Original War
An American geological expedition, under a UN mandate, assesses the natural resources in a distant part of Siberia, deep in the trackless steppes of Eastern Russia. But instead of oil, they discover a deposit of a hitherto unknown mineral.
American scientists working for Department of Defense find out that this mineral is in fact identical to the substance used to power an extraterrestrial artifact in their possession. This object is called the EON (Extraterrestrial Object Nexus).
It was found in 1919 by Colonel Emerson near the site of the Tunguska explosion. Emerson was the commander of a US military unit in charge of transporting US war supplies from the city of Vladivostok to the Eastern front during World War I.
DoD Experiments have shown that items placed in the capsule are transported hundreds of thousands of years back in time. The American scientists were not able to understand its construction, nor could they manage to synthesize its fuel. Eventually, the machine – classified Top Secret – was stored, pending further advances in human science.
Game Discussion
Steam User 8
This game is great. I got it on a bin of oldies back when brick and mortar game stores were more popular and i fell in love with it, a long time ago. I never forgot about this game and I have played thousands of hours of games throughout my life.
The game is an RTS with the particularity that your characters are unique and if they die, they're dead. You get new characters during missions, but mostly you wanna use the same characters as you level them up from level to level. Humans are your best resource and losing one is huge, so you wanna keep them alive to see them take part in the story.
Tanks are modular and you can change engine, chassis and gun depending on what you need for the moment. Each human has a job that you can change, so for instance, if you get a really good human that's both a scientist and a mechanic, you can use them to research all the technologies, then dress them as a mechanic and use them to drive a tank. It's this sort of modular approach on both the vehicle and the professional that makes me love this game so much.
The writing is ok, but not spectacular. I like how they managed to capture the idiosyncrasies of the Russian and American ways of thinking. For instance, the Russians have this excessive communist propaganda and a military system rotten with corruption (bases are named after communist leaders and there's one mission where you literally have a communist quiz in order to complete all the objectives), but also the brotherhood through hardship seen in typical Russian soldier movies. The Americans have the usual ignorance of other cultures and abudant arrogance towards others that are not Americans, but also the characteristic diversity and respect for the individuality. In the good ending the Americans and the Russians find common ground and work together to prevent war. Honestly you can see the writing is not done by Americans or Russians exclusively and that's why it can honestly represent both the strengths and the flaws in the idiosyncratic thought of both nations. I do believe that neither Americans nor Russians could have displayed this level of awareness of themselves and others, something that is characteristic of "superpower mentality". You can see the writers are very aware of both cultures.
The voice acting is sometimes really good and sometimes really terrible, the latter in particular for the Russian and Arab voice actors.
All in all this game is worth playing if you can get past the dated graphics and you enjoy RTS games and wish they were a little more RPG-like. I wish Bohemian continued this unique style of RTS with RPG elements and honestly it would make me happy to see Bohemian succeed as a games studio. It's sad that they never added the Arabs as a full fledged faction, but i understand at the time this game was made the company was still young.
Special mention of the kick ass ASCII videos for the Russian campaign. That was and still is both a technological marvel and a fenomenal art expression in itself. Anyone can do ASCII drawings, but videos? Very well done and terribly underrated.
Steam User 9
This is the best RTS game I have ever played. I finished the game more than 20 times. I have been growing up with it. One day someone will make a worthy replacement.
Steam User 8
I got this game for my bday when I was young, and have played through it many times. It has a well-aged art style, and the workshop content is a blast. Just make sure to help Frank grab the papers.
Steam User 9
Actual peak strategy game that i have been playing since around 2003 and i always return to.
Steam User 5
An old RTS with a unique gameplay style and a great storytelling.
Devs really made things original thus campain logs are not the same.
Enjoyable and worth playing.
Steam User 2
It's old school fun. Not amazing but well designed
Steam User 0
An older rts at this point with enjoyable campaigns. With it being added on steam and the community behind it there is community support that has made it playable in the modern day as well as add new fan made content.