Ok, well over the last year or so I've been all about RTS's. Gaming seems to go with one genre for a few years, for the longest time I can remember PC gaming was all about FPS's with Quake, Doom, Unreal Tournament and Call of Duty, but recentally its been all about RTS's. So here's my list of most played and most loved RTS games.

5. Starcraft

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Now this dosn't go very high on my list for a number of reasons. Back in the day when this launched, and even with the launch of Brood War I never played SC. I'd heard of it but was too busy in FPS's and any RTS game I played was one of the many C&C games from Westwood. But with the recent anoucement of SC2, and the hype arround it I deceded to download SC and Brood War from the Blizzard store and have been playing through the single player. This was where I discovered that I'm really not about the single player RTS experiance anymore. While the single player missions where pretty good, pretty hard and long with the story being told with cut scenes and ingame voice over aswell as the breifing room I really just didn't care all that much and just wanted to see what crazy shit I could build. I tried the skirmish to try and check out the tech tree of each race, and it just was impossible for a n00b SC player to get anywhere as the AI will apprentally only attack you, and rush you at the soonest possible moment, which ends up being a very frustrating experiance. I've not played it online becasue without any friends that play it, I cant imagin I will do much better.

4. Command & Conqure 2: Tiberan Sun

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This is again a pretty old game, but is one of the best RTS's out there, this shows off what Westwood could really do. Not only did they build on C&C1 they added countless new units and structures and the graphial jump was huge (although granted it was relised along time after C&C1). Its maps where huge and had bigger battles that alot of current RTS's have. Its one of the best looking 2D RTS's to date.

3. Dawn of War

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Ok, I'm not a fan of DoW2 but DoW is one of the most fun RTS's out there. Its mechianic of capturing nodes was pretty fun and can be very fast paced. It also had a very low camera which meant it was very easy to micro manage huge forces in intence battles. Its also one of the best games to use races from Games Workshop which when I was a lad was all I cared about (sisters of battle hell yeah!). It even had an army painter which allowed you to make your side have the most repulsive battle colours, which was really... very cool.

2. Demigod

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This game rocks. It would be number one if it had more support. Yeah I know thats a little unfair as its a brand new IP from a company with a small gaming history but thats just how it is. This took the idea of DoTA and made it AWSOME. Every game is like an entire game of Diablo, but with co-op. AWSOME! I also love the fact that the game comes DRM free, and then when I got the Retail and download version of the game I got 2 serial keys so I can give it to a friend if I wanted! And I've not even mentioned the best bit... you can play as a massive upgradable castle with legs that can absorb buildings and thats armed with a massive hammer of dsetruction, a catapult, a light tower and a shoulder full of archers!..... AWSOME!

1. Red Alert 3

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At first, I didn't like RA3 at all, infact I hated it and I hated EA for killing Westwood studios. But, the more and more I played it online co-op or 'deathmatches' the more I loved it. You really have to let it grown on you before you'll get it, and even more so if you liked RA2 (which I did, alot). EA and whats left of Westwood really have taken Red Alert where it needed to go, and instead of it being a C&C3 clone with diffrent units its a totally diffrent game thats heavily focused on the micro and small scale battles. But, if your handly with your reasouse managment you can still achive massive armies. Not only this but EA actually seem to give a shit about support, which from what I can tell, is a 1st! Who knows what the future brings for RA3, all I know is they keep making it more and more ballanced and keep on updating the C&C site, which is all good as far as I'm consered.