign, sure, but quit not because I was stuck but because I was bored... I don't think I've even lost a mission yet... As for RoC, it should have been like SC -- easy at first, but a nicely ramping up difficulty curve. It didn't have that. The whole thing was easy except for those two base defence missions, really. Pathetic.
And difficulty matters a lot. See, part of why SC was great was because you didn't just blow through the story at once -- you went through it slow, as you beat these challenging missions. Its kind of entertaining to just see everything happen, with no serious challenges stopping you, but it's not nearly as FUN... and as I said the single campaign to me is the most important part, even though overall I'll play more multiplayer than single.
TFT was just insulting.
Quote:As for the FMVs, I'm afraid I gotta disagree. I really didn't like the FMVs in Starcraft (original) that much at all. It wasn't quality mind you. I can look past that well enough. It was the contents. As you said, they didn't really fit in with what was going on in the story most of the time. In fact, a chunk of them were just cheesy, like that stereotypical "space hic" opening FMV. That was just pathetic really. The game certainly made up for those FMVs, and the story WAS great, but I felt the FMVs, in general mind you, hurt more than they helped. Had they just kept the story-specific ones (like the ending of the Protoss campaign) and ditched the cheesy side story stuff (like the guy who killed a zerg with his space jeep and died in classic horror movie fasion), it'd have been fine. Oh yes, I also must make it clear that I DID like the Brood War FMVs, even though there were only 4, because all of them were very well told parts of the storyline. Now as for WC3, I loved all the FMVs because they too were very well told parts of the story, this time done in the style of current day movies (as in, the acting and cinematic style used most often in movies today), also they looked great , rivaling Square-Enix in quality (which is something the FMVs in Neverwinter Nights can't say, seriously those look aweful, well for the current day's standards I mean).
Huh? SC has such cool cinematics! The Marines in the Sci Vessel is one of my favorite cinematics ever... the Dragoons blowing up the Terran base was awesome too... the opening movie to the game is also stellar... the final movie just plain rocks... and some of the short story ones are nice, like the death of Fenix... the Terrans who run over a Zergling is hilarious... the game "made up for" the cinematics? The opening cheesy? You are nuts! Yes, the Terrans are space hicks. Note their name is the Terran Confederacy, they have the stars and bars as a flag... and ingame, same -- look at the SCV! Hick! The Terrans are like that as a theme, and it's funny and appropriate given their origin as being from prison ships. I can't believe that you actually disliked the cinematics... wow... I thought they were awesome! Despite the quality of the WC3 cinematics, no way are they as cool as the SC ones. Especially if you include the BW ones, which simply blow away WC3. The BW Opening is simply amazing... and the end Terran one, the propaganda film, is probably the funniest of all the movies in SC... simply hilarous is all I can say. And the finale? They saved some of the best for last...
Oh, and SC also has greater VOLUME. Between SC and BW they have far more cinemas than WC3, far more (length-wise)...
Quote:I can see what you mean by story recycling, however I myself noticed enough differences to keep it fresh. Not like SC is original in and of itself anyway. All basic story types have already been told (in fact, if I remember from literature class, there's only 6 basic types). It's just a matter of finding ways to make it SEEM fresh and new, and mixing and matching up those basic types.
SC wasn't truly original, sure, but by that definition nothing is... it was a great story however with lots of unexpected twists and turns you never saw coming, and some you did... but the story just worked brilliantly (and was even added to later, with a few of the maps they made...). WC3 both recycled it and threw it at you at a blinding pace as you blew through the game in a matter of hours... not nearly as good, and so derivitive...
However, I must mention that I played WC3 soon after beating Planescape: Torment. I've thought ever since that this greatly colored my opinion on WC3, because Torment in story is unequalled. No PC game comes even close to it in story depth, length, amount, complexity... that game was just so amazingly, incredibly, good that a merely good story like WC3 looked pale in comparion.
Quote:Anyway, in the end it really came down to multi where I made up my mind there. Again, it's close, but multi edged out above single player. (I too value a single player experience even in this genre.)
Multi is where I'll spend more time, for sure, but I put single at least on equal footing overall. Especially for SC (well BW) and WC2, games I still haven't beaten... the single player is a huge part of those games, and is many, many hours and a lot of challenge and fun. The multi is entertaining but it doesn't tell a story and doesn't really have progression (gaining levels doesn't matter much), and that's important to me...
Quote:Warcraft IIx was way too hard when I was Younger so I would just cheat my way through it.I played it again today(without cheating) and it was a little easier suprisingly not that dificult untill half way.
Play it now. You'll see that it's still ABSURDLY hard. The second mission for each side is extremely challenging. Easily the hardest of all Blizzard's games, by a nice margin... though I haven't beaten Warcraft II either (without cheating)-- I quit on the final mission for the humans and the 12th or 13th for Orcs. It just was too hard.
Quote: I guess they picked the games they liked the most.
*wipes tears from eyes* That was the funniest thing I've read all day... thanks, Grumblie.
Hey, they did... it shows that they are extremely, extremely stupid, but they showed their intelligence level proudly to the world. :)
Quote:ASM, either you are really behind the times or you are just spouting off opinions you hear all over the net as your own to make yourself popular. Not only that, you also tend to use these cliche gamer arguments and beliefs in all the wrong places and for all the wrong reasons.
Huh? He's absolutely right... sure he's repeating things I have heard many times at Blizz fansites, but he's still mostly right if you play it much. Orcs are underpowered, even with the boost they got in TFT... TFT helped, and good Orc players can win, but they are still underpowered. And NE are too. Not to that extent, but they are... and Undead are certainly overpowered and badly need nerfing, IMO. At least vs NE... countering mass ghoul or mass skellie as NE is SO hard, it's just not fair. Humans strongest? I don't know.. they don't have any big strenths I think, but no major weaknesses, so they're good. So yes the balance isn't perfect yet. I think Blizz will improve it more over time, however. SC wasn't truly balanced until BW came out, after all...
No, it's not so bad that a newbie can't win, but there are legitimate balance issues at this point. Mocking ASM for pointing them out just says that you don't play much, DJ.
Dark Jaguar Wrote:ASM, either you are really behind the times or you are just spouting off opinions you hear all over the net as your own to make yourself popular. Not only that, you also tend to use these cliche gamer arguments and beliefs in all the wrong places and for all the wrong reasons.
Were do you get this bull shit Dark Jaguar? When it comes to Blizzard games my beliefs are my own as I am a devouted fan. I do not give a shit about popularity as clearly you do as their no reason for this nit picking other then to make yourself look good.I enjoy debating and I do incorporate some popular beliefs but its because I believe in them ,If I didnt I wouldnt use them.
of course you will continue to babble on and on but I wont listen.
P.S Starcraft FMVs were just as good as broodwar you moronic piss head.
Quote:P.S Starcraft FMVs were just as good as broodwar you moronic piss head.
Strong language there... but still, you're right... disliking the SC cinematics? You are nuts!
Quote:Were do you get this bull shit Dark Jaguar? When it comes to Blizzard games my beliefs are my own as I am a devouted fan. I do not give a shit about popularity as clearly you do as their no reason for this nit picking other then to make yourself look good.I enjoy debating and I do incorporate some popular beliefs but its because I believe in them ,If I didnt I wouldnt use them.
of course you will continue to babble on and on but I wont listen.
DJ isn't a hardcore Blizz fan and for some odd reason seems to dislike it when people use terms that Blizz fans do, or talks like you did there... I don't get it either... if the terms are used in the community, DJ, of course someone who knows what they are talking about and is active in playing the game will pick up on them! The fact you don't seem to know what ASM is talking about says a lot about how much you know or care about being much of a Blizzard fan.
For what it's worth, I also did not like the whole space-hick thing in Starcraft.
Have you actually played many RTSes?
And the space-hick thing is funny! Really funny in parts... such as the CGs. The ones with the humans are so funny...
And ASM... going back to the subject... the undead are overpowered, not underpowered! Well Banshees were nerfed too much, but other than that... again, the NE have serious trouble stopping them with some strats...
Yes I've played plenty of RTSs, but what does that have to do with my not liking the extremely unfunny and super-cliche space hick thing in SC's cinemas?
Well for one thing it proves you have no sense of humor... :)
Oh, and its consistent with your dislike of everything Blizzard... though I'm not sure if it's real or if you just do it to annoy me...
You're an idiot, ABF. Just because WoW has a shitty graphics engine doesn't mean that I "dislike everything Blizzard".
The space hick thing is dumb and cliche, simple as that.
WoW's graphics, WC3's graphics, SC's humor and some of the storyline... I see a pattern here...
And if you play so many RTSes, how about your top 10? Of course if you played RTSes much you'd have known what TA is...
Blizzard's humor is great. The annoy voices... so hillarious... I think WC2 was the best. So many gems in that one... :D But SC (though it has the big flaw that the entire Zerg race has stupid moans and slimy noises) and WC3 are no slouches... those annoy things are always so funny... I memorized a lot of the WC2 ones and know some from SC too. Blizzard has a very good sense of humor. It showed in The Lost Vikings too... that game was hilarious...
And ingame too. Yes, SC is derivitive in setting and takes aspects from a dozen different sci-fi sources. But it melds them all into a great and unique universe and tells one of the best stories in any game. It doesn't take long to start feeling sorry for the poor Terrans... well except for the evil ones... stupid Mengsk! Why couldn't he DIE like he should...
SC is just the perfect game. Flawless in every way that matters.
When the hell did I say anything about the story, doofus?? I said the cinemas were cheesy.
The cinemas hardly exist in a vacuum. They tell the story of the Terrans and who they are. That is consistent with the way they are presented in the story (both ingame and in the manual) and with the sound effects when you click on the guys. You can't say 'I dislike how the terrans are shown in the cinematics but like the way the same people are shown in other aspects of the game', it doesn't make much sense!
I said the space hick thing was stupid. How about you take off that moron cap for a moment and actually read my posts.
You should read mine... I explain how it doesn't make sense to seperate inherently similar aspects of the same thing...
I said the cinemas were cheesy because of the space hicks. That has nothing to do with the story.