Command & Conquer
- Command & Conquer (1996 on PlayStation, 2008 on PSP, PlayStation 3)
- Command & Conquer (1999 on Nintendo 64)
Description official descriptions
Command & Conquer develops ideas from Westwood's previous game Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty, forming a real-time strategy (RTS) game. The control system involves selecting units with the mouse and then directing them, while the opponents make their moves without waiting for a "turn" to end.
The game focuses on a war between two organizations, The Brotherhood of Nod and the Global Defense Initiative, which fight not only for global supremacy, but also over the mysterious extraterrestrial resource known as Tiberium which is highly valuable yet lethal to direct human contact. The player can take control of either side for more than 15 missions. Both have different units and structures, including artillery, tanks and light infantry.
In most missions, a base needs to be built first in order to build new units and structures. Most important are the harvesters, which collect Tiberium and deliver it to a refinery, where it's converted into money, thus funding the construction of a base and an army.
The game also features FMV mission briefings and victory cutscenes.
Spellings
- コマンド&コンカー - Japanese spelling
- 命令与征服 - Simplified Chinese spelling
- 終極動員令 - Traditional Chinese spelling
Groups +
- Command & Conquer franchise
- Command & Conquer: Tiberium universe
- EA Classics releases
- Game feature: BGM / music player
- Green Pepper releases
- Live action cut-scenes
- Satakore (SegaSaturn Collection) releases
- Setting: 1990s
- Setting: City - Belgrade
- Setting: Country - Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Setting: Country - Poland
- Setting: Country - South Africa
- Total Entertainment Network (TEN) multiplay platform
- White Label releases
Screenshots
Promos
Videos
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Credits (DOS version)
115 People (107 developers, 8 thanks) · View all
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[ full credits ] |
Reviews
Critics
Average score: 85% (based on 42 ratings)
Players
Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 208 ratings with 12 reviews)
The yardstick by which all RTS are measured.
The Good
The gameplay is a refinement of Dune II : The Building of a Dynasty. You establish your base, build defences for it, and ensure you have a supply of income through the collection of tiberium.
C&C established the standard gameplay elements that all latter RTS were based on. The User Interface was well done with it being possible to create groupings of units that could be easily called and sent into battle.
Unlike WarCraft, C&C did not counter the two sides with duplicated units, but had GDI and Nod forces possess unique units that countered each other. Infantry could be effective in groups against tanks, yet were vulnerable to artillery. Artillery was in turn vulnerable to tanks. An intricate rock-paper-scissors balance was crafted.
Graphics were excellent and the carnage that ensued from the battles was a delight to behold. Infantry crawl on their stomachs to avoid being pulverized, tanks smoke when damaged, the bases are all well drawn and distinctive. Full Motion Video filmed top notch actors to help set the scenes of the game. Most of the missions had clear goals.
The music and sound is top-notch. The sound of the battles is loudest when your screen is centered on the action and is more muffled when you are away from the battles looking after
your base or harvesters.
The Bad
The AI is weak, not mounting much of an assault, and is helped with some challenge base layouts. Basically, tackling a based requires a tactical hand, first of all disabling the defensive turrets, then throwing waves of armour at the enemy. It is not very skillful, but is a lot of fun. At times, units reacted poorly to being attacked and not responding
with returning fire which was frustrating.
The Bottom Line
Set in a fictional future where two global forces (Global Defence Initiative & the Brotherhood of Nod) battle over an alien and powerful resource called Tiberium. Players must help guide their chosen faction through a series of missions by balancing micromanaging resource collection, base creation, and mortal combat all in real
time!
Each successive mission introduces the player to new units and structures that they can build and employ. By creating a Tiberium Refinery, you create a Harvester that will intelligently collect resources, return to base, and refine these resources into credits that you then use to enhance your base and army. The interace is intuitive and incorporates mainstay features like grouping and map deployment.
Command & Conquer is the undisputed yardstick by which all following Real Time Strategy games were measured by. I give this game 29 out of 30.
DOS · by Doc Surge (7) · 2006
This game made "Real-Time Strategy" a household term.
The Good
C&C was one of the first Real-Time Strategy games I ever played. It was so easy to use, and I thought it was really fun. It always reminded me of playing with those little plastic army men. It was so nice being able to move all those units around with the click of a mouse. It seemed as though there was a lot of attention to detail, and I thought the graphics were pretty good. The music was great.
The Bad
The acting was average, but I really don't like the video mode they use for the cutscenes... I think they're really hard on the eyes with all those horizontal black lines.
The enemy AI left a lot to be desired. I mean, if you can build a wall and box them in and they aren't even smart enough to destroy it, that's pretty poor. It made it easier though. :)
The Bottom Line
Before C&C, there were, of course, many real-time strategy games, but C&C popularized the genre. Since it came out, there have been countless other games that emulated the interface. What Wolfenstein was to First-Person shooters, C&C was to RTS games. For this reason, it deserves special recognition.
You can probably find it pretty cheap these days, so why not try it out if you haven't before? It's spawned several sequels as of this time, and because of their success even more are sure to follow.
DOS · by Raphael (1245) · 1999
The Good
It takes most of the gameplay elements that made Dune 2 so good.
The Bad
It takes most of the gameplay elements that made Dune 2 so good.
Honestly, this game is Dune 2 with improved graphics and cutscenes. After playing Dune 2 for years there was an alarming sense of deja vu.
The Bottom Line
Not the huge step forward that most people claim. A solid enough game, but still just a copy of the game that started the genre.
Windows · by molofaha (4) · 2000
Discussion
Subject | By | Date |
---|---|---|
Windows version | Freeman (65090) | Nov 27, 2016 |
Infringement | Indra was here (20756) | May 22, 2015 |
Hotkeys | Donatello (466) | May 12, 2014 |
Trivia
1001 Video Games
The game appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.
Controversy
The PC version of this game had an advertisement that read "Previous High Scores" and under these words were several photographs of historical and contemporary military figures with high death counts. Among those pictured were Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, Napoleon Bonaparte, Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, Radovan Karadžić, Ratko Mladić and others. The controversy stems from the inclusion of then-president of France Jacques Chirac among them. The ad can be viewed here.
Cover screenshots
Obviously, the in-game screenshots on the back cover are faked (e.g. hovercraft landing from the side) or taken from a beta version that had different graphics than the release version (e.g. insignia on the Construction Yard's roof).
German version
Westwood voluntarily changed a few things in the German version, because they feared the game could be indexed.
- The cover: the soldier on the cover was displayed bigger, so that the weapon on the left couldn't be seen anymore
- The manual: the photos of the soldier units were censored with "Geheim" [secret], so that nobody could see that they had human faces
- The game: the soldiers were called 'androids' or 'bots', and they spilled black blood (oil) when they died
- Some videos were censored, e.g. when Seth gets a shot in the head, and a few video sequences are missing altogether.
A complete list of changes can be found on schnittberichte.com (German).
Kane
Kane is played by Joseph D. Kucan, the voice and video director for most of Westwood's games (including the Command & Conquer series).
While other roles were filled by Westwood employees (e.g. Eric Gooch who played Seth was an artist, and Kia Huntzinger who voiced the EVA unit was a receptionist) or local actors (e.g. Eric Martin who played General Sheppard), Kucan's role as Kane was the subject of frequent questions by the community. Kucan would intentionally answer with absurd fictional stories, except at Gamescom 2009, where he answered truthfully - he was told to record a test video for the VQA video format Westwood was working on, where he was to imitate a villain character. The role stuck since, and he would portray or voice the character in future titles in the series, as late as promo material for 2020's Command & Conquer: Remastered Collection.
Macintosh and Windows versions
In 1996, Westwood released the Macintosh version, which increased resolution from 320x200 to 640x400, brought a new interface with a different icon style, and Westwood Online multiplayer. These changes would be transferred to the 1997 Windows release (the Gold version).
Mega Score
It was the first game to be featured on the cover of Mega Score, the longest running Portuguese gaming magazine, on the second issue (November 1995). The honours of the first belong to the Sega Saturn.
Online servers
The game's online servers were migrated from the official Westwood Online infrastructure to the community-run XWIS (XCC WOL IRC Server), under approval and sponsorship from EA's German office on 20 October 2005. The Westwood Online domains have acted as a redirect to XWIS services since then, requiring no additional steps from the user to access the servers short of registering an account.
References
Open up the instruction manual to the page right after the table of contents, the one with the fire that has the quote from Kane. The last line says "(Global Net Interpol, file #GEN4:16)". That "#GEN4:16" actually refers to Genesis 4:16 from the Bible. That explains where they got the idea for Kane and the Brotherhood of Nod.
Sales
Westwood received an entry in the Guinness Book of Records, because they sold the game more than 10 million times worldwide.
Awards
- Computer Gaming World
- April 1998 (Issue #165) - Introduced into the Hall of Fame
- June 1996 (Issue #143) – Strategy Game of the Year
- June 1996 (Issue #143) – Strategy Game of the Year (Readers' Vote)
- November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) - #48 in the "150 Best Games of All Time" list
- Electronic Gaming Monthly
- February 1997 (Issue 91) - Game of the Month (Saturn version)
- March 1997 (Issue 92) - Strategy Game of the Year runner-up (multiplatform) (Readers' Choice)
- Game Informer
- August 2001 (Issue 100) - #28 in the "Top 100 Games of All Time" poll
- GameSpot
- 7th Best Villain in Gaming History (for Kane)
- GameSpy
- 2001 – #31 Top Game of All Time
- GameStar (Germany)
- Issue 12/1999 - #2 in the "100 Most Important PC Games of the Nineties" ranking
- Issue 01/2007 - one of the "Ten Most Influential PC-Games". It is the milestone which stands for the change from turn-based to real-time strategy games.
- PC Gamer
- April 2000 - #24 in the "Readers All-Time Top 50 Games" poll
- PC Player (Germany)
- Issue 01/1996 - Best Game in 1995
- Issue 01/1996 - Best Strategy Game in 1995 *Power Play
- Issue 02/1996 – Best Multiplayer Game in 1995 *Total! (Germany)
- Issue 01/2000 – Most Exotic N64 Genre in 1999
Information also contributed by Adam Baratz, Der.Archivar, havoc of smeg, Itay Shahar, Luis Silva, Maw and PCGamer77
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Related Sites +
-
Command & Conquer
The official homepage -
Command & Conquer 1.06 Patch Project
Nyerguds' site where you can download Command & Conquer with its Covert Operations expansions, legal and fully compatible with newer systems. -
Command & Conquer Universe Archive
New missions for downloading, gallery, and other stuff for hard-core C&C fans. -
Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn Home Page
official game page at Westwood Studios' website from 1997, preserved by the Wayback Machine -
Full game at the official site
The original Command & Conquer was released as a free download for Windows.
Identifiers +
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by robotriot.
SEGA Saturn added by Kartanym. Macintosh added by Kabushi. Windows added by Plix.
Additional contributors: Terok Nor, MAT, Derrick 'Knight' Steele, Xantheous, Alaka, Xoleras, formercontrib, ケヴィン, Macs Black, CaesarZX, Paulus18950, Patrick Bregger, Plok, MrFlibble, FatherJack.
Game added October 31, 1999. Last modified March 16, 2024.