https://steemit.com/english/@herosik/command-and-conquer-after-years-part-1-2
Due to the upcoming premiere of my beloved game's remake, I decided to write 2 or 3 texts about the iconic RTS series. I write maybe 3, because I don't know if anyone will be interested in my opinion about the last, good game with Tiberium in background. Four is terrible shit, which I do not recommend touching even with a stick, but threesome, mmm ... This is the best game in the series, but it loses with my sentiments about one.
Initially, the creators thought about different climates. They planned high-fantasy, such in the atmosphere of "Warcraft" - magic, elves, dwarves, people, monsters etc. but the political and war climate of the time, that is, the first Gulf War, the Russians in Afghanistan, wars in the Middle East, Israel vs neighbors, etc. favored the game embedded in our realities. I wonder how such "WarCraft" would look like, but in the Westwoods homie edition. I guess it's probably better than Blizzard. As a reminder, this studio gave us, among others: "Nox" (2000), "Blade Runner" (1997), "The Lion King" (1994), "Lands of Lore" (1993), "Dune 2: Battle for Arrakis "(1992)," Eye of Beholder "(1990). Each of these games and a few other, not listed, had a large fan base and were liked by players at that time. It's difficult to estimate how it is to this day, because I got most of the information from my uncle, who turned me into RTSs, computer press and the few older players I knew as a kid, so my knowledge is, to put it mildly, incomplete. Either way, it would be difficult to skip any of these titles with memories of yesteryear. PC players from those years certainly remember these games warmly.
In Great Britain alone, more than 100,000 copies of the game were sold on the first day (source - issue of the "Secret Service" magazine cited by Polish Wikipedia). Over 3 million copies were sold worldwide and the game received several awards - e.g. it won the title of RTS of the year according to the American PC-gamer, while Computer Games Magazine awarded C&C 1995 the best strategy award as well as the best game of the year. In Poland this craze was smaller, I had few friends with whom I could talk about this universe. It is different in the case of "Red Alert 1 & 2", which were eagerly played in many IT classrooms. Sometimes it helped colleagues who could not crack the game correctly. I like RA, but definitely less than "Command and Conquer", so I was a bit pissed off by the difference in popularity.
In 1995 we played in: "Crono Trigger", "Donkey Kong Country 2", "Destruction Derby", "Rayman", "Wipeout", "Mortal Kombat 3", "Discworld", "Phantasmagoria" and "Full Throttle". As for movies, we watched: "Seven", "Braveheart", "Toy Story", "Golden Eye", "Apollo 13", "12 monkeys", "Bad Boys", "Die Hard 3", "Showgirls" , "Batman Forever", "Desperado", "Judge Dredd", "Jumanji", "Mortal Kombat", "Pocahontas", "Johnny Mnemonic". But to the point why I loved this game? For many things that I value today too. An interesting output idea, its solid development, well thought outsides of the conflict, great atmosphere, immersive plot, sensational soundtrack.
Developing the above points, one day Tiberium falls to Earth. Earthlings named them so after the Tiber River in Italy, where they were first encountered. It is a highly toxic raw material that aggressively changes the Earth (it causes changes in weather, climate, causes new types of storms, ultimately changing the world in 3 scenes). You can't collect it without proper safeguards, because you can burn or change into a mindless mutant, unless you're not a creature-based, among others on coal, like people. In addition, Tiberium has one advantage, it is very expensive. When it comes to fat money, countries, and their troops, I don't have to add the rest.
Two forces are forming in the world - GDI, which resembles NATO in its heyday (only with the ion cannon, as in the anime "Akira") and the NOD brotherhood. People associated by the charismatic Kane - military militants, terrorists, devoted fanatics, some criminal groups He was portrayed by Joseph D. Kucan, probably the only real actor playing in film interludes, who permanently inscribed in his role. Something like Robert Downey Jr. with Iron Man, Heath Ledger as Joker or Johnny Depp in the role of Jacek Sparrow. It's the face of this series. You can see the differences between him and the other people found in cinematics. Other folk from the movies are studio employees because it was cheaper to rent clothes and props than to hire actors. While most of them came out ... Well, just okay, but Mrs. Kia Huntzinger, who gave her voice Electronic Video Agent (abbreviated EVA), came out splendid. Her timbre matches perfectly with the cool, emotionless A.I. The first mission on the side of GDI is such a landing on the Omaha beach from the first "Medal of Honor", but for RTS fans. After a unique installation process, through which Eva introduced us into the "Command and Conquer" universe, a great intro (which was at the level of the best Blizzard cinematic at the time) and introduction to the mission, we took control of most units during the landing in Europe. The story was good, it had some good ideas, better world-building than both parts of "Warcraft", but today it will not necessarily be impressive. There are no twists and turns, the videos are over talked, I bet that few will be seriously interested in it, if they have not had contact with this series of games before. What is different in the case of music, in my opinion it is still defending masterfully. Frank Klepacki created an atmospheric and memorable soundtrack. It is true that no track of one can compare with the iconic Hell March of "Red Alert", but this is his magnum opus, God inspired him then, so it's difficult to compete with it. Nevertheless, OST is very dynamic, distinctive and matches fast games. It also has a few calmer songs like Recon or Rain in the Night. All this adds up to a great atmosphere and I hope that on June 5 and later I will be able to say - my dream from a dozen or so years ago about a perfect refreshment of this game came true.
I will come back to the script for a moment because I presented it inaccurately. In the late '90s there was a war between GDI and NOD for cosmic crystals. After 3 years, GDI wins, destroying the NOD headquarters in Sarajevo and stopping terrorists from destroying important objects, such as the White House or the Eiffel Tower. However, before this happens, we will fight in Europe (on the GDI side) or in Africa, if we choose the Brotherhood and see the impact of Tiberium on the environment, the world economy and economy. Apart from the fact that Tiberium is our only, apart from electricity, raw material (in contrast to many other RTSs or broadly understood strategies), we will hear about cash and the impact on stock exchanges in interludes. Watching nature is different. It is true that we will see mutants only in the second part, but in the first we are dealing with trees emitting Tiberium, thus completely sterilizing the soil. Or the effects of moving on it civilians or infantry soldiers - they burn after a while. The thread with the brilliant Dr. Ignatio Mobius also runs through the game. Nobel laureate, who at a young age became fascinated with mysterious crystals. Often violating OHS regulations and safety standards during their examination. He also ran a hospital in which he treated people contaminated with toxic Tiberium.
When it comes to gameplay, I will start with a quote from my friend Krystian, although he talked about it in the context of "Diablo 1", it suits most of the games of that time - "In those years nobody was paying attention to something like balance. Anyway, for good nobody cared about him, fun was all that mattered, and nobody noticed that the magician was weaker at first, but he was powerful at a later stage of the game. " The fact that NOD may be slightly better at the beginning due to lower prices, but as GDI reaches its mummy tanks and has unhindered access to raw materials, it is gg no re. Anyway, even the main tanks alone win against NOD, although due to the higher price they are harder to massager. I may be wrong because I haven't played much online, but this is how it looks from my many years of experience with this game. I like to play both nations - GDI for their tanks, and NOD because of the obelisks that are better than GDI rocket turrets and their motors. I identify more with the Brotherhood because it has better symbols, colors and more charismatic people on its side. Since childhood, I really like red, bad people have always been more attractive to me than usually boring good people, and Joe Kucan, although he may not be an outstanding actor, adds a lot of honey to the game. Today, this is no longer impressive, but in those days soldiers consisting of several pixels did not stand like stakes when we were not given orders for a long time. They moved, did push-ups, smoked pipes, the commando rushed us in soldiers, as we did not play for a long time. For comparison - in "WarCraft 1" probably did not move at all, and in the sequel at most they revolved around their axis. Machines and buildings had moving parts, trinkets, marked injuries, but that made less impression on me. Nevertheless, as a kid and most of the time as a teenager, I got excited about this world more or less like today "The Witcher" or "Hunter x Hunter" etc.
The disadvantage of the game is the slow extraction of raw materials, so the game is artificially extended. The level of difficulty is not particularly demanding, mainly due to artificial intelligence, which operates on specific scripts and diagrams. Once we get to know them, it's easy to get through most of the missions. Some of the ends of both campaigns were easier than those inside. One of them I went through in total slack in 10 minutes, 3 mammoths were enough, quick unlocking of the ionic gun and I went apart NOD. Many missions can go through this in a repetitive way, which may hit you after so many years of release. The problems with A.I also apply to us, because soldiers like to walk on Tiberium when they are told to move somewhere, while reapers tend to take a longer path to this raw material. In the remaster they are supposed to improve and improve it a bit, I hope that the promises will not end, as in the case of Blizzard's game.
"Red Alert" came out after CnC, but I'll deal with it in the next text. Initially, it was supposed to be a mission-pack, but its potential has grown so much that they decided to make a separate game. In the meantime, a monstrously difficult mission-pack entitled "Covert Operations" was released, which offered several new missions, 10 new multiplayer maps, a few new music tracks and around zero new movie cutscenes. Well, the budget went for something else. As for the future, "Tiberian Dawn" was continued four years later. "Tiberian Sun". The action takes place about 30 years after the end of the First Tiberian War. Kane survived the attack on the temple and has his own super A.I, created on the basis of EVA, which he called CABAL (just before the end of the 1st war he broke into GDI servers and NOD hackers took over part of the source code). Expanding the abbreviation - Computer Assisted Biologically Augmented Lifeform. The videos are less talkative, have more actions, generally, you can see that more money has been put into them. As for the actors, we'll see James Earl Jones (voice actor Mufasa from "The Lion King" and Darth Vader), Frank Zagarino, and Joe Kucan. The rest is less known, but from what I've seen, many of them have any experience in the acting craft. As for the game itself, it was good but worse than "Tiberian Dawn". It was cool to see the more severe effects of the mutation, or the more effective taking over the planet, but the climate was worse and the graphics suck. It was still good playing, but that wasn't it. However, you could at least play against the computer on multiplayer maps. Just as Westwood was better than Blizzard at first, then they lost that strategy skill. "Red Alert 2", despite its popularity in Poland, was also just a fun game for me. You will say that "Command and Conquer 1" is not much better and the sentiment speaks through me. It's kind of true, but for 4 years something better could be done. They had greater opportunities, an already established brand, and dedicated fans. I don't know what the production process looked like, maybe it was a mess, people were leaving, it happens in this industry. It is a pity that apart from the third part we have not lived to see a dignified continuation, but I have already experienced this mourning after playing in 4. I hope that I will not regret spending the money on this pre-order. ;)
When it comes to gameplay, I will start with a quote from my friend Krystian, although he talked about it in the context of "Diablo 1", it suits most of the games of that time - "In those years nobody was paying attention to something like balance. Anyway, for good nobody cared about him, fun was all that mattered, and nobody noticed that the magician was weaker at first, but he was powerful at a later stage of the game. " The fact that NOD may be slightly better at the beginning due to lower prices, but as GDI reaches its mummy tanks and has unhindered access to raw materials, it is gg no re. Anyway, even the main tanks alone win against NOD, although due to the higher price they are harder to massager. I may be wrong because I haven't played much online, but this is how it looks from my many years of experience with this game. I like to play both nations - GDI for their tanks, and NOD because of the obelisks that are better than GDI rocket turrets and their motors. I identify more with the Brotherhood because it has better symbols, colors and more charismatic people on its side. Since childhood, I really like red, bad people have always been more attractive to me than usually boring good people, and Joe Kucan, although he may not be an outstanding actor, adds a lot of honey to the game. Today, this is no longer impressive, but in those days soldiers consisting of several pixels did not stand like stakes when we were not given orders for a long time. They moved, did push-ups, smoked pipes, the commando rushed us in soldiers, as we did not play for a long time. For comparison - in "WarCraft 1" probably did not move at all, and in the sequel at most they revolved around their axis. Machines and buildings had moving parts, trinkets, marked injuries, but that made less impression on me. Nevertheless, as a kid and most of the time as a teenager, I got excited about this world more or less like today "The Witcher" or "Hunter x Hunter" etc.
The disadvantage of the game is the slow extraction of raw materials, so the game is artificially extended. The level of difficulty is not particularly demanding, mainly due to artificial intelligence, which operates on specific scripts and diagrams. Once we get to know them, it's easy to get through most of the missions. Some of the ends of both campaigns were easier than those inside. One of them I went through in total slack in 10 minutes, 3 mammoths were enough, quick unlocking of the ionic gun and I went apart NOD. Many missions can go through this in a repetitive way, which may hit you after so many years of release. The problems with A.I also apply to us, because soldiers like to walk on Tiberium when they are told to move somewhere, while reapers tend to take a longer path to this raw material. In the remaster they are supposed to improve and improve it a bit, I hope that the promises will not end, as in the case of Blizzard's game.
"Red Alert" came out after CnC, but I'll deal with it in the next text. Initially, it was supposed to be a mission-pack, but its potential has grown so much that they decided to make a separate game. In the meantime, a monstrously difficult mission-pack entitled "Covert Operations" was released, which offered several new missions, 10 new multiplayer maps, a few new music tracks and around zero new movie cutscenes. Well, the budget went for something else. As for the future, "Tiberian Dawn" was continued four years later. "Tiberian Sun". The action takes place about 30 years after the end of the First Tiberian War. Kane survived the attack on the temple and has his own super A.I, created on the basis of EVA, which he called CABAL (just before the end of the 1st war he broke into GDI servers and NOD hackers took over part of the source code). Expanding the abbreviation - Computer Assisted Biologically Augmented Lifeform. The videos are less talkative, have more actions, generally, you can see that more money has been put into them. As for the actors, we'll see James Earl Jones (voice actor Mufasa from "The Lion King" and Darth Vader), Frank Zagarino, and Joe Kucan. The rest is less known, but from what I've seen, many of them have any experience in the acting craft. As for the game itself, it was good but worse than "Tiberian Dawn". It was cool to see the more severe effects of the mutation, or the more effective taking over the planet, but the climate was worse and the graphics suck. It was still good playing, but that wasn't it. However, you could at least play against the computer on multiplayer maps. Just as Westwood was better than Blizzard at first, then they lost that strategy skill. "Red Alert 2", despite its popularity in Poland, was also just a fun game for me. You will say that "Command and Conquer 1" is not much better and the sentiment speaks through me. It's kind of true, but for 4 years something better could be done. They had greater opportunities, an already established brand, and dedicated fans. I don't know what the production process looked like, maybe it was a mess, people were leaving, it happens in this industry. It is a pity that apart from the third part we have not lived to see a dignified continuation, but I have already experienced this mourning after playing in 4. I hope that I will not regret spending the money on this pre-order. ;)