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 9
Both GoG and Steam versions are missing the audio files for the original Czech dubbing, even though there's settings for different localisations. You can download the missing files here and just drop them into the install folder.
As for the game itself, it might come off as a Red Alert copycat, but that's way off the mark. With the typical eurojank ambition to outdo every possible competition in gamedesign it ends up being one of the most complex strategy games I've ever played. Over the years the jank parts of it also got ironed out and it's a higly polished, moddable game now (with workshop support!!!), with modernized graphics options, new interface, modern controls...
What makes this one of the most autistic strategy games?
complex damage system instead of just HP for every unit
every unit is a named unique unit with stats for physical and engineering ability
you can level up all of them, making every single soldier like a warcraft 3 hero
highground vision advantage, bushes and crawling like in Commandos
you get RPG choices and branching in the campaign mode
the more soldiers you keep alive the more veterans you'll have for the final mission
1st mission, game is already trying to play mind tricks on you
story is both americans and soviets going back in time 2 million years to cancel the 21st century
Yep, this game is absolute cinema.
Steam User 13
Actual peak strategy game that i have been playing since around 2003 and i always return to.
Steam User 10
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 5
One of the most unique RTS games with interesting game mechanics and perfect story. You either never heard of this game or you're life long fan and it's one of your favorite games - there's no between.
Steam User 1
Original War is an interesting game. At its core it is a strategy game with base building and ressource gathering. But unlike most such games where soldiers are endlessly reproducable, here soldiers are your most valuable ressource. You have a fixed number of them and almost everything needs soldiers. Constructing buildings and gathering ressources is done by them. If you want to research upgrades soldiers need to be tasked with research; you need tanks, someone needs to build them. And drive them. Some tasks can be automated later in a game but all automated options tend to be less efficient than using soldiers. So it remains a constant balancing issue. Pretty cool, imo.
The story campaigns have a quirky little time travel gimmick of fighting in prehistoric siberia but beyond that is pretty generic. A miracle mineral has been found in siberia and an aggressive russian regime convinces the American government to use a ludicrous plan. They dig up an alien time machine from Area 51 and send an expedition on a one-way trip 2 million years into the past where their job is to mine all of the mineral, transport it to modern American soil und rebury all of it there. An alternate timeline happens, Russians learn of american time travel shenanegans and this time they have the time machine and send an army to stop the american mission to keep the mineral. War happens.
On the technical level the game was clearly low-budget but most of the issues that caused have been fixed over the years by owsupport, a dedicated fan group that took over support for the game. The game's graphics are simple but timeless which works in its favor. The only thing that really remains is the dialogues. While the voice actors are not bad, at times the dialogue sounds weird, clearly bad direction. Also the occasional difference between what is said and what subtitles say is said. A special mention to the english voice acting: for cost reasons the developers used european voice actors which leads to several fake american accents, which can be bothersome to some.
Steam User 3
LOVED IT! This game has a great storyline, engaging gameplay, good mechanics and overall is very enjoyable. Finished it a few times (thanks to multiple endings!) and its just one of those games with strong emotional connection even after many years. Totally recommended for anyone who likes tactical strategy games.
Steam User 2
Unique older RTS/ARPG? with unit levels, fun retro story, plot decisions, fun tech progression. Nostalgia goggles maybe, but I enjoyed it as a teen and revisit from time to time.