A couple of years ago, Westwood Studios and Virgin released a real-time strategy game called Dune 2. In it, you battled for control of melange, a spice that enhanced human psychic ability and allowed space travel. You built units to protect your harvesters, which would transport spice back to your base, which turned into money, which let you build more units, and around and around we go.
Even aside from the fact that the game was based on a highly successful science-fiction license, Dune 2 was a smash success. It combined action and strategy in an entirely new way, resulting in highly addictive gameplay that won over a huge number of gamers. Naturally, Westwood wanted to create a scenario disk to cash in on the large volume of Dune 2 players out there . . . and lo, at the end of that long and winding path, there came Command and Conquer.
In Command and Conquer, you battle for control of Tiberium, a mineral that attracts other precious substances, creating lumps on the surface which can be mined almost effortlessly. You build units to protect your harvesters, which transport Tiberium back to your base, which turns into money, which lets you build more units, and around and around we go.
In short, Command and Conquer has kept everything good from Dune 2 - addictive gameplay, fast and frantic action - and added excellent rendered graphics, more units, and mind-boggling cut scenes. Is this a good game? Is that the point I'm trying to make? Why, yes, I believe it is. This is not only a good game, it's an excellent one, and if you don't run out and buy it right now, you should be slapped.
What's new? The interface has been simplified. All you do is click to select a unit, then click somewhere to tell it what to do. Click on an empty space, and the unit goes there. Click on an opponent, and the unit attacks it. Click on another of your pieces (for example, selecting infantry and clicking an APC, or selecting a vehicle and clicking on a Repair Bay), and the unit takes some special action (infantry gets into APC, vehicle gets repaired). You can also repair or sell off buildings, and certain units have special actions unto themselves (like telling an APC to unload) initiated by selecting them and clicking on them again.
The cut scenes. Let me tell ya 'bout cut scenes. This is some excellent digitized video, and the acting/voice acting (most of which appears to have been done by Westwood employees) is decent. The rendered animations, of course, are second to none. If Westwood's 3D artists aren't the best in the gaming industry, they're close enough for government work.
The units. There are a ton of units in this game. Four different kinds of infantry (minigunners, grenadiers, bazookas and flamethrowers, plus engineers that can take over enemy buildings), several different types of tanks, APCs which can transport infantry, Hummers, dune buggies, recon bikes, artillery, rocket launchers, helicopters and air strikes. And buildings. Lots of buildings. Tiberium refineries, silos to store Tiberium, barracks to make new infantry, weapons factories to make new vehicles, power plants, gun turrets, communications centers, and more.
What's bad? Not much. The units' behavior is sometimes a little quirky. Harvesters will wander long distances across the battlefield when there are closer pockets of Tiberium that involve trickier paths. From what the developers tell me, this was a deliberate design choice; they could have made all the units really smart, but then, they wouldn't need you to direct them and the game could play itself. Also, there's no "fog of war" effect. Once you've cleared a section of the map, you can always see enemy troops moving through it. People complained about this with Warcraft, and they're probably going to complain about it with C&C. It hardly kills the game, however.
A couple of really minor nit-picks aside, this is probably the cleanest, most gripping game I've played all year. It's honestly the first one I've played in several months that I felt compelled to continue playing after finishing the review. If you have the slightest urge to play a real-time strategy game, I guarantee you'll like Command and Conquer. If you don't have such an urge, play a friend's copy. You'll probably like it anyway.
