Flashback to August of 1995. Westwood Studios released Command & Conquer, a real-time strategy game (RTS) pitting the UN-backed GDI forces against the Brotherhood of Nod. The Brotherhood was supposed to be evil, but GDI was the UN, so it was a tough call to pick your poison. C&C was a fun game. So much so that several sequels and expansion packs were released, including Covert Operations, Sole Survivor, Tiberian Sun, TS Firestorm, and Renegade. An alternate universe series, Red Alert, was also released. It included C&C: Red Alert (1996), Counterstrike and The Aftermath (1997), Red Alert 2 (2000), and Yuri’s Revenge (2001). Another related game is C&C: Generals and its expansion pack, Zero Hour.

Popular

Command & Conquer was so popular that besides being released for the PC, it was also available on the Mac, the Playstation, the Nintendo 64, Sega Dreamcast, and the Sega Saturn.

Looking Back

We have been waiting for another title for a few years now, and March of 2007 should see the release of Command & Conquer 3. Until then, we’ll take a look back at some or all of the series, first digging out the old CDs and trying to get them to work (C&C was Windows 95 only).

Running Command & Conquer on Windows XP

Your best bet is to pick up C&C The First Decade, which has been updated to run under XP, and presumably Windows Vista.

Getting a game designed for Windows 95 to run on XP shouldn’t be a chore, but it is. Workable, but a chore. You will need to follow these instructions. Basically you need to convince the installer to run, then patch the game, then convince the game to run. Due to incompatibilities between Windows 95 and XP networking, the patch disables LAN play.

Cut Scenes and Actors

Command & Conquer is a base-building RTS game, but Westwood wrapped all that up in a storyline (about which some of us could not care less). The NOD vs. GDI cut scene plot is a mix of both well-rendered CGI and live acting by competent actors. If you are into that sort of thing, C&C will puff your skirt up.

Base-building Gameplay

For the most part, the game is about building and defending bases and your armed forces, gathering tiberium (the currency of the game), and destroying the enemy. There are other facets of various missions, such as protecting wacky doctors or freeing civilians, but C&C is a superb base-building RTS.

Other aspects of the game, such as the controls, the AI, and so forth, are effective but not perfect. In particular, the path-finding algorithms are pathetic and the enemy AI happily repeats itself. Nothing terrible, but these are more like large nits.

Sound and Graphics

Though the sound is nothing spectacular, it has character. The music fits the game and the game sounds give each unit their own personality.

Graphically, we’re talking 1995 here, so don’t expect too much. However, the rendered cut scenes are nicely integrated with the portioned handled by the actors. The in-game graphics are effective but lack advanced features such as 3D zooming and rotation (of course, the upcoming C&C3 has this covered big time).

Still Fun 12 Years Later

Command & Conquer was fun in 1995 and, though it is showing its age, it is still fun to play. If you have a copy of C&C for Windows 95 lying around, the minor effort to use compatibility mode and patch the game is worth the effort.

Rating it against today’s crop of games, Brittlefish gives the original Command & Conquer a 3.5 for audio and graphics but a 9.0 for overall fun (on a 10 point scale).

We might give Command & Conquer: The First Decade a whirl. If so, we’ll post a followup article on it.

Command & Conquer Resources

You can find updates, demos, etc. at the Westwood FTP site. There is a Command & Conquer walkthrough available at IGN. An open-source reimplementation of C&C and Red Alert, FreeCNC, doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, but is still available. C&C Info, Files, and so forth can be found at Planet Command & Conquer, hosted by GameSpy. And, of course, there’s a good Wikipedia article on Command & Conquer.

Tags: Graphics · Macintosh · Nintendo 64 · PC · Platforms · Playstation · Reviews · Sega Dreamcast · Sega Saturn