So the first reports are coming that the first lucky players are installing Starcraft 2, as their time zone is coming to the 27th. This kinda reminds me of new years eve 1999-2000, when there was live coverage of the celebrations as they moved around the world with the time zones, we saw the fireworks in Sydney when it still was early in the day here. 8 1/4 hours left to midnight Oslo time now :D
On this last day before the release of Starcraft 2 I find it fitting to take a look back in time. But wait, this is not yet another article about Starcraft 1 or even Warcraft, others have written much better about these games than I could ever do.
What was your first true RTS? For me I have to say it was Command HQ, which I remember buying on a trip to England in the summer of probably 1991. It was a wargame where you could play one of the two factions in either WWI, WWII, or a hypothetical 1986 WWIII scenario, as well as a future scenario.
Of course things were a lot simpler back in those days, but all the core gameplay elements were there (even replays!), and the gameplay was incredibly fluent. I actually still play this game once in a while.
Edit: Note that there were quite a few strategy games that implemented some kind of realtime gameplay well before CHQ, but many of them had large parts of the game using static menu screens that would pause the rest of the gameplay. Granted you could actually regulate the ingame speed in CHQ to a full pause, but it was not default behavior. Examples: Realms, Megalomaniac, Populous. (Maybe even Ports of Call, event if it wasn't a war game.) Ahh, good times.
back when i was like 10 or something. SC was out then, but i hadn't played it. I tried playing a legit game, died within making my first grunt, then went to playing the mass footmen stuff. and mageball. also space wars.
i remember when i tried to type "it is a good day to die" in the footmen wars crap. ah, those were the days.
I played the SHIT out of this game. Probably a couple hundred hours total. I even did pretty well online. (With my really expensive 18.8kbps connection too) After a year, I went to the store to buy the expansion
Oh hey what's this game with the wierd guy on the front? Starcraft? I'm gonna try that out... And the rest is history.
Yeah, holy crap that game was golden, I still remember being totally blown away by the sound effects and speech (!) from my Soundblaster 2.0 sound card. That game is probably the first rts with the kind of harvester mechanics we almost take for granted today.
Warcraft 2, then my cousin introduced me to Starcraft
I remember the first glimpse i had of SC1 was when my cousin was playing Protoss and had built his base in a gigantic blob in the middle of the map with 200/200 reavers. Funny enough though i never had Protoss as my main race, i hated fighting against Protoss and i wasn't that good with their buildings either so i played more Terran instead.
First RTS I played was Starcraft, back when Brood War had just come out. A friend of mine showed it to me, and let me barrow it.
I really liked it and bought my own after returning in to aforementioned friend.
I was a total noob back then though. I remember going, "Hey these SCV's look pretty darn awesome." and used them to kill Zerglings and stuff along with my Marines.
In fact I think that was the first game I played on my computer apart from Loader Larry. (Which had badass sound effects by the way.)
Pretty sure mine was Age of Empires 2 back when they had a beta if they had one... I'm not sure, it was really foggy. It was either that or I'm confusing it with Might and Magic for some reason.
Pretty sure it was AoE2 though... StarCraft came by not far behind though.
Sim City 2000 (not truly real-time, but a strategy game nonetheless). I also played Lords of the Realm 2 at about the same time (more turn-based than real-time).
If you're going by games truly in the real-time strategy genre, then I played Starcraft 64 and Command and Conquer 64 at about the same time (late 1999-early 2000 I think).
Warcraft 2 or AoE 2, can't remember... AoE 2 was first I played online, tried some ffa with endless resources, got really pissed when my ally turned on me.
For me it was the original Age of Empires, although I never played it online. I used to like playing island maps with as many AI as possible, I liked the idea of loading up transport boats and sending them to the different islands. Games regularly lasted over 2 hours (not in one sitting) and I would inevitably end up using the cheat to get the car with a rocket launcher to just mop up the map after a while. I was about 9 years old.
My first RTS was Warcraft 2, damn I was young and I must have spent hours playing that game. Never seriously of course. Shortly after I saw my friend playing SC and I made the switch.
I played populous on Amiga. But I was only 8 years old, I couldn't really figure out the game. I preferred a lot to play shoot'em ups. Amiga had the best shootem ups at this period (Swiv + Battle squadron + R-type + Xenon II ).
Then I played Warcraft II and fell in love eventhough I never played online. I played SC campaigns when the game was released, and didn't play it again until 2004 when a lot of people in my block (student residence) played LANs. I joined them to play 3vs3 fastest maps and BGH. It was the first time I played RTS against human. Even if I eventually got raped every game, I loved it. We had no good wifi at this period, so we used to link the computers with long lan cables passing through the windows haha that was so good. Then I started to play on b.net. Got raped once again. And when I thought I was getting good, I started to play on iccup. Got raped once again. BW is a perpetual rape actually ^^
Dune 2 When your harvestor died, another one spawns. I was so awful at games that the only way I could win was moving my harvestor around and making the AI friendly fire all of their buildings
Then I played Warcraft I won by typing pot of gold many times
Then I played Red Alert I played that game legit. Needless to say, I never beat that game
Then, some time later, I played Starcraft. Had to type show me the money a whole bunch of times, and I massed arbiters because they were at the end of the tech tree and I thought they were the strongest units Protoss had.
Dune 2, Warcraft 1, CNC 1, RA1, warcraft 2. Those were my first "lot". I'm pretty sure i played Dune first, and warcraft 1 second.
have the best memories of warcraft 1, playing it with my dad when i was little. It was really scary, i remember a human mission when you start on one side of a river, and basically have to ggpwn up north on the map, to a bridge and back down the other side. Took me all night to finish because i was playing so passively lol...
also i think i tried to play Carrier Command on atari or C64 (it would be the oldest game on the list) but i was to young for it and it's not a true rts too.
On July 26 2010 23:19 meRz wrote: I can't remember in which order but
- Warcraft 1 - Warcraft 2 - Red Alert 1 - Age of Empires 1 + 2
Pretty much this. Although I didn't really understand how to play any of these well at all at that age.
On July 26 2010 23:50 BlasiuS wrote: METAL MARINES!! It's crude, but yes, this is an RTS game.
and I remembered I played it before I even had a playstation!
Metal Marines was fun too, although it relied a bit too much on luck for my liking. So frustrating when a single missile gets through heavy defenses. Later missions were very tricky, too, since the opponent would get a huge headstart.
My brother and a friend and I were going out of town for the weekend and we were allowed to rent one game for the N64 we brought. I was really upset with the choice and pitched a fit, but I was completely mesmerized when they started playing it.
first RTS i've played would be Populous. although i have to admit i didnt know what kind of game it was at the time. i kept hitting that earthquake button and sink everything on the map including my guy which was pretty funny lol. good times.
I saw my friend playing it when I was a little child, but thought it was an easy game because my friend was playing single player with le cheats. Picked it up 2-3 years later, and realized how awesome it actually is ;D
warcraft 1 was the first one for me, but I found it quite difficult as I was very young and ended up not really playing it that much. But when we got warcraft 2 the right click to move made it much easier for me to play and I played the shit out of it! :D
C&C (before the RA and Counterstrike expansions)...good ole GDI/NOD. Warcraft 2. Starcraft - I remember getting this NEW as the BattleChest for Christmas in 1999. That was an epic year, as I got Super Smash Bros as well (on my shiny new N64 :D). Needless to say, not much school stuff got done that year
On July 26 2010 22:53 ghermination wrote: I wasn't interested in RTS at all until:
wololo
I played the SHIT out of this game. Probably a couple hundred hours total. I even did pretty well online. (With my really expensive 18.8kbps connection too) After a year, I went to the store to buy the expansion
Oh hey what's this game with the wierd guy on the front? Starcraft? I'm gonna try that out... And the rest is history.
this is ironically the same as me...lol i played the shit out of AoE and AoE 2
AoE was awesome, though i never learned how to MACRO (lol) until sc...and now i rape in AoE a lot more than i used to lol
then in my freshman year of highschool learned about Starcraft and well now im the best in the school ^___^ (2nd best graduated but was C- before so we were pretty even lol ^___^)
Can't remember if it was Megalomania or Dune 2. I know Populous was the first GodSim I ever played and, in fact, apparently the first ever godsim, but that's not really the same thing is it?
I can't remember which one was the first I've played, but I remember playing Jurassic wars and KKND. I loved those games. I still have KKND box on my shelf.
I still remember the test in which you had to give a unit name, half of the time i would fail miserably since i had a pirate version of the game (plus i never knew if in french you had to put accent or not :s ).
My first 6 in order were: wc2 c&c wc1 sc aoe sc2 SC2 is my first new RTS in 11 years. edit: I believe I played a couple other really shitty RTS games over the years but gave up on them so fast that I dont count them.
it was a super hyped amiga game, can barely find anything on the internet about it now
at the time it was my favourite game ever
here's one of the 3 videos it has on yt, amazed me this game got no attention because it was so awesome. its pretty much a cnc copy but its way better imo
On July 26 2010 22:46 Ghad wrote: So the first reports are coming that the first lucky players are installing Starcraft 2, as their time zone is coming to the 27th. This kinda reminds me of new years eve 1999-2000, when there was live coverage of the celebrations as they moved around the world with the time zones, we saw the fireworks in Sydney when it still was early in the day here. 8 1/4 hours left to midnight Oslo time now :D
On this last day before the release of Starcraft 2 I find it fitting to take a look back in time. But wait, this is not yet another article about Starcraft 1 or even Warcraft, others have written much better about these games than I could ever do.
What was your first true RTS? For me I have to say it was Command HQ, which I remember buying on a trip to England in the summer of probably 1991. It was a wargame where you could play one of the two factions in either WWI, WWII, or a hypothetical 1986 WWIII scenario, as well as a future scenario.
Of course things were a lot simpler back in those days, but all the core gameplay elements were there (even replays!), and the gameplay was incredibly fluent. I actually still play this game once in a while.
Edit: Note that there were quite a few strategy games that implemented some kind of realtime gameplay well before CHQ, but many of them had large parts of the game using static menu screens that would pause the rest of the gameplay. Granted you could actually regulate the ingame speed in CHQ to a full pause, but it was not default behavior. Examples: Realms, Megalomaniac, Populous. (Maybe even Ports of Call, event if it wasn't a war game.) Ahh, good times.
Command HQ! That was my first RTS as well, my dad's best friend had it first and then we got it as well. I remember the best I ever got up to was ??? setting (my favorite) mars god of war starting with ~500 B (you started with 50 B if I remember correctly). That game was truly revolutionary, had to be one of the first real RTS's.
First RTS I played was the original StarCraft... On the N64, too. I heard about it watching a friend play Warcraft 2. Shortly after a family friend gave me a copy of the PC version when I was 10 or 11 years old, saying that this one was "much better."
I think it was Starcraft, Warcraft 2 or maybe Dune2(000?), my memories are so fuzzy from when I was young. I tried all three games pretty early back in the days but I wasn't interessted in gaming, also my parents never liked me spending time playing on the computer. First in 2006 did I really get my eyes open for BW and eSports, been hooked since then.
Starcraft first, then I played SO MANY games. Almost all the WestWood games (red alert, tiberiun sun, etc.) Dune, Age of Empires, some Total Annihilation. Later played some Age of Mythology.
AoE in singleplayer, AoE2 online (i still play it) ,at the beginning I remember playing with 2 friends in black forest, and getting into the battle only after 40 minutes or something lol , really fun, but the real competition was on zone, and now in voobly.com, the incredible thing is that even this year the strategic part is evolving yet.
Pretty sure it was wc2. Although, it was primarily campaign and single player custom mode. SC is the first one I played vs people. A couple older ones like TA, C&C AoE etc I tried very briefly.
Warcraft 2. The first one I played online was AoE though. I remember the moment I learned how to play RTS properly: I was running in to attack with a few dudes and just got raped. I was wondering how he had so many chariot archers and then I saw his base. I was like "holy fuck, you can get more than one archery range?!?!" Then my world changed forever.
The Age of Empires franchise still holds a special place in my heart. I play AoE 2 from time to time still. It is probably the second best game ever made.
Hell yes Dune 2. I found the epic bug with Ordos where if you used the Deviator and controlled a unit and kept the attack command pressed after it turned back, you could make a Harkonnen tank just attack its own palace forever.
I was at my cousins house and we played the demo off a floppy disk. Even though I was 5 years younger than him, I still grasped it much faster. I remember asking if I got oil by killing the seals on the snowy beaches. He didn't know.
Couple weeks later I found a demo of warcraft 1 on some game disk that came with a copy of a Mac magazine. Played it over and over and over. Didn't realize it was a different game. I must have been 7 or 8 at the time.
some cheap game that wasnt warcraft that was named warcraft. all the units were tanks with different range/strength. I dominated the computer 30x a day as a 6 year old >:D
I played the shit out of RA1 though. We were in grade 7 and a friend had a cracked copy so some of us would call each other at 2 am on a schoolnight just to play each other.
Oh yeah, now I remember why lol. We were on dial-up and didn't want to get disconnected with the phones constantly ringing during the day.
I learned about Starcraft about the time it came out, but I never got to play it because I didn't own a computer at the time and my friend's mom who owned it wouldn't let us play it for some reason.
So I went looking for any console RTS, and I got this one. Man...
Afterwards I got a pretty crappy PC and started playing the original Warcraft. Then Red Alert on Playstation, and even Warcraft 2. Eventually I got a computer that was capable of gaming and got Warcraft 3 and the SC Battle Chest on it.
Either Age of Empires or Starcraft, both games are great though especially when playing the campaign the first time you could...brings back good memories.
Warcraft 2 Tides of Darkness Lol I didn't know SHIT then and I started attacking my own men because at first I thought the starting grunts in the campain in the 1st mission were warriors that needed to fight each other.
can't remember what came first but i was playing AOE1, WC2, and Red alert a ton when i was little then i kind of lost interest in rts when sc came out then discovered it again like a year before sc2 was announced.
That game was really fun when you didn't know how to play it. But once you figured out that all you had to do was buy energy plants with your starting cash and then metal marines, ignoring all defence and just raiding the enemy constantly every 3-5 game seconds picking off his missiles and bases 1 by 1 it was pretty easy =p
First console RTS was Command and Conquer 1. Then I got Warcraft 2 and Red Alert about the same time, liked them about equally at first but in the long run had a lot more fun with Warcraft 2 map editor and later on Kali. From Kali to b.net with Starcraft and never looked back =p
Fucking nostalgia bomb, definitely one of the most fun games I've played.
Uhm, I don't really recall that good but these are the RTS games that I recall playing as a kid: 1. WarCraft 1 2. WarCraft 2 3. Command and Conquer: Red Alert 1 4. Dune 2000 5. StarCraft
There also was a risk like game which was older. It's an old Dos game and it wasn't realy an RTS game but it's predecessor nontheless. It was called Isle Wars:
EPT![[image loading]](http://img821.imageshack.us/img821/9951/commandhq.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://obligement.free.fr/gfx/megadrive_dune2.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.wololo.com.mx/wololo.gif)
![[image loading]](http://oldgames.ru/images/oldgames/screenshots/gene_wars/gene_02.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/14/Linux.Debian.ZED.0.1.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://files.ea.com/downloads/eagames/official/cc_firstdecade/redalert2/screens/2_lg.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://mac.softpedia.com/screenshots/9-895_3.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://krossfire.files.wordpress.com/2007/01/cc3.jpeg)
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/ONIQm.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.chronicgames.net/images/games/snes/snes-metal-marines-box-front.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.d.com.com/i/dl/media/dlimage/89/23/0/89230_large.jpeg)
![[image loading]](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3113/3165020367_c90903a314_o.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://n64media.ign.com/media/previews/image/starcroft3.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51H0iOxbcJL._SL500_AA300_.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.coderetard.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/dune2_screen.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.coolrom.com/screenshots/snes/Utopia%20-%20The%20Creation%20of%20a%20Nation%20(2).gif)
![[image loading]](http://vgmdaily.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/warcraft-2-tides-of-darkness-pc.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://n64media.ign.com/media/previews/image/commandconquerarmy.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://drqzone.com/images/islewars.jpg)
