Quietly now. We don't want to disturb the inmates, do we? Here, old RTSC game sections wile away their twilight years, wrapped in their woollen blankets and safely pickled by Rakrent.com's state-of-the-art taxidermy skills. Retirement simply means I'm no longer actively updating or maintaining these sections; they'll retain their original format for posterity's sake and will still be available to browse. Don't panic - I'll still be open to suggestions or anything of interest to do with the "retired" game.

	The RTSC Rest Home for Retired Computer Games
			StarCraft: Brood War (1998) Quietly retired, September 2003: un-retired in May 2004, then re-retired in May 2005. One of the founding sections of RTSC and a classic by Blizzard Entertainment. (StarCraft is still popular, but I simply haven't touched it for years. In any case, Total Annihilation and Dawn of War are much better!) StarCraft epitomizes the classic RTS. Three sides fight for survival: the nomadic Terrans, the psionic Protoss and the monstrous Zerg. Rich story, deep strategy, and lots of action.
			Total Annihilation: The Core Contingency (1997) Finally reclaimed, April 2007. The other founding section of RTSC, I must have played TA with my mates two or three times a week continuously for seven years. So far, very little has come close to matching TA, but by the time it was formally "retired", I hadn't touched the game for about two or three years, thanks to Dawn of War. Total annihilation is real time strategy of the big picture variety, pitting K-Bots, vehicles, tanks, aircraft, ships, subs, artillery, turrets, missiles, mines, lasers, nukes and the mighty Krogoth ultra-bot in vast clashes that can span entire screens simultaneously. There are more custom mods and total conversions for this game than you can poke a stick at.
			Age of Empires II: Age of Kings (1999) Formal abdication, September 2003. This went through a brief period of intense interest which tailed off quickly. Not sure why; nice outdoor graphics, reasonable features, fantastic use of random maps. Maybe it was the long lingering games that went nowhere, or maybe it just wasn't quite enough... Ah, but Rise of Nations turned out to be everything I ever wanted in an "Age of" game.
			Homeworld (1999) Finally returned home, April 2007. Homeworld was the first truly three dimensional RTS game, ever. Set in outer space, you can deploy your space forces in any direction, up, down or sideways. Squadrons of tiny fighters duck and weave amongst hulking capital ships and frigates. The sense of atmosphere and ambient soundtrack, supporting an epic single player story render it a classic. Actually, I reckon it had the best single player game, ever. The long exiled Kushans struggle to reach their homeworld, Hiigara, in the face of the fiendish Taiidani Republic and their allies.
			Homeworld: Cataclysm (2001) Cryogenically frozen, Sept 2003; thawed out Dec 2003; packed away again May 2005. One particularly flu-ridden day saw the creation of the Homeworld: Cataclysm page. It never really went anywhere, except to add a startlingly red page in the middle of a profoundly blue Homeworld section. Cataclysm is pretty good, extending Homeworld's gameplay but at the expense of some of its atmosphere. The Hiigaran's Somtaaw faction accidentally unleash a monstrous infectious entity known as The Beast, and struggle to contain it. Multiplayer wasn't that crash hot, but there's some beaut custom mods for it, though.
			Settlers III (1998) Settles down at last, September 2003. Always had a soft spot for Settlers III & IV, every since I discovered the very first Settlers on the Amiga very early in the Nineties. I never did get the Settlers section finished, and even had plans to upgrade it to a Settlers IV page. Still drag it out occasionally and still muse over a Settlers IV section...
			Masters of Orion III (2002) Lost in space, January 2005 Actually, this is a turn based 4X game that was briefly featured as an RTSC game, 'cos, well, I really enjoyed it. Many people thought it was utter crap and a lot of old Masters of Orion fans were disappointed with it. All you need is a spare six months, uninterrupted to work through a single game... It has some serious issues, and not a few frustrations, and there's bugger all chance of me ever playing it again, let alone run a netgame with it.