Note: Screenshots taken from the Windows re-release

We've got a fun one this time.

Developer: Westwood Studios Inc.

Publisher: Virgin Interactive Entertainment Ltd.

History: Westwood Studios single handedly created the real time strategy genre in 1992 with Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty when they came up with the idea to take the strategy genre (which was up until that point turn based) in a new direction. Dune II was met with critical acclaim, and following that game's success Westwood set out to create a new series in the same vein. Thus Command & Conquer was born.

Gameplay: Command & Conquer set out to bring the military, economic, and construction aspects of the strategy genre into a real time environment on a larger scale than Dune II and it for the most part succeeded. The game centered around two warring factions: the U.N. funded military organization the Global Defense Initiative (GDI), and a large faction of religious terrorists known as the Brotherhood of Nod who fanatically followed their self-proclaimed Messiah Kane. The gameplay of C&C consisted of building up a base, and a military force by collecting a glowing green extra-terrestrial mineral known as Kryptonite - sorry I mean Tiberium which was transformed into credits when a harvester returned to a Tiberium Refinery. Using these credits you could build new structures and train new units.

Your primary objective was usually to destroy every last enemy structure and unit on the map, so in a way the game was fairly straight forward. Some missions actually tried to mix this up though; for example there were commando missions where you had to guide one lone commando across a map and destroy certain targets. Most of the missions in the game did ultimately come down to completely wiping out the enemy, though.

Design: Due to the rather simplistic nature of the artificial intelligence a lot of C&C's many missions were setup in a way that forced the player to use certain units for certain tasks, or started the player out with a small team that had to take out certain targets before being able to deploy a construction yard. For example in one mission you may have had a small team with no base, and you had to take a certain path with certain units to ambush certain types of enemies so that your primary group could pass through a canyon in one piece and setup a base on the other side. This made the game somewhat interesting because it forced the player to think on their feet and learn the strengths and weaknesses of every unit type under their command. It also forced some folks to tear the hair right out of their head.

One aspect of C&C that everyone liked (and if they say otherwise they're lying) was the full motion videos that played between missions. There were basically three types of FMVs; the briefing which usually featured an actor (usually a developer) playing the role of a commanding officer, then the pre-mission and post-mission FMVs which were usually just flashy videos that contained some action and generally contributed nothing to the overall storyline.

Nostalgia Factor: My first C&C game was actually the original Red Alert (blasphemy!), but it's been long enough for my perspective on this game to be painted partially by nostalgia since I played it shortly after Red Alert.

Critical Reception: Command & Conquer received positive reviews when it came out. Reviewers seemed to enjoy its fast gameplay. Here is the Gamespot review, and here is the MetaCritic page.

How it holds up: Unfortunately unless you just want to see the storyline first hand, not well. Command & Conquer games (usually) improved with every sequel, and the original C&C didn't even feature a skirmish function. Basically the game is just a combination of primitive AI, and scripted single player missions. Command & Conquer is still a game that belongs in any collector's museum despite its antiquated design, though; along with Dune II the original Command & Conquer was a game that defined an entire genre.

Legacy: Command & Conquer is generally considered a masterpiece for its time, and has lead to a prequel, and a legion of sequels and spinoffs. On top of that C&C played a major role in defining the RTS genre. The main storyline of the series will actually be seeing a conclusion next year with EA's Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight. Let's hope it's actually good.

Useless Trivia:

- Command & Conquer had a small expansion called Command & Conquer: Covert Operations.

- The game actually has a story subtitle like the rest of the games in the series, but it can only be found in the old DOS readme files. The full name of the original C&C is Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn.

- Kane is bald.

External Links:

Command & Conquer on Moby Games

Freeware release of Command & Conquer