Command and Conquer

Tiberian Sun

 
Developer: Westwood Studios

Distributor: Electronic Arts

Media type: 2 CD's

Available:Now.

Review submitted by: Mandragon

You can visit his site by clicking here.		  

        Ever since the ending credits of the first Command and Conquer game showed scenes for Command and Conquer 2, I have been waiting for this game to finally hit the shelves. Five years and too many missed release dates to count, Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun has finally made the transition from vaporware to software. I'm not sure I should have waited.

The game is set a few years in the future from where the original game left off. Nod (and Kane) have reappeared with a vengeance. New weapons, new goals and anew plan for global domination of sorts. Of course that is if you play as the Global Defense Initiative forces (GDI).  Nod, on the other hand, has fractured. And it is up to you to reunite the Brotherhood of Nod and take them into their rightful place as the true leaders of the planet (or what is left of it).

    The game comes on two CD's and other than my CD-ROM picking a moment in the exact middle of the install to give up the ghost, (guess you can only have a 6 X so long) the installation was a breeze. The game installed both the single player and the Internet version. To play the game you must have the appropriate CD in your drive for the forces you wish to play GDI or Nod. A FMV (FULL MOTION VIDEO CLIP) comes before each mission to give some background and add a little eye-candy. There are approximately 10 missions per side. And they range in difficulty from blindingly simple to nightmarishly hard. With a difficulty slider that you can set from easy to normal to hard. You also have a time compression slider to help pass those idle minutes waiting for the new cyborg to be built.

  The graphics while nicer than the original's graphics are still nothing that 5 years wouldn't have made them have to do anyway, but I've played it for hours. While adding some spice, the new units are not that awe inspiring, but I've played them for hours. The AI is at times more annoying than truly challenging. An example would be the final mission for GDI, at least for me. A 3 man squad of Nod troops begins blowing up the city. Well behind their own lines and not a part of the overall mission there would be no reason to kill them. But the AI has them blow up all the civilian buildings and then they begin shooting at the ground. For over an hour. The constant sound of machine gun fire. It cost two tanks and a dozen troops, after the real mission was over, to silence this noise. But I have played it for hours. Missions are broken down into three types. Small group operations where you only have three or four troops to control. Grand battles where you build up your forces and then pound the enemy into submission, and timed battles where you must reach your goals before time runs out. Thank the programming gods that someone thought to include a save that can be used at any time during the mission. On the timed missions it doesn't come in that handy, but on the big full blown battles, that can take hours to complete, it is a welcomed way to take a break.

The Internet portion of the game is set up through Westwood on-line. Two to four players can battle it out in non- tournament and tournament bouts. Also clans have formed and there is a ladder play option. Setting up a game is fairly straight forward , with options for team color and forces to be used. Lag can be seen by small indicator bars that appear next to players names.

Time for the verdict. I hate this game, but I have played it for hours. If you have been expecting this game to be the next best thing to sliced bread then you are likely to be disappointed. The graphics are nicely done but nothing to write home about. The single game has some missions that will take an hour or two to solve the correct path and locations you must find, all the time wishing for some sort of cheat code so you can move on to the next level. And the AI can sometimes have you asking what in the world it did that for. But overall it is an addictive game that has you wanting to build that last tank to vanquish the enemy once and for all. The only real problem I have with the game is the overly violent cut scenes. Throats slit, gunshots to the back of the head, blood splattering over the landscape. Not that in themselves they are anything close to some of the slasher movie, but they appear more gruesome in the game because you don't expect to see them in a game. Other than that I would buy the game all over again if given the chance. It's just that my expectations would not be quite as high. MD


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