Warzone 2100: A Free and Open Source Real-Time Strategy Game

1. Being blown away by the frame rate. Total Annihilation (September 1997) was the main 4X game I'd been playing and it felt no where near as genuinely 3D as Warzone 2100. I was probably on a Voodoo Rush (originally released August 1997), a very middling video card when Warzone 2100 was released (April 1999) & not aged well, & was used to having cruddy frame rates & lower visuals, and Warzone 2100 ran very nicely. It and Myth (November 1997) were two of the first 3D games that really presented a beautiful 3D RTS world running far smoother than anything I'd seen. Some other later mentions: Battlezone (March 1998), Max Payne (July 2001).

2. Warzone 2100 was one of the first games I played with a kind of assemble-your-own-units system. I didn't get far in, didn't play a ton, but it was super neat being able to configure your units however you wanted, & I was super impressed by it. Took me a couple years to buy & play Alpha Centauri (February 1999) but it had a similar configure-your-units thing, & at the time I thought that's how gaming was going to go, and that this was just the start for a huge trend. Not so right on that. ;)