OpenRA's Red Alert is Red Alert as it was in player's dreams. The game is just as fun as it once was: fast, fun and limited in scope - but adapted to contemporary connectivity and display resolution.
OpenRA's killer feature is the extremely fast installation of a reliable cross-platform game that anyone can understand in ten minutes, that works in even the most skinny hardware... The perfect combination for an impromptu LAN party, where having fun with friends right now is more important than gaming depth and graphical sophistication.
They did some neat game mechanic tweaks, especially of the previously useless units: mechanics and thieves being able to revive and capture vehicles. Keeps the spirit of the old game but makes it more fun.
Original RA had a tendency to devolve into tank spamming. That takes skill. But it's closer to tactical than strategic. Does OpenRA deal with this in any way?
I've played it a bunch, and it really is the perfect LAN party game:
Quick to download, quick to install, no real setup or tutorial section, cross platform, runs on anything, timeless graphics, easy to understand gameplay, lots of custom game options including AI, etc. And of course, it's fun.
I've tried to find the FPS equivalent of this, but it's been much harder, surprisingly.
OpenArena used to be my go to FPS for impromptu LAN parties. Works on Mac, Windows, and Linux and it's easy to get a local server up and running. Plus it works great on ancient Thinkpads.
If you can get a modern remake of Quake I or II it would fit the bill. I have one on my USB memory stick that's forever been part of my keyring, just in case there ever is the need for a spontaneous fragfest.
Original Unreal Tournament is a pretty good one for this, I copied the install to a thumb drive on high school and played it on school computers all the time. Same with GZDoom
Installing that game was a trip. I took the discs to a friend's house and we didn't realize the volume was cranked on the computer so we closed the drive and it boomed
WARNING
MILITARY SOFTWARE DETECTED - TOP SECRET CLEARANCE REQUIRED
His mom was very curious as to what the hell we were getting in to.
I'm very fond of wargus and war1gus. I had to build it myself, but I was able to play wc1 and wc2 on Mac OS with native arm64 binaries. Lovely project.
Most of the games it's the usual route of eating all players from BL to TL and then moving to TR and BR and the same time. I managed to bring the average time down to 12 minutes, with the best time around 10:30, but sometimes it's manages to catch me with the pants down, if I do something wrong or just take to long to do the essentials.
I just ran back through StarCraft + Broodwars campaigns recently and… it really really holds up. The unit pathing and computer player AI isn’t quite as smart, but the game is solid.
I’m always terrified to download stuff like this because either what you describe will happen… or I’ll discover the game isn’t anywhere near as compelling as it is in my memories.
Well damn, this has gotten good. Downloadable on linux as a flatpak and can automatically download the assets it needs... Luckily it has a "save mission" feature so I could save and exit and return later after only losing 20 mins of my workday. This is even better than I remember! Kudos to the devs on such a fantastic job.
The website doesn't seem to like mobile devices much. The fade in for text and pictures happens way later than they're supposed to, so you end up having to scroll almost past the text part for both it and the image to appear, and then scroll up again to actually read it now that it's visible.
I miss the days when the text and images were just there without all the fade ins.
This is just my little personal feedback. BAR defensive turrets seem very underwhelming compared to TA. The laser towers and guardians felt big and mighty by just their animations and sounds. BAR defensive turrets feel like they are blowing bubbles by comparison.
BaR is probably the closest thing I found to the original TA. This is after playing everything from Supreme Commander, planetary annihilation ,Zero-K and few others I can't even remember the names anymore. Something just felt off about those games. But BaR somehow was able to recreate it the feel of the original TA.
Any plans to allow custom AI mods and units? (I haven't played it in a few months)
Supreme Commander/Forged Alliance were really good and run like a dream on modern hardware despite their horrible optimization at the time. There’s even an open source community replacement for the multiplayer servers.
There are also some "spiritual successors" like Planetary Annihilation Titans, Rusted Warfare, Ashes of the Singilarity, and some buildy spinoffs like Mindustry and Dyson Sphere Program.
Not so speak of BAR and the various Spring Engine projects.
There is a lot of TA nostalgia going around, at various levels of scale and graphical fidelity.
I'm so glad this game still exists in some way or another. And this is a really authentic reproduction. I spent hours playing this as a kid, and rediscovered this in my 30's, and, well... have spent hours more playing it. Thank you for your efforts maintaining this classic
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OpenRA's killer feature is the extremely fast installation of a reliable cross-platform game that anyone can understand in ten minutes, that works in even the most skinny hardware... The perfect combination for an impromptu LAN party, where having fun with friends right now is more important than gaming depth and graphical sophistication.
Original RA had a tendency to devolve into tank spamming. That takes skill. But it's closer to tactical than strategic. Does OpenRA deal with this in any way?
Quick to download, quick to install, no real setup or tutorial section, cross platform, runs on anything, timeless graphics, easy to understand gameplay, lots of custom game options including AI, etc. And of course, it's fun.
I've tried to find the FPS equivalent of this, but it's been much harder, surprisingly.
WARNING
MILITARY SOFTWARE DETECTED - TOP SECRET CLEARANCE REQUIRED
His mom was very curious as to what the hell we were getting in to.
[1]: https://zero-k.info/
Always skirmish, 1v1, powers disabled (no nukes) I play GDI, CPU is NOD.
Takes me 20 minutes, I win 90% of the time but have to focus or else I lose easily.
It's my crossword/sudoku/wordle/puzzle/meditation/mental reset.
Most of the games it's the usual route of eating all players from BL to TL and then moving to TR and BR and the same time. I managed to bring the average time down to 12 minutes, with the best time around 10:30, but sometimes it's manages to catch me with the pants down, if I do something wrong or just take to long to do the essentials.
I appreciate the simplicity of the game, but also the small details that make it fun. And that a typical game rarely lasts more than 20-30 minutes.
It’s been a while but I honestly feel like that helped me train my focus back then.
Like OpenRA it's open source too.
Disclaimer, I'm one of the devs for it.
I miss the days when the text and images were just there without all the fade ins.
What is the relation between BAR, Recoil and Spring?
Any plans to allow custom AI mods and units? (I haven't played it in a few months)
Not so speak of BAR and the various Spring Engine projects.
There is a lot of TA nostalgia going around, at various levels of scale and graphical fidelity.