C&C: Retaliation Details

Michael Ward , Westwood's associate producer on that company's upcoming PlayStation port of Command & Conquer shared some information on the upcoming title from Westwood.

GameSpot News: Are all the units introduced in the PC add-ons also introduced in Retaliation? (tesla tank, MAD tank, etc.)Michael Ward: Yes GSN: Will the game be on two discs?MW: Yes, one for Soviet missions and one for Allied. GSN: Is the music the same as the PC?MW: We're using some tracks from Sole Survivor, and some of the tracks are re-mixes of older Red Alert music. It's sort of a "Greatest Hits" package from Frank Klepacki, our music man. Bottom line, the music for Retaliation is not the same exact music that was used in either Counterstrike, The Aftermath, or Red Alert, and all the tracks are new to the PlayStation. GSN: Is the port exact? Are there any differences?MW: Well, obviously the first issue we tackled was how to best implement an "Add-on" pack on the PlayStation. Although Counterstrike and The Aftermath were treated as add-ons to an already great product, we knew that the PlayStation version would require something that could stand on its own, independent of Red Alert. Rather than present the missions as one big list and allow the player all-access, we organized the missions into "campaigns" according to their level of difficulty and geographical location. At the start of a new game the player is given a military rank only allowing access to the first (easiest) campaign. The player increases his rank by winning missions; as his rank increases he is given access to more difficult campaigns. Another difference, at least when compared to Red Alert PSX, is that Retaliation provides full memory card support. Players can now save their games (missions won and current rank) in progress after any mission. Lastly, we have also developed a storyline to provide a context in which the various campaigns and missions exist. We have written a script and are going to be shooting new FMV briefings to support the story. GSN: Will there be any additional missions in the console version? How many missions are there total? MW: No new missions were created for Retaliation. There are a total of 34 regular missions, which is exactly the number found in Counterstrike and The Aftermath combined. There may be a few additional hidden missions, however ... if you remember playing Counterstrike. ;)

GSN: Will there be any other kind of additions in the console version? MW: Again, as stated above, we have added a storyline and will include new FMV briefing movies for the various campaigns. Although used in other PC titles, none of the cut scenes have been seen before on the PlayStation. GSN: How fast does the game run?MW: How fast is fast? Let's say that it runs at the same speed as Red Alert PSX. If you have lots and lots of units on screen, you may notice a slight performance hit, but overall the game runs at a very comfortable clip. Also, the player does have the option to adjust the game speed via the in-game menu, so beginners and veterans alike can both be happy. GSN: Has anything been retooled or reconditioned for the PlayStation? MW: The only adjustments that we made had solely to do with play balancing the missions. We found that in certain cases some missions behaved slightly different than their PC counterparts, sometimes causing the mission to become either too easy or too difficult. In such instances we did a little fine-tuning, but this only affected a tiny percentage of the missions. Last words: We kept everything good about Red Alert PSX, added a compelling storyline supported with FMV briefings, and eliminated the one gripe people had, namely lack of memory card support. Retaliation will be a blast.