Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Wonderful Game
A great game, and a worthy successor to Cavedog's initial Total Annihilation release.Pitted in an epic struggle, you control one of four nations. On the side of order and good fight Aramon and Veruna, masters of Earth and Water, respectively. On the side of chaos and evil are Taros and Zhon, fire and air respectively. Unlike most RTS games, Kingdoms allows the individual player varying levels of macro and micro management, allowing for endless build and tech possibilities. The artwork is superb, considering the age of the game engine, and gameplay is generally fast and exciting. The single player adventure is well written, with cutscenes that beautifully illustrate the complex plots and subplots in the storyline. Highly recommended. If you purchase this game, I also recommend looking for it's expansion pack, Total Annihilation Kingdoms: The Iron Plague, which introduces a unique 5th race, and a deeper and richer continuation of the story from the first. Excellently done.
Rating:  - The price is right for this mediocre title
If you were a big fan of Cavedog's Total Annihilation you probably spent the [money]for "Kingdoms" and were disappointed. The original TA was the rare real time strategy game with balance, unique maps and cool units. The strong fan base also generated great after-market add ons for TA.Total Annihilation: Kingdoms (TAK) arrived with great expectation and underwhelmed most players. The game lacked the balance of TA and the whole "swords and sorcery" format felt a little stale. TAK falls short of Age of Empires and Empire Earth. The plot of TAK (single player) is somewhat interesting, but the constantly shifting empires doesn't allow the player to really become attached to the outcomes. Winning scenarios is not much more than getting a ticket punched. Whether you played as CORE or ARM forces in the original TA, by the end of the campaign you felt a sense of victory. Now that TAK is sitting in the bargain bin, it's not a bad game for a few dollars. On older machines, TAK will run like molasses, but new P4 with lots of RAM will make it playable. For a fan of RTS, TAK is worth a look. If you buy the disk, make sure you go online for the latest patches.
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