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Its
2010, the world is a far different place. Our natural fuel resources are almost
gone, what remains is priced so high that it is beyond most ordinary citizens.
Nuclear fuel has finally been deemed unsafe and Solar just couldn't provide
enough energy for everyone, leaving the world poised on the verge of anarchy.
Mobius,
was a scientist that some would call revolutionary and others just plain crazy.
He pronounced a discovery that could save the world from this darkness. He had
discovered a natural mineral called Tiberium that
when processed in a specific way produced a super efficient fuel that could be
used to power our cities once more. Further investigation proved that this rock
was the by-product of a living fungus and as such, if handled correctly could be
grown and harvested for the foreseeable future.
Tiberium soon became
the word on everyone's lips, areas of the world that contained this product
became valuable assets to both Governments and Terrorists alike, both knowing
that Tiberium could give them massive financial power and the opportunity to
dominate the world - for good or bad.
It was inevitable that war
erupted, terrorist groups came together around the world to form The Brotherhood
of Nod. Quickly they began forcefully acquiring Tiberium farms and processing
factories, using the money they made to finance attacks on the Governments of
the world.
The Global Defense Initiative (GDI) was the Governments
combined answer to this problem. Crack troops and advanced weapons were gathered
together to form a fearsome force. They were authorized to do whatever it takes
to eliminate the Brotherhood of Nod.
Let battle commence.......
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Sit
back and close your eyes.......
Imagine a war-game that simulates the
war between two factions - nothing new there!
Imagine a game
that expects you to build up your forces and plan clever attacks, counter
attacks and diversionary attacks in an effort to outwit your opponent and
ultimately bring him to his knees. You have to spend your funds wisely,
artillery and troops cost money. Run out of cash at the wrong time and you're as
good as dead - nothing really new there either
But try to
imagine a game that wraps up all of these features in an easy to play and most
importantly "FUN" package, where historical battle knowledge and
tactical genius are not paramount to success. A game that can be played by
people of all ages, people who like shoot-em-ups and beat-em-ups, rather than
just retired old generals and wargame fanatics - well that's what the manual
promises - lets see if its true!
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I
think that's its only fair to point out straight away that the graphics in this
game are small, in fact they are tiny. Grandad will struggle to see what going
on unless you are hooked up to a 28 inch television. It looks to me as though
the graphics have been ported straight over from the P.Cs VGA mode, due to the
number of colors and low resolution of the graphics. Its a shame that no-one has
showed the programmers the graphical capability of our machine, because this is
one of the few areas that lets this game down.
All of these tiny
sprites still manage to have their own individual look and personality, making
it easier to tell the Commandos from the Engineers and the Rocket launchers from
the Medium Tanks. They all move smoothly and at different speeds, carrying out
attacking and defending maneuvers independently of each other.
The game
has more Full Motion Video than in any other game I have come across. Its not
just quantity either, the quality of these mini-movies is as good as has been
seen on the PlayStation and for once adds quite a bit to the atmosphere of the
game.
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When
moving any of your troops you are greeted with a "Yes Sir" or "
Right away Sir", just to let you know they they are on their way. All of
the weapons used by your men have their own firing and exploding sounds and
while not exactly 3D surround sound in their execution are nevertheless good
enough for the game.
The background tunes are pretty useless it has to
be said, all fourteen sound like poor P.C tunes from yesteryear, rather than the
CD quality that we have come to expect from the PSX. Again I feel that this is
another opportunity missed during the conversion.
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Right
then, so we have established that the graphics are tiny and the sound is pretty
average, so therefore the game must be rubbish - right?
Well if you
don't read past this point in the review, you will never know what a truly
awesome game you have missed, because this game, even with its anti Next-Gen
appearance, may well be the best PlayStation title to date!
Before I
launch into how brilliant this game is, I feel that I need to point out a couple
of things:
1. I don't work for the company that programmed this game.
2:
I hate strategy games, they are usually too slow and fail to hold my attention
for more than a few hours.
3: I have not played this game on the P.C
and so I am judging it as an original PSX title, rather than as a comparison of
the P.C version.
You start each mission with its objective being
explained to you in a brief FMV movie sequence. The missions will vary from:
Build up your forces and wipe out the enemy and all of their buildings....
right down to: Take one Commando and sneak him past the enemy forces to
steal supplies from the centre of their base You can imagine that both
missions will need very different tactics to complete the tasks.
A spy
satellite is repositioned over the battle area so that both you and your bosses
can monitor the progress of the action. This means that the whole view of the
game is from above. To make your task more challenging, at the start of each
level the whole battleground is blacked out, giving you no idea where the enemy
is located. This forces you to set a few troops off on a scouting mission, to
locate, but not disturb the enemy. In practice this is a very simple task, just
hold the X button on the control pad and move the cursor over the troops and
vehicles you wish to assign. As these scouts move, they uncover their
surrounding area for all to see. Just like in real warfare, if the enemy is
hidden behind a house or camouflaged in among trees, you will have no idea they
are there until you get close enough to spot them visually. This is a very nice
touch and stops you from spending two hours building up a massive army and then
attacking the enemies base, because to start with you have no idea where, or how
many, enemy bases there are - some levels have as many as four.
Using
the money that is electronically deposited into your bank account at the start
of each mission, you must first build a construction yard. Similar in style to
Sim City, you must then build a power station to energize it. Followed by a
barracks (to build troops), a communications centre (to help find the enemy and
track their attacks) and a weapons factory (to build vehicles and tanks). All of
this construction takes time and costs money, this is where the Tiberium comes
in. By building a refinery, you can start to gather up the green Tiberium
crystals, convert them to fuel and sell it for more cash. The crystals are
collected by a harvester, send it on its way and it will automatically gather
and deposit the Tiberium for you. You need to keep an eye on the Harvester at
all times, during its search for crystals it may stray into enemy territory and
get blown to pieces.
So now you have the basics and are bringing in
cash from the Harvesting, building troops in the barracks and tanks in the
factory. The trouble is, the enemy are also harvesting and building. They may
well greatly outnumber you in both numbers and weaponry. Many is the time when
you will be happily building up your forces only to be ambushed by the enemy in
a quick surprise attack, blowing up your factory, destroying your barracks and
STEALING your refinery. Yeah that's right, you don't have to destroy everything,
you can aquire special troops that can sneak into enemy buildings and make them
yours!
This means that you always have to consider that the enemy is
building up its forces as well as you, so just waiting and waiting until you
have piles of cash to spend on loads of heavy artillery just isn't the answer.
Sometimes a quick and clever attack at the start of the level (when the enemy is
still weak) can be the best answer.
The control system allows you
assign troops to defend your base and they will automatically engage the enemy
if they get too close. You can split your forces into groups, sending some
through the enemies front door, while simultaneously sneaking another group
through the back door. Very quickly you will be carrying out quite complicated
tactics with ease and without a technical manual in sight.
During later
levels you can use Helicopters, Flame throwers, Stealth tanks (with invisible
cloaking capability) and even Nuclear or Satellite laser technologies.
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Now
then, you may read in other magazines that this game has two faults that cripple
its long term enjoyment. After completing the game, I feel that I can accurately
comment on them as follows:
No support for the Sony mouse:
Yup, this was a very sad omission from what is essentially a point-and-click
game BUT it doesn't harm the playability of the game in the slightest!
No
support for the memory card: Again I cant understand why they missed this
out, but just like DooM, it is a minor inconvenience and nothing more.
Face
it guys, there are around FIFTY different missions to play, spread over TWO
C.D's, each of the missions even play differently as you adjust your tactics AND
you can be the good guys or the bad guys - value for money is second only to the
playability of this game.
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JIM |
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GRAPHICS: |
Average |
Imagine
the best elements of Sim City 2000 combined with the blasting fun of Re-Loaded
all mixed into a game containing a very high level of artificial intelligence
and you have Command and Conquer. Younger gamesplayers will enjoy building up
massive forces and sending them all into the enemy base for a massive showdown
with the enemy, while older players will appreciate the tactical side of the
game. As stated earlier, I usually hate these types of game but I can honestly
say that in my opinion this is the best game I have so far played on the Sony
PlayStation. |
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SOUND: |
Average |
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PLAYABILITY: |
Brilliant |
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VALUE: |
Brilliant |
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OVERALL
9/10 |
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MARTIN |
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GRAPHICS: |
Good |
Superb
strategy game that will keep you occupied for months. Sadly lacking a facility
for the memory card therefore you cannot save your game midway through a
mission. This leads to many late night as a single mission can take up to three
hours too complete. |
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SOUND: |
Good |
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PLAYABILITY: |
Brilliant |
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VALUE: |
Brilliant |
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OVERALL
9/10 |
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