Oh God, don't mention TA mods to me.
Being a TA mod player myself I've seen a fair few of them go down the drain....Synthetic Sentience...the total conversion mods....just look at the
Boneyard section of TAUniverse. Having said that there are some active mods that really are five classes above the rest, mainly Excess and Excess II.
As for the over-hyping, it wasn't nearly as overhyped as Starcraft IMO. That's hit popularity worldwide and is still being sold in some stores, Total Annihilation on the other hand can only be found either pirated, at a Cash Converters store on by some online game purchase websites selling hacked versions with MP3 audio support (that's so dodgy you're better off with the disc). I own two copies myself, one I found from Cash Converters and one my mother's had for years (why she bought it I dont know).
Oh, and I must confess I pirated the expansions. They're just impossible to find legit for me.
Really though it's a good game. Ignore my fanboyish tendancies with it and just download it and try it some time. You'll find that in Skirmish the AI can be pretty lame but at least the difficulty curve for learning to use units is okay in Original TA. For a challenge, Excess II is the way to go - I always make jokes about the AI being in Marijuana mode for a reason.
On topic now, and I think Raiden Fighters Aces will beat this as being the #1 Vapourware, though Steam users and Half-Life fans will probably disagree with me, and fair enough.
