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Command & Conquer is a real-time strategy series of computer games released by the game developer Westwood Studios, now a part of Electronic Arts.
Tiberian Series
Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow. The original Command & Conquer series features two warring factions called the United Nations Global Defense Initiative (GDI) and the quasi-state terrorist group, the Brotherhood of Nod.
Conflict is centered over control of a new resource called Tiberium, an exotic material discovered by Dr. Ignatio Mobius near the Tiber River in Italy in 1995. Tiberium extracts minerals from the land it sits upon and deposits them in above-ground crystals that are simple to process into useful materials.
However, Tiberium has a darker side; it emits harmful radiation and toxic gases, causing mutations in all forms of life. Almost certainly extraterrestrial in origin, it is generally thought of to have come to Earth by a meteor impact, although some speculate that its true nature is as an alien terraforming agent. Tiberium is a disruptive technology and the source of Nod's rise to global power.
While the GDI focuses on research on making Tiberium into useful materials and mitigating the damage to Earth's people and ecosystem, Nod's position is to embrace Tiberium as the herald of a new age. Nod has done heavy research into Tiberium-based weaponry, and its leader, Kane, has designs to convert the entire planet to a Tiberium-based ecosystem. The GDI was created by status quo nations to counter Kane's plans for a new world order. The Brotherhood of Nod excels at manipulating the media to turn world opinion against the GDI.
Unique to the game series is that the player can play as the "bad guys" (Nod) instead of the GDI. These events are non-Canon, as each game implies that the "Good Guys" won the earlier conflict.
Games in the Tiberian Command & Conquer series are:
- Command & Conquer (Tiberian Dawn)
- Command & Conquer: The Covert Operations
- Command & Conquer: Sole Survivor
- Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun
- Command & Conquer: Renegade
Command & Conquer (1995) The original Command & Conquer (aka Tiberian Dawn), was one of the first popular realtime strategy games. Its runaway success launched the genre. Originally released for MS-DOS, a "Gold" version for Windows 95 was released in 1997. An expansion pack, The Covert Operations, was also released.
The game portrays the player as a battlefield commander. Through an Electronic Video Agent (EVA), the commander remotely controls base construction, defense, and attacks against the enemy. Set in the 2000s, commanders are given control of modern and near-future military infrastructure.
The game's plot is detailed and shown in cutscenes between missions. By the official plotline, Nod's leader, Kane, is assumed dead when the Temple of Nod in Sarajevo was destroyed by GDI's space-based Ion Cannon. The alternate ending shows Nod's hackers hijacking GDI's Ion Cannon to destroy a world landmark of the player's choice.
Interestingly, many people saw religious aspects in the original C&C game. The "bad guy leader", Kane, was thought by some to be Cain, the biblical character who killed his brother. To further this, some texts in the manual point to a Bible passage which involves Cain and the Land of Nod. Some even believed that later games would focus on the return of Abel, and that the material war would give way to a 'spiritual' war.
Command & Conquer: Sole Survivor (1997) Command & Conquer - Sole Survivor was a poorly received multiplayer spinoff of the original C&C game. It was a deathmatch-type game in which each player controlled one tank, the game was primarily developed for Internet and network play but never really became a popular part of the C&C universe.
Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun (1999) C&C: Tiberian Sun in-game screenshot. Tiberian Sun took much the same formula as the original, however, the cutscenes included characters representing the commanders themselves. While it made for better storytelling, it also distanced the player from the game by not treating them directly as the commander. The new 3D game engine featured hills.
Set in the 2030s, Tiberian Sun relied much more heavily on Science Fiction than its predecessor. Military technology included pulse rifles, battle mecha, and skirtless hovercraft. In one set of missions the commander must attack or defend a crashed alien spacecraft.
The plot thickened as Kane seemingly came back from the dead, picking up the pieces of the fractured Brotherhood to wage war against GDI again. Prospects for humanity began to look grim, as Tiberium had spread pervasively throughout all temperate areas of the globe, forcing most people to move into GDI refugee camps in the Antarctic.
Tiberian Sun was originally planned as a BattleMech game, as shown in a teaser video of the original Command & Conquer. However, Westwood Studios later decided to abandon this project and revert to creating a sequel to the original strategy computer game, which is the Tiberian Sun we now know.
Firestorm Expansion (2000) In Tiberian Sun: Firestorm, GDI fights Nod while its computer system CABAL becomes a renegade faction of its own after it turns on its original creators. Without a computer system to help them, Nod falls into disarray and steals GDI's EVA. The two factions must then join forces to stop CABAL from destroying the world.
Command & Conquer: Renegade (2002) Command & Conquer: Renegade is a first-person shooter game set in the world of the original Command & Conquer. Set between Tiberian Dawn and Tiberian Sun, the player plays the role of GDI commando Nick Parker in his storm through Nod territory.
Renegade's storyline deals with the abduction of GDI's top three tiberium research specialists. GDI's special forces commando Nick "Havoc" Parker is assigned to rescue the scientists, who have been forced by Nod into bio-chemistry reaserch for the Brotherhood's top secret "Project Re-Genesis": an attempt to create genetically enhanced super soldiers. Nearly every unit and most of the structures players were exposed to in the orginal Command & Conquer have been re-created in the game.
Although it is said to be set after Command & Conquer and before Tiberian Sun, the game seems to be an expansion of a GDI mission in the original C&C, in which Dr. Mobius was abducted by Nod and the player is charged with rescuing him.
The game engine, called the "Renegade engine" or "Westwood3D", was developed in-house by Westwood. It is claimed to support real world physics and allow seamless movement from indoor to outdoor environments.
Command & Conquer: Tiberian Twilight (Speculative) Command & Conquer: Tiberian Twilight is the expected title of the third RTS in the Tiberian plotline.
The development of the game is currently stalled. While it was once promised to be out by the end of 2003, the project was caught in the midst of EA's reorganization, and the C&C development team was assigned to work on The Battle for Middle Earth, an RTS version of the Tolkien novels.
The game is likely to be further delayed as resources at EA LA are pursuing a new Red Alert game [1] (http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/12/06/news_6114540.html), much to the ire of many fans of the series.
Very little hard information is available on it at this time. Fans expect the game will take on even heavier sci-fi tones than Tiberian Sun, potentially pitting GDI directly against theorized alien invaders.
In mid-2004 concept artwork for the game was leaked onto the Internet, and an Australian gaming website claimed it had received word from an insider (http://www.gamebiz.com.au/news.php?action=display&id=4765) that Tiberian Twilight was in the works; this no longer seems to be the case.
Red Alert Series - Main article: Command & Conquer: Red Alert
The spin-off Red Alert series is set in an alternate timeline, created when Albert Einstein travels back in time and assassinates Adolf Hitler, resulting in unchecked Soviet aggression as they press into Europe.
The games typically follow the release of a game in the Tiberian timeline; however EA is currently working on a new Red Alert game instead of the anticipated Tiberian Twilight.
Early games in the Red Alert series implied that the events of these games were the origins for the conflict in the original Command & Conquer (Kane appears as an advisor to Joseph Stalin), as well implying that the Red Alert series was a ploy by Kane himself. As the Red Alert series became arguably more popular than the original C&C series, this idea was phased out.
The games and expansion packs in the series:
- Red Alert
- Red Alert: Counterstrike
- Red Alert: The Aftermath
- Red Alert: Retaliation
- Red Alert 2
- Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge
The Red Alert series has a sequel based on the Tiberian Sun engine, Red Alert 2, and an expansion pack, Yuri's Revenge. In Red Alert 2, the Soviet Union invades the United States, using mind control technology to capture US forces and deactivate America's nuclear arsenal. In Yuri's Revenge, Soviet Premier Romanov's advisor Yuri attempts to overtake the world using his psycic dominator technology. A last second attempt to divert Yuri's plans sends the player back to the original Red Alert 2, but instead of fighting the Soviets/Allies, the player fights against Yuri.
Westwood also released a music disc with the music from the Red Alert series. This disc was bundled with some later versions of the game.
In Decemeber 2004, EA confirmed that work has begun on a 3rd Game in the RA series, However no screenshots or further infomation was revealed at this time.Source (http://www.neowin.net/comments.php?id=26137&category=gamers) A handful of people have speculated that the this game may involve technology pilfered by the Soviet Union while it occupied Area 51, however that has not been confirmed.
Command & Conquer: Generals The GLA fires off its SCUD Storm, the superweapon for that faction. Command & Conquer: Generals is the most recent C&C-branded game, though its plotline is completely unrelated to the other games of the series. Also unlike previous C&C games, Generals and the Zero Hour expansion were developed by EA Los Angeles, where the remaining members of Westwood Studios were transferred to when EA shuttered Westwood's Las Vegas studios.
It utilizes Westwood's W3D engine developed for Renegade and is the first fully three-dimensional Command & Conquer game. Hardcore fans of the C&C universe were quick to note that this was the first C&C game ever that did not include cut scenes to tell the story.
In Generals, there are three different factions: the USA, China, and the Global Liberation Army (GLA). The GLA is a terrorist organization that is trying to free the world. The Chinese and the USA are the targets of the GLA. This story is followed by the game's expansion pack: Command & Conquer: Generals: Zero Hour
The music of Generals is of different style for each faction. The opening and ending background music for China's campaign also features China's national anthem, March of the Volunteers. The US's Backround music contains triumphant millitary marches, composed by Bill Brown. The GLA's music is a combination of Arabic music and heavy metal, similar to the Somalian sequences in Black Hawk Down.
Command & Conquer: Generals - Zero Hour The US deploys a Spectre Gunship to lay down fire over a targeted area. Carrying on from the USA ending of the original, the expansion pack made huge changes to the game dynamic by introducing three customizations for each of the three sides under the guise of a 'General', with different unique properties in its own units and tactics. There are nine in total, of which they are:
China
A General who utilize hordes of elite soldiers. All soldiers are trained as veteran. He does not have tanks, but have Attack outpost (Improved version created with 4 Tank Hunters inside with 6 more extra slot for infantries), transport with 8 mini-gunners (gatling infantry, consider them as mini gatling tanks) and Attack Helix which got 8 slots for infantries (instead of the 3 slots of normal helix, but does not have the propaganda tower upgrade nor the gatling tower upgrade, since loaded mini-gunners are human gatling towers). Hackers are stealth and got a Super Lotus which got a lot of improved stats. He also got Mini-gunners drop which are deadly when dropped near enemy airports. A General who love to roll tanks to enemies. All tanks are built as veteran, and got Battlemaster tank drop ability. His battlemasters can be upgraded with autoloader to fire three shells (4 when Hero) in a row. Overlord is replaced by Emperor tanks, which have built in propaganda tower, and can be upgraded with a gatling tower, truly the King of tanks. Nuclear power lover, he uses nuclear weapon whenever possible. He got much more effective power plants, and battlemasters and overlords got shells which spread radiation. Migs got nuclear payload upgrade, and can launch missiles with the power of a nuke cannon shell (with the mobility of an aircraft, a few nuclear migs and fend off offensives in a gap, e.g. Tounament Island). His nuclear missles are 10% cheaper than normal.
USA
Like the Nuclear general, he is a laser lover. He got laser batteries instead of patriot missiles, which never miss. He also got laser tanks, which fire very cool lasers. Its only weakness is everything drains power. Luckily, his power plants are made to be more efficient to meet the needs. King of the skies, his aircrafts rules. All his aircrafts got laser defenses, which can fend off some missiles, and King raptors got espicially effective laser defense, which can fend off more missiles than its brother, and nearly invulnerable to missiles when upgraded with countermeasures. King raptors can detect stealth and got a larger payload, which can take down a chinook in 1 run. King raptors are the nightmare of USA players in a early stage since USA got missles as anti-air in the early stage of a game. He also got stealth commanches upgrade, which make players able to sneak commanches into enemy bases and blow it up. He can also build Combat chinooks, which are similiar to attack helixs. Last, but not the least is his ability to call in a B2 bomber (called B3 in the game, but it is a B2 anyway) to saturate an area with bombs. Consider as a overpowered general after patching, she rules after she got Aurora Alphas. She got very very efficient power plants (twice as much as a normal one) and got EMP patriots sites which will disable tanks. Her Auroras are espicially lethal, since it got a payload of a fuel air bomb, which is just a bit weaker than the b-52 one, but with invulnerability before dropping the bomb. She is way too overpowered that most players ban others from using her, or her auroras.
GLA
Other info Other games made by Westwood Studios: There is also an open source project (not affiliated with Westwood) called FreeCNC that aims to clone the gameplay and allow users to play on non-Win32 operating systems, and that uses the original game graphic files.
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