->''We have destroyed many of them. But although their weaponry is primitive, we greatly underestimated [[ZergRush the strength of their numbers]]. Success is no longer assured''
-->-- Commander of the ill-fated martian vanguard

This page is about the PC game. If you're looking for the RockOpera that inspired it, click [[JeffWaynesMusicalVersionOfTheWarOfTheWorlds here]].

''Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds'' is a 1998 {{real time strategy}} game by British games developer Rage Software. As the name suggests, it contains a lot of the dialogue and music from the {{rock opera}} of the same name. It follows the invasion of Great Britain in 1898 by Martians who, exhausting all other options, have turned to conquest in order to escape their dying planet. Unfortunately, unlike in the original novel these Martians have [[GenreSavvy remembered to take their flu shots]], and so must be fought off the old fashioned way.

In many ways, the game resembles the later ''{{Total War}}'' series. Each campaign is fought over a completely non-linear {{Risk style map}} in which units are built and deployed, with engagements against enemy forces being handled on a separate real-time “battle map”. The battle map is also used to construct buildings and site defenses, giving players complete control of their bases. The battle map graphics are surprisingly good for the day, and the game is notable for being one of the first RTS to use 3D models instead of sprites.

The resource system also differed from the conventions of the time; there is no manual ResourceGathering, and instead of the resources being used to build or purchase units, each unit and facility has an “upkeep” requirement (which varies depending on whether it is moving, building, repairing or idle). The speed at which buildings and units are constructed decreases if the requirements are not met, forcing the player to strike a balance. Each side makes use of three different resources and each sector of the war map has these resources in varying levels of abundance. The player can construct facilities to extract these resources in sectors they control, leading to strategic maneuvers to control high-resource sectors and thus support bigger armies. The strategy doesn't end there however, as reconnaissance, hit and run raids, pincer movements, infiltration of enemy buildings (to gain strategic intelligence) or sheer [[WeHaveReserves brute force]] are all options available to the player. The ultimate objective of both sides is to destroy the enemy headquarters in their central sector.

The game can be played from both the Human and the Martian perspective. The Humans have strong defenses, greater ranged weapons, and a larger industrial base [[ZergRush allowing them to produce lots of units rapidly]]. The Martians are less numerous but have fast and powerful vehicles with lots of specialized abilities.

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!!The game provides examples of:

* ActionBomb - Drones
* AliensAreBastards - Deconstructed. The Martians only invade Earth because their planet and their species is dying, all their efforts to maintain a habitable biosphere have failed, and the surviving population are so desperate that they have actually started ''lynching'' their leaders until they come up with a solution.
* AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs - The Martians do this to most of Scotland within the first week of the campaign.
* AnimalTesting - A Martian cow, mentioned in the novel but not featured in any other adaptation, is briefly seen in the intro movie being gassed with Black Smoke.
* ArtificialStupidity - The path finding isn’t brilliant, which is the main reason fences are effective as a defence. Martian units also sometimes have the habit of walking in a circle before responding to an attack order, which is extremely annoying if they are already under fire.
* AwesomeButImpractical - Electric machines have devastating firepower, but are both short ranged and slow. On the human side, submersibles can go underwater to avoid enemy detection, but are only armed with a pop-gun. Averted by tunneling track layers, which can bypass enemy defences and unleash decent firepower when they resurface.
* BackFromTheBrink - Can be done, but it's extremely tricky.
* BeamSpam - Any sufficiently large group of martians can pull this off, but Tempests can achieve it alone by virtue of {{dual wielding}} heatrays.
* BonusDungeon: the sector "isle of Men" can be considered this when playing with the Martians. You don't actually have to conquer it to win the game, and if you do conquer it, it's basically worthless since only the flying machines can reach it so you can never construct a command center, buildings, defenses etc.. The humans also never try to reclaim it once you have conquered it, and when playing with the humans the Martians will never try to conquer it, not even when you blow up the cannons and leave the island defenseless. 
* BritishAccents - Human units have a mix of English and Scottish responses, while the ships lean towards a British equivalent of DangerDeadpan.
* TheBritishEmpire - The Human faction
* BritsWithBattleships - The ''Formidable''-class ironclad [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formidable_class_battleship did exist]], although its firepower was significantly {{nerf}}ed for game balance.
** Ditto for the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invincible_class_battlecruiser Invincible-class]], though the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrior_class_ironclad Warrior-class]] is an anachronism, being from the ''1860s''
* BulletHell - Attacking a well-defended human sector often feels like this. Once they get [=SPGs=], they'll start bringing the bullet hell to ''you''!
* CallARabbitASmeerp - Tanks are “Armoured Track Layers” and armoured cars are “Armoured Lorries”.
** Justified, considering the name's origin as a code word used on transports.
* CanonImmigrant - Most of the Martian intro movie, which explains why the Martians are invading, was copied for Jeff Wayne’s live stage version. The game’s model for the flying machine was also used.
* TheComputerIsACheatingBastard - In either campaign, the other side will start with more units and structures than you would if you were playing as them.
** This can best be seen with the sector "Isle of Man". When playing with the humans, the sector only contains a command center and a few ordinary cannons, and since you can't send your construction vehicles to the island you can't add any additional buildings or defenses. If you play with the Martians however and you attack the island, it suddenly contains anti aircraft guns as well (since flying machines are the only Martian vehicles that can reach the island).
* CreepyMonotone - The Martians speak like this.
* CurbStompBattle - The Martians WILL be doing this to the humans for the first couple of months (for a bit of perspective, even ''scout'' machines can take on armoured lorries 3 or 4 to 1 and win). Balances out in that the Martians must stop and build comms centres to continue the attack, which gives the Humans time to build up.
* DamageIsFire
* DeadlyGas: The black smoke.
* DeathRay - Standard Martian weaponry is heat rays, which can be upgraded to microwave rays, which can be upgraded to ''x-rays''...
** The constrictors have {{freeze ray}}s
* DoNotRunWithAGun - The main way of balancing the fact that (just like in the book!) Martian machines on the move are very difficult to hit with artillery.
* DrillTank - The tunnelling track layer.
* EasyLogistics - Mostly averted. Resource facilities have more effect if positioned closer to the sectors that need them. Sectors cut off by the enemy usually suffer crippling inefficiency. The more awesome units can take months to research and build.
* TheEndOrIsIt - [[spoiler: After winning the game as either faction, a voiceover that plays over the credits implies that the war is far from over. For the victorious humans, we hear ''Epilogue Part 2'' from the original musical (the audio of an astronaut going to Mars and finding out it's not entirely dead yet...oops). For the Martians, a scout chases some unconfined humans into a massive underground complex crisscrossed with train tracks and facilities, which is ''fully staffed.'' ("My, they have also re-armed themselves." KABOOM)]]
* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin - Both sides tend to name their units this way.
* FragileSpeedster - Armoured lorries for the Humans, flying machines for the Martians.
* GeoEffects - Different types of terrain affect movement speed and vulnerability. Night time does not affect gameplay per se, but Human vehicles cast headlights, and the Martians view the battle through a green nightvision filter.
* GoingCritical: Downplayed; according to [[http://waroftheworlds.wikia.com/wiki/Heavy_Element_Engine this]], martian Heavy Element engines are so heavily shielded as to be left intact after a Fighting Machine is destroyed because if the casing were breached, the resultant radiation leak would kill everything in the area.
* HeyItsThatVoice - The lead Human general is played by [[YesMinister Nigel Hawthorne]].
** One of the Martian Elders sounds exactly like [[TheHitchHikersGuideToTheGalaxy Marvin The Paranoid Android]]
* HumansAreUgly - "Many humans had gathered around, and the proximity of these hideous creatures made me aware of our vulnerability."
** "So, [[KillAllHumans I cleansed the area]]."
* HumanResources - Human blood is one of the three resources the Martians extract.
* ILoveNuclearPower - The Martians’ machines appear to be nuclear powered, given that they all run on heavy elements.
* InfantImmortality - In one cutscene, a Bombarding Machine guns down fleeing humans, but briefly pauses over - and then spares - a young girl. Of course, see HumanResources for why this might not be as much of a blessing as it appears...
* TheJuggernaut - Tempests.
* KilledMidSentence - A martian commander in the intro cutscene, which convinces the elders that humans are [[PunyEarthlings not so puny]] after all.
* LifeMeter - It only changes colour and doesn't retract or extend, though.
* MightyGlacier - Fighting machines, which are powerful but slow.
* MindRape - The Xeno Telepaths.
* MonumentalDamage - Destroying the Houses of Parliament is the Martians’ victory condition.
* MoralMyopia - The Martians see humans pretty much as cattle, though they soon develop a healthy respect for their fighting abilities after their first pod (sent in a direct attack on London) is destroyed.
* MythologyGag - The game begins in 1898, which is the year that the original novel was published.
** In a ShoutOut to how the Martians meet their end in the source novel, the cheat code for destroying all Martians in a sector is "Atchooo" (a sneeze)
* NonEntityGeneral - The player. Your adjutant, however, appears in the side’s respective intro movie.
** It’s possible that the human player is one of the officers around the war room table, whereas the martian player could be the martian who is seen travelling to the elder chamber.
* NoOntologicalInertia: destroying a command center in a sector will automatically result in the destruction of every other building and all non-mobile defenses (barb wire/plasma fences, cannons etc.), so it's necessary to put a lot of defenses around your own command center and it's often a good strategy to focus all your firepower on the enemies command center when attacking. Machines are immune to this though and keep fighting even if the command center is lost. 
** Also; both the Martians and the Humans have 1 main sector (Grampian Mountains and London respectively), which when conquered will result in an instant victory for the group conquering it, no matter how many other sectors are still in Human or Martian hands.
* OfficerAndAGentleman - Your assistant during the Human campaign.
* OminousLatinChanting - In the Martian victory movie.
* PeopleFarms - Literally. One of the Martian resource structures.
* PunyEarthlings - Invoked almost by name in one of the game’s cheat codes. The code results in all human vehicles and buildings in a sector being destroyed.
* RidiculouslyFastConstruction - Averted, except for the Martians setting up an elaborate base in the Grampian Mountains in the time between the second and third pods landing (about 24 hours).
* RiskStyleMap
* RockBeatsLaser - In general, it is easier to win the Human campaign than the Martian one.
* SceneryGorn - The Martian victory movie shows London on fire, and [[CameraAbuse Big Ben crashing down on top of the camera]].
* SchizoTech - The game is broadly faithful to human military technology of the time, with tanks only being invented a decade or so before {{real life}} (justified as a war would have sped up military research), but the game embraces the {{Rule of Cool}} for tunnelling track layers and submersibles.
* SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale - The “no units given” example is cleverly averted by having alien tech measured in ambiguous "Martian" units. Heat ray power is measured in krk, explosives in dno and armour thickness in dko.
* SelfDestructMechanism: it is actually possible to give the command to blow up your own vehicles and buildings. Doing this to your own command center in the main sector will result in a game over. 
* ShockAndAwe - Electric machines.
* ShortRangeLongRangeWeapon - For balance reasons, the Martians' heatrays are quite short-ranged compared to the source material.
* SpannerInTheWorks - The humble armoured lorry can be quite good at this if used correctly. If they can evade the martian war machines they can snipe builder units or outlying structures, crippling the enemy right from the start.
* SpiderTank - The game expands from the original {{Tripod Terror}}s to include Martian walkers with 2, 4, 5 or even 6 legs.
* StandardSnippet - The remixed version of ''The Red Weed'' heard in the Martian intro video is blended with Gustav Holt's ''Mars, the Bringer of War''.
* StuffBlowingUp - All vehicles and buildings go out with a bang, as well as trees, civilian buildings, bridges…
* TakeCover - Human vehicles can do this in woods, affording them a few seconds extra protection against Martian fire.
* TankGoodness - 90% of the human arsenal.
* TechTree - Played with. Both sides have a broad range of research options, some of which have to be researched hierarchically. However, sometimes new technologies become available as counters to new enemy weapons - for example, after your first battle against Flying Machines, you are able to research AA guns.
* {{Terraform}} - The Martians do this, seeding Red Weed in sectors they control.
* TelepathicSpacemen - The Xeno Telepaths.
* UnitsNotToScale - Impressively averted.
* WakeUpCallBoss - For the martians, the first time you run into a human ironclad.
** And for the humans, the first time you run into the iconic fighting machines.
* WhiteAndGreyMorality - The Humans are fighting for their home and their way of life. The Martians are fighting because ''their'' home and way of life is dying. This allows the player to have some sympathy for the aliens.
** They do however KickTheDog a bit in their victory movie, what with gloating about how “soon we shall farm and feast upon these animals” while the camera shows a human girl cowering away from a Bombarding Machine.
* YouHaveFailedMe - The Martians as a society do this to their Senior Elder by way of "[[MindRape mass telepathic execution]]" shortly before the war begins. Indeed, it is this unprecedented event that shocks the other Elders into extreme action (i.e the invasion of Earth).
** If the Martians lose, it is implied that his replacement meets the same fate. Which seems like a bit of a {{Blofeld Ploy}} given that the martian general in question was only your adjutant, and not the one calling the shots.
* YouRequireMoreVespeneGas - A variation, where the amount of resources you are producing does not affect what you can build, just ''how long'' it takes to build it. The Humans use steel, coal and oil, while the Martians use [[ToServeMan blood]], copper and [[ILoveNuclearPower heavy elements]].
* ZergRush - An effective tactic for the Humans once you’ve got track layers.
** The Martians can also pull this off at a tactical level once they get flying machines; by blitzing the sector's command centre they can exploit {{collapsing lair}} syndrome and get rid of those pesky defences.
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