Original War

Original War is an RTS: the player constructs a base, finds resources, builds vehicles, and destroys the enemy. Its distinguishing feature is the way the game mechanics reflect the backstory's scarcity of resources and isolation.

It is not possible to train new men. Moreover, the same units who fight are needed for resource gathering and the bases' functions. Production facilities, research labs, vehicles and base defenses are all useless when unmanned. The local apemen can be trained to do simple tasks, and with the right research it is possible to use remote control and AIs, but all are generally worse in combat than humans. Losses in personnel are otherwise irreplaceable.

An American expedition to Russia during World War I discovers an extraterrestrial mineral, Siberite, that can catalyze cold fusion and fuel an alien artifact they name EON. EON is revealed to be a time machine capable of sending objects into the past, but by this time Siberite stocks are exhausted and research stops. Then in the new millennium vast deposits of the mineral are found in Siberia, and Americans are able to extract enough of it for small-scale time-travel.

The U.S. plans to send a small force two million years back in time. There it will mine the Siberite and transport it over the Bering Land Bridge to Alaska, into what will one day be in American hands. Elite troops are selected, briefed, and told that it is a one-way trip back through time.

In January/February 2005, a member of the game's community, Stuart "Stucuk" Carey, asked Altar Interactive (now known as Altar Games) for permission to maintain Original War with patches. Altar Interactive agreed and gave access to the source code. Later in June, work began on the first patch v1.03, which primarily added basic Mod support to Original War.

Originally the only way to play Original War over the internet was through GameSpy Arcade. In 2007, starting with version 1.09 however, the game features a working master server hosted by Original War Support, and an IRC based chat system that allows people to set up or join multiplayer matches from an ingame menu. In July 2011, the community website Original-war.net released a working version of a multiplayer ranking system that records the outcomes of matches and displays them online.

The Finnish Pelit magazine gave Original War a score of 82% in a two-page review. Reviewer Aleksi Stenberg wrote that the plot and the unusual gameplay made the game more interesting than a dozen Red Alerts. He warmed up to Original War at a time when he had grown weary with the genre and also complimented the interface. He criticized overspecialized character classes, the vehicles' designs, and the voice acting.

The Finnish general computing magazine MikroBITTI awarded the game 91%. Its review praised the game's playability and mentioned voice acting as the only clearly negative feature.