Command & Conquer

Command & Conquer is a game released by Westwood Studios in 1995. This studio was founded in 1985 and was based in Las Vegas. Before being assimilated by Electronic Arts in 2003, it was best known for developing games in RTS, RPG and adventure genres. These days the studio doesn’t exist anymore. Its former employees left or joined the ranks of EA, when EA got more and more control over the C&C franchise. The employees that left the studio founded a new studio, Petroglyph.

In Command & Conquer you play on the side of the Global Defense Initiative, or GDI, and on the side of the Brotherhood of Nod. The two factions battle over a strange, alien and crystal-like resource called tiberium, that’s slowly spreads over the entire Earth and infects everything and all.

About the factions:
- GDI: the GDI is in the C&C universe the militarized branch of the United Nations. It came forth from a secret military alliance between the most industrialized and advanced countries that are part of the UN. It became known as the response of the international community to Tiberium and the ever increasing influence of the Brotherhood of NOD. It has access to the most advanced units and building existing in the C&C universe.
- The Brotherhood of NOD: the Brotherhood of NOD is an ancient and secret society that predates most of civilizations recorded history. NOD is a religious cult that follows a mysterious leader only known as Kane.

The 2 factions look almost alike but that doesn’t mean that the tactics used by the factions is the same. GDI has heavy and strong units that are expensive while NOD has weaker but way cheaper units. From this comparison you can guess that GDI goes for a more direct attack. NOD relies heavily on hit-and-run tactics, active camouflage and guerilla warfare.

In almost every battle you start with an MCV, the Mobile construction vehicle that unpacks into a construction yard, or with a construction yard already in place. From that central point you build your base. The usual buildings you would expect in a RTS are here present. Think of power plants, refineries, barracks etc. What caught my eye in C&C is that the more production buildings you have, the faster the production of a unit. So it’s a good idea to have a good number of production buildings at your base. Though this feature is very useful, there is 1 problem that rises the more buildings you have. That problem is that all, I mean all your buildings, have to touch another building. Every building in your base must have contact with the construction yard. This means that your base can become an interlocking puzzle. But the developers thought about that and made sure that every building has a space in front of it where units can move over.

Every building in C&C is used as a tech requirement. So if you want units or abilities that are higher up the tech tree, you are forced to build the required building. When a building is destroyed that was needed for a unit or ability, then the ability becomes unavailable and building the unit becomes impossible.

Your main and only resource is tiberium that ‘grows’ in fields. A harvester, that spawns with every refinery built, collects the crystals and brings them to a refinery. From the collected tiberium crystals, you receive credits of which you can buy buildings and units.

I found some little things in C&C that I found to be annoying. When you order a single unit or a group of units to a spot, they only seem to care how to get from point A to point B. So they ignore every enemy unit that crosses their path and don’t mind being shot at.
Another issue is that a unit tends to get very close to an enemy building to attack it, especially when another unit is throwing grenades at the building or a tank is firing at it.

Now, some good things. The sound when an infantry unit dies is absolutely hilarious, it sounds like someone is ripping his heart out and when it gets run over by a tank you get a nice rewarding splattering sound. The background music is, well good is a big word, it isn’t bad. The maps have been well designed and the terrain looks good for a game from 1995. Graphics aren’t a thing you should look at, that is a thing for games of today.

So in the end Command & Conquer is a good game, with some small irritations. It has a solid campaign that has a combined mission pack of 50 missions, has funny effects and is a good strategy game. I really enjoyed playing this game.