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Command and Conquer Corner  "Building..."

User is offline   OpenMaw 

  • Judge Mental

#1

So we don't have any love on here for strategy games, let alone Command and Conquer, it seems... Hurm...


Here's a really great documentary on the series as a whole.





Are they any good source ports or patches for Red Alert 2/Yuri's Revenge to get it working right on modern OS? My brother and I used to play RA2 and YR all the time. I miss those days a lot. We also had a lot of fun with Generals. We played the shit out of that for at least three or four years. Command and Conquer 3 and the rest never really quite hit the spot like RA2 and Generals, though.
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User is offline   NNC 

#2

I love RA2 and Tiberian Sun (and RA1 for its cutscenes), never got into the modern games though. I think RA3 was just flat out retarded.
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User is offline   MrFlibble 

#3

I love the series -- at least, the Westwood-era instalments. The first game is my favourite, probably the DOS version, although I played the Gold edition more. I keep in touch with Nyerguds (the developer of patch v1.06) and am happy to have contributed some minor bits to its development a while ago. I also did a couple of custom missions in the XCC Editor.

RA2 plus YR is my second-best favourite, awesome soundtrack and nice lighthearted atmosphere.

I love Frank K's music in all of the games, and even have fond memories of Renegade even though it's such an ass to play. Haven't tried Renegade X yet though.
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User is offline   petrus 

#4

There's https://cncnet.org/ where you can download and play online most games in the series!

There is also a great open source reimplementation of the C&C game engine called: http://www.openra.net/

I also recommend Portable Red Alert https://iran.cnc-comm.com/ra/ and C&C Gold http://nyerguds.arsa...95upd/cc95p106/
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User is offline   gemeaux333 

#5

CNC1 have aged somewhat badly but had some cool clones, such as KKND, EARTH 2140 and Outpost 2,
CNC2 is a great game both for the gameplay and plot, although Topware Interactive made a more impressive work on EARTH 2150 at the same time (full 3D)
CNC3 is great too but the difficulty is unballanced, the gameplay is way more interesting and the expansion "Kane's Wrath" add a lot more content
CNC4 simply miss the point, gameplay that doesn't fit a CNC game, poor plot and quickly finished if you remove the persistant elements, not to mention that graphics are downgraded compared to CNC3, the game is really disappointing...

Greg Black announced november 7th 2017 he have left Blizzard and returned to EA, most likely to work on an other CNC game...
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User is offline   MrFlibble 

#6

View Postgemeaux333, on 03 April 2018 - 08:41 AM, said:

CNC1 have aged somewhat badly

I don't know, maybe it's because C&C (Tiberian Dawn) is one of the iconic games from the 90s (alongside Duke3D BTW) to me, I cannot fully agree. I know that (the first) Red Alert improved upon many things found in the first game, but I cannot but help to think that C&C/TD has ways more originality than the sequels.

BTW, anyone here a Dune II fan? One of my favourite games too, and I believe it pretty much belongs in the C&C family as the beloved grand-granddaddy :P

This post has been edited by MrFlibble: 03 April 2018 - 09:08 AM

3

User is offline   OpenMaw 

  • Judge Mental

#7

View PostNancsi, on 03 April 2018 - 03:36 AM, said:

I love RA2 and Tiberian Sun (and RA1 for its cutscenes), never got into the modern games though. I think RA3 was just flat out retarded.


Tiberian Sun is great. That really does give me late 90s Nostalgia. The memories are flooding back to me right now.



My brother and I really got a kick out of modding TS. We made lot's of silly little mods. I remember one for TS I made basically turn the NOD into Umbrella corporation. You could spawn/mass produce hordes of zombies.(civilains) and GDI was basically like a glorified SWAT team.

Red Alert 2, Tiberian Sun, and i'd say Tiberian Wars are where the series was at it's best in terms of over all fun.

View PostMrFlibble, on 03 April 2018 - 09:08 AM, said:

I don't know, maybe it's because C&C (Tiberian Dawn) is one of the iconic games from the 90s (alongside Duke3D BTW) to me, I cannot fully agree. I know that (the first) Red Alert improved upon many things found in the first game, but I cannot but help to think that C&C/TD has ways more originality than the sequels.


I like the campaign aspects of the earlier Command and Conquer games (CNC 1 and RA) but my biggest complaint is the lack of a skirmish mode against the AI. Any strategy game that lacks a skirmish mode feels incomplete to me. You give me a skirmish mode and a map editor and i'll be creating years of entertainment for myself. :P


View PostMrFlibble, on 03 April 2018 - 09:08 AM, said:

BTW, anyone here a Dune II fan? One of my favourite games too, and I believe it pretty much belongs in the C&C family as the beloved grand-granddaddy :lol:


My brother used to ogle an advertisement in the back of one of my gaming magazines for DUNE II. We both wanted to play it but for some reason we never got around to it.



OH! And on the topic of Renegade. My brother and I both loved Renegade. Though I never did beat the single player, my brother did. We both enjoyed playing the multiplayer mode. That was fantastic stuff. I miss when games were not nearly so costly to make and developers were more experimental.



Here's the REDUX version of the documentary in my first post.



On the subject of sequels to Renegade, that same channel also did this little documentary




I remember when this was first announced. I was so stoked for it. Then it just seemed to dissappear. Alas..

This post has been edited by Commando Nukem: 03 April 2018 - 09:56 AM

2

User is offline   Bloodshot 

#8

Tiberian Sun has incredible atmosphere. I would kill for a battlefield-type game with Tiberian Sun's universe/ambience

C&C1 and RA2's soundtracks are so easy to jam to I listen to them in my car, and Tiberian Sun's OST manages to really pull me into the universe.
1

User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#9

View PostNancsi, on 03 April 2018 - 03:36 AM, said:

I love RA2 and Tiberian Sun (and RA1 for its cutscenes), never got into the modern games though. I think RA3 was just flat out retarded.

But it was the good kind of retarded, I love RA3, it has a really good sense of humor.

I also liked the fact that RA3 tried to distinguish itself more from the Tiberian games not only in its visual style but in its gameplay too: the less subtle differences between the 3 factions were great and I really liked how they streamlined / balanced out ore harvesting. It's not a perfect game but I always preferred it to C&C3, it just has more tactical possibilities.

Edit: Anyway it's fun to look back at RA3's cast now, it's like it gets more and more illustrious as time goes on: since the cutscenes of RA3 were shot J.K. Simmons won a fuckin' Oscar, Ivana Milicevic got her break by starring in Banshee (one of the best action series ever made), Jonathan Pryce's popularity got a second wind since he starred in stuff like Game of Thrones and Taboo, Gina Carano had a bit of an action movie star phase etc. That was lucky casting. :P

This post has been edited by Zaxx: 03 April 2018 - 01:48 PM

1

User is offline   OpenMaw 

  • Judge Mental

#10

View PostBloodshot, on 03 April 2018 - 12:05 PM, said:

Tiberian Sun has incredible atmosphere. I would kill for a battlefield-type game with Tiberian Sun's universe/ambience

C&C1 and RA2's soundtracks are so easy to jam to I listen to them in my car, and Tiberian Sun's OST manages to really pull me into the universe.


I think my favorite thing about Tiberian Sun is that it really makes Earth feel like an alien world to it's own native species.




View PostZaxx, on 03 April 2018 - 01:42 PM, said:

Edit: Anyway it's fun to look back at RA3's cast now, it's like it gets more and more illustrious as time goes on: since the cutscenes of RA3 were shot J.K. Simmons won a fuckin' Oscar, Ivana Milicevic got her break by starring in Banshee (one of the best action series ever made), Jonathan Pryce's popularity got a second wind since he starred in stuff like Game of Thrones and Taboo, Gina Carano had a bit of an action movie star phase etc. That was lucky casting. :P


Tim Curry and George Takei, bro. Nuff said.


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User is offline   Person of Color 

  • Senior Unpaid Intern at Viceland

#11

View PostZaxx, on 03 April 2018 - 01:42 PM, said:

Edit: Anyway it's fun to look back at RA3's cast now, it's like it gets more and more illustrious as time goes on: since the cutscenes of RA3 were shot J.K. Simmons won a fuckin' Oscar, Ivana Milicevic got her break by starring in Banshee (one of the best action series ever made), Jonathan Pryce's popularity got a second wind since he starred in stuff like Game of Thrones and Taboo, Gina Carano had a bit of an action movie star phase etc. That was lucky casting. :P


You forgot "Rapin' George" Takai.
3

User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#12

View PostCommando Nukem, on 03 April 2018 - 09:26 PM, said:

Tim Curry and George Takei, bro. Nuff said.

Yeah, especially Tim Curry was great, I remember being surprised that his performance did not seem phoned in. :P

Btw. I miss games with FMVs, I always loved the charming campiness of the videos of all the C&C games and they managed to come up with some in gold in their "ghetto style" filmmaking. For example I love the fact that Joe Kucan was only supposed to direct the FMVs for C&C1 but he hated the performance of the guy who originally played Kane so much that in the middle of shooting he decided he'll play the part himself... and a legend was born. :lol:

Hell, Kucan worked so well as Kane that I remember when EA announced C&C3 this was the trailer that got everyone excited:


This post has been edited by Zaxx: 04 April 2018 - 02:11 AM

2

User is offline   MusicallyInspired 

  • The Sarien Encounter

#13

I never got into C&C very much. During my RTS spree, a friend of mine introduced me to it and we played for a bit. But the thing about RTS games is that I liked the building more than the actual fighting. So I preferred Age of Empires to even Warcraft. The soundtracks were awesome, though. Specifically loved the tracks Just Do It and Hell March from the series.
2

User is offline   OpenMaw 

  • Judge Mental

#14

View PostMusicallyInspired, on 04 April 2018 - 05:11 AM, said:

I never got into C&C very much. During my RTS spree, a friend of mine introduced me to it and we played for a bit. But the thing about RTS games is that I liked the building more than the actual fighting. So I preferred Age of Empires to even Warcraft. The soundtracks were awesome, though. Specifically loved the tracks Just Do It and Hell March from the series.


It's sad because the newer versions of both C&C and Starcraft basically ruined strategy games for my brother. He was a turtler. He liked to build up defensive barriers and walls of turrets and really entrench areas. He'd harvest resources to utter depletition before moving forward.

It made it incredibly difficult to face him head on. I had to be sneaky with him or else he'd steam roll me. Unfortunately he didn't like my sneaky use of aircraft and artillery to chip his defenses. Break my forces down into rapid moving chunks, hit and run. Pick at and harass his weakest areas.

There was one game of C&C 3 where he built an entire wall of Obelisk. No joke. Wall-to-wall, and he kept building more and more, he built three or four layers of Obelisk towers.

I was still able to, somehow, cheese his defenses and wear him down. He had to sell huge chunks of the wall to build an army to counter-attack against my forces. He ran himself out of money.



Our true love always was RA2, but we were forced to abandon it and Tiberian Sun because of hardware compatibility. So we ended up spending a lot of our time in Generals.

Based on our strategies and our love for watching big engagements of tanks and such we did a couple of "machinima" movies back in the early oughts. Nostalgic.






What's funny is watching the game lag when the big fights start to overwhelm the computer. I really liked that Generals used "slow mo" to compensate for the slow down instead of getting stuttery and laggy. On lower end hardware the game simply played slower. I think this is a better solution when compared to time jump lag.

Running the game on a more modern system where everything is maxed out and it still runs like butter is incredibly though. Getting a huge swarm of GLA coming at you, and you blast em down in rapid succession with patriot missiles.... Oooh.
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User is offline   Micky C 

  • Honored Donor

#15

I can't remember whether I played Age of Empires 1 or Tiberian Sun first, but TS was certainly one of the first RTS games I've played, and I played though it several times over the years. As others have said, the atmosphere is incredible. I could never really get into Red Alert 2's singleplayer much though. Yuri's Revenge was a bit better. I enjoyed Generals and Zero Hour quite a bit. Unfortunately I never played much multiplayer in the franchise.

If you like Tiberian Sun, you might want to check out the AMC TC Episode 3 when it comes out :P

This post has been edited by Micky C: 05 April 2018 - 04:22 AM

1

User is offline   MrFlibble 

#16

I fully agree that Tiberian Sun is in many ways an amazing game in terms of atmosphere, but I still liked it less than the original C&C. It's probably because the sci-fi world felt too alien.

A while ago I read an article about TS's development and how it was rushed, and it sure feels when you play it. Some stuff was partially amended in Firestorm, notably the super-accurate Nod artillery was nerfed down, and the scripted dialogue is now fully voiced over. Those partial voice-overs in the original TS campaigns really give it away that something was not really fully baked upon the game's release. In this respect, I believe that RA2 truly took advantage of all the new stuff introduced in TS, with better-looking voxels, fully functional neutral buildings and more polished building sprites. But then again some "experimental" features like subterranean units, detectors and such are not used in RA2/YR.

Speaking of Tiberian Sun, what do you think of [url=http://www.twistedinsurrection.net/]Twisted Insurrection[/i]? It feels very Red Alert 2-y in the way it handles many things, the team did an incredible job with all the new assets and stuff.
1

User is offline   gemeaux333 

#17

CNC3 was ever more rushed, they said they only had several months for the development...
0

User is offline   Micky C 

  • Honored Donor

#18

Do you have a source for that?
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User is offline   OpenMaw 

  • Judge Mental

#19

Yeah I can't imagine they had "month" on a next gen title like that, especially since CNC3 was the first game on their new engine. Red Alert 3 I can believe.
1

User is offline   NNC 

#20

I now tell you my favourite missions (just for the sake of nobody):

RA1: Allied mission 8 and 10 (the one with the chrono base defense and the command center capture + indoor action by Tanya... both felt very intuitive) Soviet missions are weaker and rushed imho.
TibSun: From GDI of course "Defend crash site" and "Recapture Hammerfest" (easily the best in the game), from NOD it must be "Blackout" (one of the hardest missions in the game despite being a very early one) and "Sheep Clothing" for being an unique one. GDI missions are longer and harder IMHO.
Firestorm: the most epic final missions on both sides... that horror mech scared me at first.
RA2: this time, the soviet ones were the better, like "Chrono Defense" (amazing atmosphere), "The Fox and the Hound" (great, puzzle level) and "Red Revolution" for being the hardest level in the entire CnC franchise (not counting those hacky Covert ops levels).
Yuri's Revenge: probably the moon one for it's sillyness, but I think this was the start of the downhill of the entire franchise.

Never played Tiberium Wars sadly...
1

User is offline   NNC 

#21

View PostMrFlibble, on 05 April 2018 - 06:37 AM, said:

I fully agree that Tiberian Sun is in many ways an amazing game in terms of atmosphere, but I still liked it less than the original C&C. It's probably because the sci-fi world felt too alien.

A while ago I read an article about TS's development and how it was rushed, and it sure feels when you play it. Some stuff was partially amended in Firestorm, notably the super-accurate Nod artillery was nerfed down, and the scripted dialogue is now fully voiced over. Those partial voice-overs in the original TS campaigns really give it away that something was not really fully baked upon the game's release. In this respect, I believe that RA2 truly took advantage of all the new stuff introduced in TS, with better-looking voxels, fully functional neutral buildings and more polished building sprites. But then again some "experimental" features like subterranean units, detectors and such are not used in RA2/YR.

Speaking of Tiberian Sun, what do you think of [url=http://www.twistedinsurrection.net/]Twisted Insurrection[/i]? It feels very Red Alert 2-y in the way it handles many things, the team did an incredible job with all the new assets and stuff.


Tiberian Sun indeed went into development hell, but the atmosphere was very unique which compensated a lot of things. That Artillery was a joke though. You didn't even need the Obelisk, just train those for cheap prize, and 6 of them defended your base well even on hardest missions. That's why I think Blackout was the hardest of all NOD, because at that time you didn't have this advantage, and usually GDI had better low tech units. GDI missions like Weather the Storm were incredibly difficult due to the said Artillery, which defended the CPU base with the help of cloaking devices.

I'm not sure why this wasn't properly patched for the original game.

This post has been edited by Nancsi: 05 April 2018 - 11:25 PM

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User is offline   MrFlibble 

#22

View PostNancsi, on 05 April 2018 - 11:18 PM, said:

RA1: Allied mission 8 and 10 (the one with the chrono base defense and the command center capture + indoor action by Tanya... both felt very intuitive) Soviet missions are weaker and rushed imho.

The third (?) Soviet mission where you need to intercept the spy was interesting, although I generally felt that in RA1, missions had less variety than in C&C.

For one, in RA1 you never get a mission map choice that will actually lead to completely different missions, unlike C&C where this happens several times in each side's campaign tree. I'm guessing that longer and larger FMV briefings were the reason for not including more unique levels. Additionally C&C feels more of a tactical game with a tendency towards smaller unit squads and micromanagement, whereas RA1 is more often about commanding large groups of (usually) tanks. I guess this was in part intentional due to the different scale of conflict and warfare type depicted in each game though.

One of the more unique missions in C&C is of course the GDI Commando mission where you are told to destroy a Nod building but due to signal disruptions you don't know which building is the target. If you blow up any other building but the target one, the mission will count as completed but you'll get an extra mission next where you need to finish the job and destroy the proper building, this time using regular forces. Also the game will remember which building you destroyed previously and remove it from the map at the start of this extra level. Of course, the entire trick required hardcoded parts and AFAIK this was never used again in other games of the franchise.
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User is offline   Micky C 

  • Honored Donor

#23

View PostCommando Nukem, on 05 April 2018 - 08:48 PM, said:

Yeah I can't imagine they had "month" on a next gen title like that, especially since CNC3 was the first game on their new engine. Red Alert 3 I can believe.


CNC3 basically uses the same engine as Generals though doesn't it? It has a different name sure, but it's very heavily based on the former.


View PostNancsi, on 05 April 2018 - 11:18 PM, said:

TibSun: From GDI of course "Defend crash site" and "Recapture Hammerfest"


Recapture Hammerfest certainly was memorable.

View PostMrFlibble, on 06 April 2018 - 01:00 AM, said:

The third (?) Soviet mission where you need to intercept the spy was interesting, although I generally felt that in RA1, missions had less variety than in C&C.


One of the more unique missions in C&C is of course the GDI Commando mission where you are told to destroy a Nod building but due to signal disruptions you don't know which building is the target. If you blow up any other building but the target one, the mission will count as completed but you'll get an extra mission next where you need to finish the job and destroy the proper building, this time using regular forces. Also the game will remember which building you destroyed previously and remove it from the map at the start of this extra level. Of course, the entire trick required hardcoded parts and AFAIK this was never used again in other games of the franchise.


RA1 had those missions where you went inside a bunker which I felt was pretty unique. Those missions were sure a pain though. Infanty-only plus flame towers is not a good mix.

Wouldn't it make much more sense to have the commando destroy all the buildings? I mean, you have him break enemy lines, get within the base itself, destroy one random building and then it's like "ok, well time to mosey on out" :P Don't tell me it's a lack of explosives issue in a CnC game!
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User is offline   gemeaux333 

#24

The engine of CNC3 is Frostbite !
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User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#25

View PostCommando Nukem, on 05 April 2018 - 08:48 PM, said:

Yeah I can't imagine they had "month" on a next gen title like that, especially since CNC3 was the first game on their new engine. Red Alert 3 I can believe.

C&C3 used SAGE, the engine that powered Generals too though modified of course. Actually it was RA3 that introduced a substantial engine upgrade, EA called that one SAGE 2.0 though of course it's still based on the previous tech. RA3 looked quite amazing when it came out but it's a bit sad that they kept the 30 fps lock Generals and C&C3 had too.

When it comes to the development the problem was not a lack of budget but more the lack of experience: EA used most of the team that worked on the Battle for Middle Earth games with a bunch of people from Generals because the older C&C team was no longer there after Westwood got the finishing blow. EA LA managed to get a great team together by the end and of course C&C3 and RA3 were really good games but then something happened again because C&C4 was developed by a bunch of nobodies instead of the guys who knew what they were doing. :P

Edit: Anyway it's interesting to know that the lead designer of Red Alert 2, Dustin Browder was also the lead designer of StarCraft 2 and a bunch of people from the EA LA team worked on SC2 and its expansions at Blizzard after RA3. Now the deep development of SC2 is basically over and a bunch of those guys left Blizzard and they are working at EA again so there may very well be a new C&C in the works.

This post has been edited by Zaxx: 06 April 2018 - 11:33 AM

0

User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#26

View Postgemeaux333, on 06 April 2018 - 08:02 AM, said:

The engine of CNC3 is Frostbite !

Nope, only Generals 2 used Frostbite but that was cancelled apparently because people hated the alpha so much.
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User is offline   gemeaux333 

#27

Generals 2 would have used Frostbite as well, but EA no longer believed in CNC, that the true reason the last CNC game was canceled !
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User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#28

View Postgemeaux333, on 06 April 2018 - 11:59 AM, said:

EA no longer believed in CNC, that the true reason the last CNC game was canceled !

We'll never know but I have to say I think they made a good decision because the concept of a free-2-play C&C game that has no campaign but focuses on esport (something C&C was never known for) sounds pretty bad.
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User is offline   NNC 

#29

View PostMrFlibble, on 06 April 2018 - 01:00 AM, said:

The third (?) Soviet mission where you need to intercept the spy was interesting, although I generally felt that in RA1, missions had less variety than in C&C.

For one, in RA1 you never get a mission map choice that will actually lead to completely different missions, unlike C&C where this happens several times in each side's campaign tree. I'm guessing that longer and larger FMV briefings were the reason for not including more unique levels. Additionally C&C feels more of a tactical game with a tendency towards smaller unit squads and micromanagement, whereas RA1 is more often about commanding large groups of (usually) tanks. I guess this was in part intentional due to the different scale of conflict and warfare type depicted in each game though.

One of the more unique missions in C&C is of course the GDI Commando mission where you are told to destroy a Nod building but due to signal disruptions you don't know which building is the target. If you blow up any other building but the target one, the mission will count as completed but you'll get an extra mission next where you need to finish the job and destroy the proper building, this time using regular forces. Also the game will remember which building you destroyed previously and remove it from the map at the start of this extra level. Of course, the entire trick required hardcoded parts and AFAIK this was never used again in other games of the franchise.


I actually don't like the idea that I can't play through every type of level. The way TS handled it was much more interesting with the optional missions which made the prime ones easier.
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User is offline   NNC 

#30

View PostMicky C, on 06 April 2018 - 03:04 AM, said:

CNC3 basically uses the same engine as Generals though doesn't it? It has a different name sure, but it's very heavily based on the former.




Recapture Hammerfest certainly was memorable.



RA1 had those missions where you went inside a bunker which I felt was pretty unique. Those missions were sure a pain though. Infanty-only plus flame towers is not a good mix.

Wouldn't it make much more sense to have the commando destroy all the buildings? I mean, you have him break enemy lines, get within the base itself, destroy one random building and then it's like "ok, well time to mosey on out" :P Don't tell me it's a lack of explosives issue in a CnC game!


Not to mention Tanya (or the CnC commando) doesn't attack without order. That was particulary painful against dogs.
1

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