Command & Conquer: Renegade

The Good
The main character is awesome.

The engine cut scenes are simply brilliant and add to the fun of the game.

The gameplay features a good variety of missions and settings.

The vehicles are a nice bonus.

The whole ambiance is pretty faithful to C&C.

The Bad
The graphics are a bit dated.

The enemies are repetitive.

The Bottom Line
"Not another FPS, please !" Yes, but this one comes with a very cool main character, named "Havoc", and You can blow up the Fist of NOD from the inside :D

The best thing first: the game has the most entertaining cut scenes I have ever seen in any game.

Havoc is such a cliche that the ironic approach Westwood took simply hits the nail on the head. Perfect.

The gameplay isn't worse than Unreal2 or any other "simple" shooter, and while it can become repetitive, the whole "Commando"-style presentation with primary objective/secondary objective is refreshing. Add to that the vehicles You can use, and You got a pretty good FPS, not quite the quality of No One Lives Forever, but better than some newer games like Unreal 2.

The graphics are a bit outdated, but the look of the C&C universe is well captured, and the new ideas and implementations of the well known items like Tiberium freighters, mutants, buggies, copters and tanks is well done. For the current budget price, You can't go wrong.

The Good
Renegade was the latest prostitution of the C&C brand before their ahum "next-gen" move towards 3D rts in Generals, but instead of being yet another ho-hum, tired exploit of their once interesting franchise this is actually a brand new spin-off!... yeah, whatever.

Anyhow, Renegade answers that question that kept you up all those lonely nights: How does the C&C universe look from the first person perspective of one of those tiny soldiers? What's that? You never asked yourself that? Well, neither did I, but the good marketing execs at EA and Westwood weren't going to let that one pass us by, hence they unleashed into the world C&C: Renegade.

Taking place in the Tiberium wars continuity, you take the role of Nick Parker, aka "Havoc", who happens to be the best commando in the GDI armada, your regular one-man-army who can level entire enemy bases all by himself, now out to take down Nod's base of operations to save a group of scientists. If it's starting to sound like your typically by-the-number fps premise don't worry, rest assured that Renegade IS your typical, by-the-numbers fps shooter, but fortunately it acknowledges this and goes along with it. Rather than trying to cover itself up with phony excuses Renegade goes the Duke3D route and goes for the cheese with gusto. "Havoc" is your stereotypical loose-cannon hero, with little respect for authority (except towards his typical buddy/superior) and with a propensity to spill out er..., "witty" one-liners a-la Schwarzenegger (my favourite being the one he says after asked if the appearance of an old flame in the war might condition his loyalty: "I don't have a conflict of interests [leans forward] I have interest in conflict!" har-har.... ah, yep. Don't worry Havoc, we love you anyway). The plot is pretty much the same as in those grade-Z Delta Force movies, dealing with the bad, bad cult of Nod kidnapping a key GDI scientist (along with his feisty supermodel/scientist daughter) whom you must rescue. This assignment takes you through a merry chase along the world searching for the eggheads, and along the way you'll meet other cartoony characters like the "asian femme-fatale antagonist", not to mention the "psycho latin-american terrorist", among other equally interesting dorks (I barely remember Kane's name, let alone the ones from the rest of these G.I. Joe rejects).

Do I need to continue? The only way the whole thing could have been cheesier would have been if Cobra Commander and Serpentor had cameos in it, but considering the game takes place in the laughably cartoony C&C universe, where the enemy is an "Evil Cult (tm)" that strikes wearing goofy space-suits, go around in red buggies and tanks, and speak with "evil" accents among other assorted foolishness, the whole thing fits the game like a glove. I mean, it just wouldn't have worked if they had gone for serious characters, interesting storylines and credible settings. This is C&C!! What we need here is cheese! And Renegade tunes in perfectly to that.

Moving on towards the gameplay, one asks oneself what new ideas does Renegade bring to the table. The answers are both nothing and a lot. For now, let's just say a lot, as the game incorporates (as tirelessly advertised) the classic C&C game mechanics. Now, the ads. for the game sold it as a virtual war theater with you being RIGHT THERE in the heat of multiple C&C campaigns. The truth is somewhat different. There's no dynamic war going on around you as advertised, but a lot of scripted events and conditions works towards creating a somewhat satisfying simulation of one. Basically, enemy units and installations work under scripted versions of the C&C game mechanics, meaning if you take out the power plant, you scale down unit production. Take out the officers and you'll stop enemy spawning (by cutting their ability to call for reinforcements), etc. etc.

No, this is not a dynamic environment that reacts to your actions following the same logic as the C&C rts universe, they are just scripted events that simulate the effects of it, but when you add to that cruising helicopters, artillery fire and similar smoke and mirrors, the result is a pretty credible warfare climate pretty much unique in the genre (well... uh... sort of, anyway).

To complement the package the game comes loaded with the standard C&C flashy interfaces and glitz (courtesy of EA's always top-notch production values). The same funky techno soundtrack, streamlined interfaces, carefully produced multiplayer options and funky installation routines and menus that we have all come to cherish from the many Westwood/EA products. The cutscenes, while graphically unimpressive, are very well designed. Using smooth noise camera controllers to produce that hand-held shaky feel and with the added motion captured animation the results are pretty entertaining to see, and mask the poor graphical quality behind it.

The Bad
As I mentioned Renegade adds nothing to the fps genre, it's your average Half-Life clone with cliche'd weapons and tired gameplay that revolves around shooting everybody down, getting keycards, maybe escorting some bozo and then shoot everybody down again. The much vaunted vehicle use is a joke, with only lousy-controlled tanks and humvees that slug around the battlefield and which are barely more effective than a well-placed rocket. And while shooting everybody down might sound like fun (heck, I can dig it) it becomes extremely boring when the faulty AI means the enemies are more of a threat to themselves than to you (ha-ha! Stupid rocket soldiers!) and the officer-controlled spawning backfires into the game design and turns the whole thing into a first-person MegaMan clone (the last mission is a piece of CRAP!). And besides being easy as pie, the game is about as long as a C&C mission pack.

The weapons are the same tired arsenal you've been seeing since the dawn of time, except you don't have a shotgun (WTF??) and you have C4 charges and ion cannon beacons that can call upon a rather impressive death from above, but that's it.

While the sound department is excellently developed, graphic-wise the game is pretty unimpressive, with pretty much nothing in the way of special effects, and blurry textures that make character close-ups a pain to behold. As for the cutscenes (pre-rendered but using the game's models and textures) while they may be interesting enough, the use of the same low polygon models from the game results in several unintentionally funny moments, such as when morpher tries to make the 3 vertex or so that each character has in their mouths form words and ends up making their lips fly all over the place and make the characters look like retarded rednecks when they talk.

Finally, while the whole cheesy cartoony thing has it's charm, the premise can get on your nerves from time to time. Havoc tries to play it cool, but he doesn't have a tenth of the charisma Duke had (probably because he doesn't say anything during the game itself, anything funny that is), the other characters have about as much depth as a cardboard cutout, and there are plot-holes so big you could drive a mammoth tank through them (yeah! I'm going to release you from prison because, like... yeah, I need a diversion! That's it!).

Oh, and raise your hands all of you that would have rather played as Tanya in the RA universe.

The Bottom Line
The closest thing there is to a full fledged G.I.Joe game, complete with retarded plot, cartoony characters, and braindead challenges. C&C fans will delight in the fact that it IS C&C from a first person perspective. From the sounds to the look to the stupid units (flame tanks?) to the game mechanics Renegade faithfully simulates the look & feel of the C&C series. However, that' about everything the game has going for it, and as for the C&C game logic, only in one mission the game plays as advertised, letting you loose in a full-fledged Nod base that you must bring down.

For the most part Renegade brings nothing new to the table and disappoints those that were looking for a fully dynamic environment that emulated the rts games. It's not that it's a bad game, it just comes short at pretty much everything when compared to the competition. If you are willing to put up with those shortcomings (be it because you are that forgiving or because you are a C&C freak that has wet dreams about Kane) you will rewarded with a couple of hours of G.I. Joe in your pc, but that's it. If you are so desperate for that kind of cheese you might get more value from just renting the G.I. Joe movie or Delta Force...Now you know, "and knowing is half the battle!"

The Good

• Art design is appealing and true to the RTS games
• There's plenty of novelty to be had seeing the C&C universe in first person
• Good graphics for the time
• FANTASTIC multiplayer
• Lengthy campaign
• Good sound effects

• Single player campaign can get dull at times
• Pathetic artificial intelligence
• No Single player Nod campaign
• Have to use GameSpy arcade to find servers
• Mediocre story

The Bottom Line
I love Command & Conquer. They are fast paced and a ton of fun to play, they may not be the deepest strategy games on the planet, but they're still fun as hell; especially the bloody awesome Red Alert 2. C&C Renegade takes a different approach though, instead of being tasked as a commander, you are tasked as being a commando; a fan favourite character from the first game. You also aren't playing a strategy game, but rather a first person shooter.

You play as Havoc, a GDI commando who unravels a Nod scheme to create an army of Tiberium mutants, as well as the standard Nod scheme of trying to use Tiberium as a weapon. The plot isn't especially interesting, and is bogged down by a cast of uninteresting and forced characters that the game expects us to know simply by showing us their model and a text scrawl in the installation screen. Havoc isn't a particularly interesting character, he pretty much is just a generic C&C Commando even if he talks more.

There is plenty of novelty to be had in both the single player component and the multiplayer component. Entering the Tiberium universe; circa the events of the first game, so its not quite as dark or dreary as Tiberian Sun; is a very cool thing and it is handled well. You'll storm Nod bases, drive both Nod and GDI vehicles, and use weaponry such as the GDI Ion Cannon. It certainly is a treat to enter a Hand of Nod and see Nod soldiers training and seeing the inner workings of a base.

The campaign is fun, but it isn't without some flaws. Firstly, some maps are gigantic. This isn't a problem for some shooters, but Renegade simply doesn't know how to pace a huge map. There's one map maybe 3 or 4 levels in that is enormous, and en route to a Nod base you have to shut down you'll travel about 30 minutes in a vehicle and 45 minutes on foot before you'll find another enemy to shoot. This makes some maps confusing, dull, and frustrating. To add to these frustrations, bases can sometimes be confusing as well with winding corridors and inconsistent floor plans and key card events.

The AI is also pathetic. At least the zombies in Doom would actually walk and try to avoid your bullets. The soldiers here, once they catch sight of you, just stand there shooting at you while you tear them apart. The only way to get a challenge from the basic soldiers is to crank up the difficulty. To be fair, more advanced characters and vehicles pose a greater threat but regardless, the AI is just bad.

I also would've liked to see two campaigns, both to even out the pacing and to stay truer to the traditional C&C style. Playing as a Nod soldier would've been cool, but we don't get that treat save for in multiplayer but that's still not quite the same thing as having a story driven Nod campaign to play.

The multiplayer is the star here though. I am not joking when I say its easily one of the best and most overlooked multiplayer components in a first person shooter. It plays exactly like a regular C&C game, there's a NOD base and a GDI base, Tiberium is being harvested, and they must build an army and destroy the other base. But, naturally, you are playing as a soldier on the frontline. You can buy weapons, vehicles, and special characters using Tiberium credits; but remember, your team shares the income. In fact, your team is very important. There's still some strategic depth here, to win you must be able to coordinate attacks and move in squads. Both bases have defenses that must be taken down, though several maps do provide secondary passages to the enemy base if you are sneaky enough to find them.

There are plenty of maps to play on and playing with 32 or even 64 players is a joy, and the units you can control are all quite fun and unique and the action is always pulse pounding but it never sacrifices the squad based elements.

The only real flaw I find in multiplayer is the server interface. Before they were forced to close their doors by EA, Westwood Online was the primary method of finding servers and the easiest. WOL is gone now, and even then it was buggy. To be able to play Renegade online now, you must use GameSpy arcade which is a bit of a nuisance with its ads, lag, and poor Windows 7/Vista support. But even then, it is still worth playing simply for the multiplayer. There are servers up and there is a wealth of maps to play, and there is a mod called Renegade X being made on the Unreal 3 engine which is going to replicate the multiplayer experience of Renegade for free and with modern graphics. Very cool, but if you haven't checked this game out, its fairly cheap now and I highly recommend it to C&C fans. It has a decent campaign, but the multiplayer is the real meat and potatoes of this particular package.