I’m A Mechanical Man

This week I was supposed to be on holiday in Cornwall eating pasties and drinking Korev beer. Sadly COVID-19 has put a stop to that for now. Not to worry because Command & Conquer Remastered was released last week and I decided it would be a great way to fill some of the time off I have from work.

I first played Command & Conquer: Red Alert on my cousin’s PlayStation. It was the first strategy game I had ever played and I was hooked despite the pad being absolutely terrible for these kind of games. I then got hold of Command & Conquer for the PC, then Red Alert and the expansions, then everything up to the disappointing C&C 4 back in 2010 which was the last entry in the series. Needless to say Real-time Strategy (RTS) games have been my favourite and C&C my most beloved game series of them all. I’ve played a lot of the greats: Age of Empires, StarCraft, Total Annihilation, Total War, Civilization, Dawn of War. Not one of them in my opinion has ever come close to the classic blend of “thrills, spills and kills” (plus Frank Klepacki’s top notch soundtracks and the B-Movie FMVs of course).

I was very excited back when C&C Remastered was first announced and I’ve been following its development fervently. EA sought assistance from the original Westwood team that went on to establish Petroglyph and also Lemon Sky Studios who have leant their talents to other remasters in the art department. Frank Klepacki provided the remastered soundtrack to both Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert as well as joining forces with live act The Tiberian Sons to add their cover tracks in. The only slight disappointment has been that the source for the FMVs have been lost so AI enhanced upscales have been used and also LAN play has been held back for topical reasons.

And now it’s finally here. From the intro cinematic both of these remastered games speak volumes about the effort that has gone into the game. Both the classic installation sequences were re-done as an intro FMV. These really helped to set the tone for the C&C games and it’s an incredible touch. The upscaled graphics and sound effects are very crisp and look outstanding on my QHD monitor.

Gameplay remains quite the same as the original games. I have been playing through the original Tiberian Dawn GDI missions which I have found quite challenging. They don’t code ’em like they used to. Some missions are straightforward build base and eliminate opponent but some take the form of almost a puzzle. I’ve had to do quite a few restarts due to catastrophic failures but I’ve never felt frustrated.

The bonus gallery unlocks a new video each time a mission is completed. These are fascinating to watch as they show each actor directed by Joseph Kucan doing multiple takes to get the perfect cut. A lot of work went into the original game and it’s great to get a look at the archives.

My most favourite part of the game is pressing the magic spacebar key. This switches the graphics between the upscaled assets and the original graphics. As a long time C&C fan I really love hitting the key as the action heats up. It really brings back the memories.

EA have also released the source code for the game DLLs on GitHub so we hopefully will see the mod scene for the game reinvigorated. Time will tell.

So overall a very pleasing release for C&C fans that I will be playing online for some time.