FIGHT! WIN! PREVAIL! (Command and Conquer (PC))

Member Name: Burning_Darkness

Product:	Command and Conquer (PC)
Date:	10/07/09 (22 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: great gameplay, great cutscenes, great music

Disadvantages: graphics are very dated, although they still remain colourful and full of charm

Real time strategy games have long since been a staple diet of gamers everywhere, and Command and Conquer is the game that sparked the whole thing off....well....almost. Command and Conquer is actually a sequel in all but name to developer Westwood's previous effort, Dune 2, Battle For Arrakis, a now-ancient little game based on Frank Herbert's award-winning science fiction book in which the player plays as the head of one of three Houses each vying to seek control of Arrakis, a desert world rich in the 'Spice' that is used for fuelling space craft. A bit like America's invasion of and Iraq really.

Anyway, this innovative little top-down game had you controlling tanks and infantry whilst expanding your base and sending huge harvesters out to gather the precious spice. Command and Conquer uses exactly the same game mechanics, changing the setting to Earth a hundred or so years in the future and replacing the spice with a mysterious meteorite-based mineral called Tiberium, and giving the whole concept a glossy sheen by employing some for-the-time rather nice VGA graphics and plenty of cool rendered cutscenes full of futuristic warfare.

The game allows you to play as either the Global Defence Initative or GDI (the good guys) or the Brotherhood of Nod, a shady globe-wide terrorist organisation with some gnarly new technology at their disposal led by a creepy bald guy by the name of Kane. Whichever side you choose, you then have to pick which territories you wish to attack in order to select each new mission. The cutscenes between missions are all pretty well done, consisting of a mix of live-action sequences with actors playing generels and the like who carry on the story and tell you what your mission objectives are, and rendered battle scenes that include plenty tank battles, airstrikes and exploding buildings.

The missions themselves are immensely entertaining, and will be instantly familar to anyone who has played Warcraft, Starcraft, Total Annihilation or any of the dozens of other later RTS games out there. The two sides have different but well balanced sets of units, with big slow tanks, machinegun-equipped jeeps, grenadiers and hovering Orca Bombers at the GDI's disposal and smaller, faster tanks, dune buggies, rocket troops, stealth tanks that can turn themselves invisible and best of all a flamethrower tank at the disposal of the Brotherhood. Whilst the graphics are very basic and pixellated, they are also lovingly constructed and animated, with lots of great touches such as exploding tanks leaving smouldering craters in the terrain and solders running around screaming and on fire after being torched by flame tanks.

Missions involve a mix of base defence and base infiltration, and as well as launching tank attacks and airstrikes theres a lot of fun to be had trying to send an APC full of minigunners, special commandos and engineers (who can capture enemy buildings) tearing into an enemy base in an APC in an attempt to cripple it whilst trying to prevent them from getting annihilated in a barrage of laser fire. You also need to construct base defences and facilities, such as barracks, tank factories and a radar outpost to allow access to a minimap of the battlefield. At the same time, its important to secure Tiberium fields for your harvesters to convert into cash, as without them you will become bankrupt and overrun very quickly.

Whilst the enemy AI is reasonable enough if wholly predictable, its most fun playing the game against a real opponent in multiplayer mode. After spending a few minutes adjusting to the basic graphics, the game quickly becomes extremely addictive. The soundtrack also adds to the whole experience immensely, consisting of a full cd of digital audio tracks that range from rousing, epic tracks full of shouts of "FIGHT! WIN! PREVAIL!", funky semi-industrial numbers and all out heavy metal tracks full of great riffs.

Its a fantastic game that would go on to produce hundreds of imitators, and is still immensely playable today. An updated, re-released version can be bought pretty cheap, and comes with the 'Covert Ops' mission pack thrown in free, as well as a very useful option to up the graphics to SVGA, allowing for more of the battlefield to be viewed at any one time. A true classic!

Summary: A classic RTS game!