Here's a small introduction, screenshots included.
Though Total Annihilation is a bit dated (it's from 1997) I still think it's one of the best games I ever played. The game play is great, and on a LAN this game is fantastic ;-).
I may sound a bit fanatic, but it's just that so many games these days have outstanding graphics, a great soundtrack and yet I play them a few times and then forget about them. Not so with Total Annihilation.
Total Annihilation is about two conflicting sides: the Arm and the Core. This is what the official TA web site has to say about the story:
"Long ago, the galaxy had known peace. Paradise was ruled with the hand of science, and the hand was that of the galactic governing body known as the Core. Ironically, it was the Core's ultimate victory, the victory over death itself, that brought about the downfall of its paradise and started the war that would decimate a million worlds. The immortality process, known as "patterning," involved the electronic duplication of brain matrices, allowing the transfer of consciousness into durable machines. Effectively it meant immortality, and the Core decreed the process mandatory for all citizens in order to ensure their safety. However, there were many citizens unwilling to toss aside their bodies so casually, many indeed who regarded patterning as an atrocity. They fled to the outer edges of the galaxy, forming a resistance movement that became known as the Arm. War began, though it was never officially declared by either side. The Arm developed high-powered combat suits for its armies, while the Core transferred the minds of its soldiers directly into similarly deadly machines. The Core duplicated its finest warriors thousands of times over. The Arm countered with a massive cloning program. The war raged on for more than 4,000 years, consuming the resources of an entire galaxy and leaving it a scorched wasteland. Both sides lay in ruins. Their civilizations had long since vanished, their once vast military complexes were smashed. Their armies were reduced to a few scattered remnants that continued to battle on ravaged worlds. Their hatred fueled by millennia of conflict, they would fight to the death. For each, the only acceptable outcome was the complete and utter annihilation of the other."
This is what Ron Gilbert, the creator of TA, has to say about it:
"We did a great job with the multi player experience, but I don't think we did the single-player experience very well. We didn't pay enough attention to the story, and we will be fixing that for future products."
Still, though the story behind the game may not be that complex, I don't really think this will bother people interested in this genre. And if it does, maybe you should try a game like Emperor: Battle For Dune (open to suggestions here).