Command & Conquer

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This article is about the Command & Conquer franchise. For the first video game of the franchise, see Command & Conquer (video game).
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Command & Conquer

Latest Logo of the series
Developer(s) Westwood Studios
Electronic Arts
Publisher(s) Virgin Interactive
Nintendo
Sega
Electronic Arts
Platform(s) Apple Macintosh, Nintendo 64, PlayStation, PC (MS-DOS, Windows), Sega Saturn, PlayStation Portable, [1] Mac OS X, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
First release Command & Conquer / 1995
Latest release Command & Conquer Red Alert 3: Uprising / 2009
Official website http://www.commandandconquer.com

Command & Conquer (often abbreviated as C&C or CNC) is a video game franchise, mostly of the real-time strategy style as well as a first-person shooter game based on the former.[2] The Command & Conquer series was initially developed by Westwood Studios between 1995 and 2003, with development being taken over by Electronic Arts with the liquidation of Westwood Studios in 2003.

The first installment of the series was released worldwide on August 31, 1995 and was simply named Command & Conquer, with the commonly-used subtitle of Tiberian Dawn. It was based on Westwood Studios' earlier strategy game Dune 2. The series is largely marketed for North American, Anglo-European and Australasian audiences, though many of the games have been translated into other languages including German, French, Spanish, Korean and Chinese. The series is primarily developed for personal computers running Microsoft Windows, although some titles have been ported to various video game consoles and the Apple Macintosh. The latter games of the series starting with Tiberium Wars have also been developed in parallel for Xbox 360. Another spinoff game, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, was developed for PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3.

In 1999, American game marketer and developer Electronic Arts purchased Westwood Studios. Westwood was eventually closed down in 2003 and absorbed into EA Los Angeles which has become the current development center for the ongoing Command and Conquer series. Some of the original Westwood developer team remained at EA Los Angeles, but most left to form Petroglyph Games.

By February 11, 2003, the Command & Conquer franchise had sold more than 21 million units worldwide.[3] As of 2008, eight games with various expansion packs have been released, the most recent title being Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3. Command and Conquer recently announced a final installment in the Tiberian series "Command and Conquer 4."

Contents

[edit] Story arcs

[edit] Tiberian series (1995-present)

Main article: Command & Conquer: Tiberian series

The origin of the Command & Conquer franchise, the Tiberian series originally features two factions of globalized power and influence—the Global Defense Initiative of the United Nations and the ancient quasi-cult, quasi-state organization known as the Brotherhood of Nod -- becoming locked in a mortal struggle for the future of the world. In the latest installment of the series, an extraterrestrial force known as the Scrin was added as a third faction.

The original Command and Conquer game was produced by Westwood Studios, and distributed internationally by Virgin Interactive in 1995. The opening sequence shows animation of the bombing of the fictional Grain Trade Center in Vienna, with the act being blamed on Brotherhood of Nod terrorists and their mysterious leader. The conflict between the industrialized world's leading countries and the rapidly spreading Nod society is centered around control of the fictional resource of Tiberium; an exotic and extraterrestrial substance which extracts all nutrients from the land it sits upon and deposits them into toxic, above-ground crystals that can be processed into potent materials.

The United Nations' GDI focuses on research to mitigate the damage caused by Tiberium crystals to the Earth's people and ecosystems. In contrast, Nod embraces Tiberium as a gift from God and the herald of a new age for humanity. Nod has done heavy research into pioneering Tiberium-based technologies and its self-proclaimed messianic leader, a man known only as Kane, appears to have designs to convert the entire world to a Tiberium-based ecosystem. The GDI was created by status quo nations to counter Kane's plans for a new world order. The Brotherhood of Nod excels at manipulating the media to turn world opinion against the GDI.

While the original Command & Conquer's plot was centered around an allegorical world politics setting, its successor, Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun shifted this to a more sci-fi like setting against the apocalyptical background of Tiberium beginning to assimilate vast portions of the Earth's ecosystems. Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars returned the emphasis of the ongoing story to a setting akin to the original Command & Conquer game, but set half a century into the future.

The 1996 title of Command & Conquer: Red Alert, otherwise of the Red Alert series, was made the prequel to the original Command & Conquer game by Westwood Studios,[4] establishing Red Alert as the prologue of the entire Tiberium story arc. Since then, Louis Castle has said that connecting Red Alert with the Tiberium Universe was a "failed experiment". It should be noted though that despite being the founder of Westwood, Castle was not involved with the series until Tiberian Sun. In the collection Command and Conquer: The First Decade, EA, the new owners of the franchise also split the franchise into three universes (Tiberium, Red Alert and Generals) which means that Red Alert is no longer a prequel to Tiberian Dawn. The title's own sequel of Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2, created by a different development team, is a stand-alone spin-off taking place in a parallel universe as a result of some unknown events involving time travel.[5] Unlike its predecessor, Red Alert 2 features no connections or references to the Tiberian universe.

See also: Command & Conquer: Red Alert#Connection to the Tiberian games

[edit] Games in the series

[edit] Red Alert series (1995-present)

For more details on this topic, see Command & Conquer: Red Alert series.

The Red Alert series is set in an alternate time-line, created when Albert Einstein travels back in time and removes Adolf Hitler in an attempt to prevent World War II. This backfires and results in a Soviet invasion of Europe by Joseph Stalin, which serves as the backdrop for the first Red Alert game. Two expansion packs for the original Red Alert were released: Counterstrike and The Aftermath.

Red Alert is an exploration of the beginnings of the alternate history leading to the Tiberian series and is the prequel to the original Command & Conquer game.[4] With the release of Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2, this connection however would become unclear, with fans of the series split as to whether or not the time travel excursions of the series were forming a separate continuity or just another side adventure on the way to the Tiberian era. However, it has been implied by the original creators of the series, now working on Petroglyph Games, that Red Alert 2 takes place in a parallel universe as a result of time travel experiments taking place some time into the Tiberium storyline.[5] Whether or not the current developers of the C&C series are going to follow through on this explanation, however, is unclear.

In Red Alert 2, the Soviet Union invades the United States, using mind control technology to capture US forces and deactivate the United States' nuclear arsenal. In the expansion Yuri's Revenge, Soviet Premier Romanov's adviser Yuri attempts to overtake the world using his psychic dominator technology. A last-second attempt to stop Yuri's plans sends the player back in time to the conflict occurring in Red Alert 2, but instead of fighting against the Soviets/Allies, the player fights against Yuri. Unlike Red Alert, the Red Alert 2 games do not make any explicit or passive references to the Tiberian series.

In Red Alert 3, the Soviet Union travels back in time to kill Einstein in order to weaken the Allies. However this act has created a split timeline, causing a new secret empire to rise from the east, the Empire of the Rising Sun. The Empire uses advancements in nanotechnology and mecha-based transforming units, and its arrival on the scene kicks off a three-way conflict.

An expansion pack for Red Alert 3,called Command & Conquer Red Alert 3: Uprising has been released by EA.[6] The expansion pack will feature a new single player campaign and a "Commanders Challenge" mode, with missions against various commanders in different locations. [6]

Westwood Studios also released a music disc with the music from the Red Alert series. This disc was bundled with some later versions of the game.

[edit] Games in the series

[edit] Generals (2003)

Main article: Command & Conquer: Generals

Unlike its predecessors, the plot line of Command & Conquer: Generals is completely unrelated to the other games of the Command & Conquer series.

The game uses an engine dubbed "SAGE" (or Strategy Action Game Engine) and is the first fully three-dimensional Command & Conquer RTS game. This engine was an evolutionary development from the Westwood3D engine used in Command & Conquer: Renegade and Emperor: Battle for Dune. It was the first ever C&C RTS game that did not include full-motion video cutscenes to tell the story, and, also, that it departed from the unique interface and base-building mechanics that had characterized all of the previous C&C RTS titles. [7]

In Generals, there are three different factions, which maintain a balance of power: the USA which adopts emergent technologies and support units; China, which swamps defenses with vast numbers of tanks and troops, and the Global Liberation Army (GLA), a terrorist network which uses low-tech ingenuity and guerrilla tactics like terrorists, trucks with machine guns, and black market trading. The Chinese and the USA are targets of the GLA. The US uses more advanced techs like air support, heavy tanks and snipers, while the Chinese use napalm explosives, a handy Horde Bonus (which increases units' attack and defense when in large groups) and hacking to get the job done. The Chinese barracks can also quickly outproduce Rebels or Rangers with Red Guards. The GLA uses a vast array of underhanded tricks like suicide bombers and chemical weapons as well as ex-Soviet tech like SCUD missiles and what appears to be a stripped-down and truck-mounted version of a Shilka's weapon.

The expansion pack for Generals, Command & Conquer: Generals: Zero Hour, extends the game's plotline. Zero Hour makes many additions to the original game while retaining the three basic factions. Each team may choose one of three different generals. Each general has a specialty, which translates into prioritizing particular units and abilities:

USA
  • Advanced laser weapons (turrets and tanks as well as enhanced power generation)
  • Air superiority (unique, more powerful aircraft)
  • Superweapons (cheaper superweapons and enhanced bombers)
China
GLA

No new factions have been added to the game. Zero Hour also includes full-motion video cutscenes - in the form of news reports - before every single-player mission.

[edit] Games in the series

[edit] Gameplay

Numerous gameplay elements are shared across the titles of the C&C series. Initially, Westwood Studios had borrowed and built on many concepts and styles of their earlier Dune II game, in order to establish the core interface and conventions used in their first Command & Conquer.[8] Subsequent releases in turn further built on these elements, with few changes to the gameplay or interface until 2003's Command & Conquer: Generals, when reviewers noted that this title significantly altered the way in which games were being played out in comparison to preceding C&C games. [9] With the release of Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars in March 2007, game elements from previous C&C games returned to the franchise. The gameplay has been changed yet again in Red Alert 3.

[edit] Buildings

Buildings are used to produce units, purchase available unit upgrades and collect resources. For the most part, buildings in C&C are disproportionally small compared to units. This disproportion reaches even greater heights in Red Alert, which includes "indoor" missions with existing buildings inside them (i.e. Flame Turrets). Infantry are also very big compared to tanks.

The oversized infantry is an issue that has yet to be acknowledged, and did not occur in the original release of Red Alert. Instead, the game was more like the modern version of C&C95, with infantry proportioned more appropriately with vehicles.

Command & Conquer: Renegade attempts to resolve this problem by revealing that the majority of each structure is in fact underground; however, this creates even more problems, since buildings can be constructed immediately adjacent to one another in the RTS games, meaning that the underground portions would overlap.

The early C&C games (Red Alert, Tiberian Sun etc) used a basic build system that changed in Generals. To build structures in the early games the player would click the required building's icon on the side panel to begin construction off screen. When construction was complete, the player would click again to place the building on the terrain. The building would also change color during placement in order to show where the player could and could not place it. In Generals and Zero Hour, however, special building units - Workers for GLA, Construction Dozers for China and the USA - are used to construct buildings on the terrain. This new building process changed gameplay as well, because buildings could now be constructed anywhere on the map, and were vulnerable to being destroyed more often during construction instead of only after they were built. The player can also select the direction in which completed buildings face, adding an extra element of strategy to building placement.

[edit] Engineers

One unique aspect of Command and Conquer is the engineer unit, which are present in every game except Generals. In most games, they carry no weapons, but are able to instantaneously take over most enemy structures, giving their commander the use of the building's assets (e.g. a Nod engineer can take over a GDI barracks, giving Nod player the ability to train GDI infantry for his side at the newly acquired barracks). Engineers are lost when taking over a building. One commonly used tactic is to send engineers into an enemy base to take over key structures and then quickly sell them, effectively crippling the opponent (although this can be avoided by savvy players who wall off buildings or guard them with anti-infantry units). Also whenever an engineer captures a refinery or tiberium silo, any resources stored there are captured as well, enabling one player to steal from another; in Red Alert, this task can also be handled by Thiefs, leaving the building intact, while Spies in Red Alert 2 fulfill the same role. In Command & Conquer, a single engineer can take over a building at any time. In Red Alert, an engineer can only take over a building when the building's health is in the red zone, otherwise, the engineer does a significant amount of damage to the building. In later games, engineers take over a building at any time, but an option can be set to have engineers function as in Red Alert. Soviet engineers in Red Alert 3 carry weapons, unlike most other games. In Renegade, engineers have weapons and are unable to take over buildings, but they can repair vehicles. Generals does not use engineers, but standard infantry can be granted the ability to take over buildings after a period of time and are not lost after capturing a building. Tiberium Wars features another use of Engineers: Nod Saboteurs can booby trap buildings and bridges with proximity-detonated bombs while Scrin Assimilators camouflage themselves while idle.

[edit] Hero units

A trait of the Command and Conquer games is the availability of faction specific "hero" units. These hero units typically come with special and potent abilities or powers, a concept which would become widely copied by future popular real-time strategy games.

Command & Conquer (Tiberian Dawn) and Covert Operations

The original Command & Conquer game from 1995 first introduced the hero like unit to the RTS genre, however unlike the later titles in the franchise it was not yet given an individual name. It took the form of an infantry commando who was capable of neutralizing enemy personnel with a single shot from a large distance, as well as plant C4 explosives on structures, demolishing them instantaneously. It was available in a select few missions in the single-player campaigns for both the Global Defense Initiative and the Brotherhood of Nod factions, and could be produced by both sides during multiplayer games. The unit was voiced by Frank Klepacki, who scored the soundtracks of all the titles in the franchise with the exception of Generals, Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, and the majority of Red Alert 3.

Red Alert and Counterstrike and Aftermath

In Command & Conquer: Red Alert, the hero unit for the Allied faction is "agent Tanya Adams", a female commando-like infantry unit which shared many similarities with the original commando featured in Tiberian Dawn, in having the ability to kill enemy infantry in one shot and plant C4 explosives on structures for instant demolition. Different from the original commando unit in Tiberian Dawn was that Tanya was also able to permanently detonate any bridge on the map. In Red Alert's expansion packs Counterstrike and Aftermath, the Soviets gained their own two hero units; a cybernetic supersoldier named "Volkov", and his canine companion, "Chitzkoi". Volkov has C4 explosives like the Tanya unit, and can kill infantry and vehicles alike with a few shots. Chitzkoi can jump up cliffs when attacking, and is quicker than the normal "Attack Dog" units featured in the game. In Aftermath, Volkov's strength was reduced however to be more in line with the level of Tanya. Neither Volkov nor Chitzkoi could be built in multiplayer; the Allied forces used Tanya as they did in the core Red Alert game.

Tiberian Sun and Firestorm

For Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun, the GDI faction received two mutants of the unplayable "The Forgotten" as its hero units; Umagon, who could kill infantry with one shot from a large distance, and the "Ghoststalker", a heavy infantry unit equipped with a railgun which was highly destructive against any ground-based target, and who could use C4 explosives to destroy buildings and bridges. The Brotherhood of Nod faction featured the "Cyborg Commando", a heavy infantry unit capable of destroying any ground target in two to three shots, including structures. Another mutant hero unit, named the "Mutant Hijacker", also was available to Nod in the faction's single-player campaign, but could be used by both the GDI and Nod factions in multiplayer—the unit could assume instant control of any enemy vehicle. Another hero-like unit in Tiberian Sun was the Mammoth MK2 walker; a massive quadruped mech walker equipped with two SAM launchers and twin railguns. Of all these, the Umagon unit was the only hero who could not be trained in multiplayer. The Ghoststalker and Mammoth MK2, despite their destructive power, come with one major flaw; though their railguns can destroy multiple targets in a single line, the weapon cannot discriminate between ally and enemy, and careless use of either unit could result in the destruction of the player's own units or even structures. Also of note is that the railguns have trouble firing through uneven terrain, requiring a flat plane.

Red Alert 2 and Yuri's Revenge

In Red Alert 2, the hero units consisted of Tanya (for the Allies) and Yuri (for the Soviets). Like its predecessor Red Alert, the player could build several Yuris and several Tanyas. In the expansion Yuri's Revenge, the Soviets lost Yuri but gained a new hero - Boris, armed with an AK-47 and able to use a laser-marker to call in MiG air strikes. Yuri's army had Yuri Prime, apparently Yuri himself, and was able to use mind-control to capture not only enemy units, but structures as well. The Allies retained Tanya, with the new ability to destroy vehicles with C4 explosives, the ability to swim, and immunity to mind control and being crushed by tanks. In Yuri's Revenge, Yuris (akin to the ones originally produced by the Soviets in RA2) were renamed Yuri Clones, while Yuri Prime served as Yuri's hero unit, and could only be produced once. (twice if one had a cloning vat). Tanya and Boris received the same treatment, only being able to be built once. The ability to train only one hero/commando unit at a time was carried on to all of the latter games in the series.

Renegade

In Command & Conquer: Renegade, a C&C-based first-person shooter, the hero is a character by the name of Havoc; an elite GDI commando. In multiplayer games, players have 4 basic infantry that they can change between. For a price, one could upgrade into other characters from the story. There are no limits to the number of infantry characters of any class, only to the vehicles one can also purchase.

Generals and Zero Hour

In the Generals series each faction again had its own hero units, each of whom are cloaked except when performing an action other than moving (such as shooting or setting an explosive). The USA faction's hero is Colonel Burton, who can use a silent knife attack on infantry and possesses remote and timed C4 explosives. The China faction's hero is Black Lotus, a computer hacker, who has the ability to capture enemy buildings faster than infantry, temporarily shut down enemy vehicles and steal money from enemy supply centers. The GLA (Global Liberation Army) faction's hero is Jarmen Kell, a veteran sniper, has the special ability to snipe the driver of ground vehicles, rendering vehicles inoperable and open to commandeering by any infantry unit of any side. These heroes remained essentially the same in the Zero Hour expansion, the only changes being the China Infantry General's "Super Lotus" who can hack faster than Black Lotus, and the GLA Demolition General's version of Jarmen Kell who can place explosives like Colonel Burton and has a longer recharge time of his ability to kill pilots.

Tiberium Wars and Kane's Wrath

Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars sees the return of a "GDI commando" unit, featuring an experimental rapid-firing railgun prototype capable of devastating vast numbers of all kinds of infantry in a very short amount of time, and using a "jump jet" pack to bypass terrain which cannot be covered on foot by normal infantry. The GDI commando also retains the iconic C4 explosives featured in Tiberium Wars its predecessors, but is additionally capable of destroying not only enemy structures with them, but also enemy walker units. The Brotherhood of Nod faction received a female commando unit armed with dual laser pistols, C4 explosives which can be used against enemy structures and walkers in identical fashion to the GDI commando unit, and comes with the ability to automatically stealth herself when idle. The Scrin faction features a hero unit called the "Mastermind", which is capable of mind-controlling any enemy unit or structure, as well as teleporting allied units across the battlefield. While the similar unit in Yuri's Revenge does not have a teleport ability, it can safely control up to three units at a time.

In Tiberium Wars' expansion pack, entitled Kane's Wrath, each of the three factions of the core game receive a so-called "epic unit" -- the GDI "MARV", the Nod "Redeemer" and the Scrin "Eradicator". Each are massive "super units" that can be garrissoned with various infantry to increase its capabilities and/or firepower, and features a special ability which can quickly turn the tide of a battle. The GDI MARV is able of instantly harvesting as well as processing Tiberium crystals by simply driving over a Tiberium field, giving a GDI player the ability to deny their opponent's economy by means of direct offense. The Nod Redeemer features the "rage generator", which will cause all enemy units in its range to attack one another. The Scrin Eradicator recovers credits for the Scrin player by consuming the destroyed husks of enemy units.

Tiberium

In Tiberium, now cancelled, the hero character is a GDI officer named Ricardo Vega, one of the protagonists from the novel. In the same fashion as Renegade, Tiberium was designed as a first person shooter, so the player would have assumed the role of this character and have direct control over him.

Red Alert 3

Red Alert 3 sees the return of Tanya for the Allied faction, with identical abilities to the version featured in Yuri's Revenge, but with the addition of a "Time Belt", which she may use to travel back in time and regain health, and additionally to escape from dangerous situations. The Soviets receive Natasha, a female sniper unit that is capable of killing lines of infantry at a time, a laser-marker which she uses to call in airstrikes upon vehicles and structures (much like Boris) and the ability to snipe vehicle pilots, allowing the vehicle to be commandeered - not unlike Jarmen Kell's ability. The Empire of the Rising Sun receive Yuriko Omega, who uses her psionic abilities to kill infantry, mentally tear apart vehicles, structures, and pull aircraft out of the sky. She also possesses the ability to release a psychic blast that will kill all infantry in a 360° radius, much like Yuri's mindblast ability featured in Red Alert 2.

[edit] Superweapons

The Command & Conquer series has a rich history of superweapons, providing each faction in each game with at least one such device. The superweapons of C&C include several real life weapons, as well as a large amount of futuristic devices, such as the Ion Cannon and the Chronosphere. Previous installments allowed each faction one unique superweapon. Later Installments each faction gained a "Major" and "Minor" superweapon, with the "Major" one being more costly, having longer cooldown, and greatly gamebreaking, while the Minor one only provides support.

[edit] Tiberium Series

In the classic C&C titles, the Global Defense Initiative (GDI) has access to an orbital weapons platform equipped with an energy weapon known as the Ion Cannon, which fires a short burst particle beam of High Frequency Ions. Originally weaker than the Nod superweapon due to its precision, it undergoes a change in Command and Conquer 3 - rather than striking a single target, it fires a series of 8 beams in a wide arc that converge to a point which triggers a large main area of effect explosion. In "Tiberian Sun" and "Firestorm" GDI also gains a new weapon concept: a super defensive weapon the Firestorm Walls, able to block missiles, other projectiles and aircraft from passing above them, rendering whatever they are fencing almost invulnerable for a short period.

The Brotherhood of Nod can build the Temple of Nod: a religious center/missile silo capable of launching a nuclear missile. This weapon has greater destructive power compared to the Ion Cannon and can harm multiple targets around its ground zero. In Tiberian Sun and Firestorm, the missile was changed to the Multi-Missile, a non-nuclear cluster bomb. They also had a Chemical Missile that covered the target zone with toxic clouds of Tiberium gas. Both factions can also deploy hunter seeker drones, which find and destroy its target by detonating, damaging anything in its blast radius.

Command and Conquer 3 changed the Nod superweapon back to the nuclear missile. The new faction, the Scrin, may construct a superweapon called a rift generator. It creates a 'rift' over a patch of land, causing damage similar to the Ion cannon or Nuke.

[edit] Renegade

In Renegade, a player can purchase a 'Beacon' if they have sufficient credits. Deploying this beacon will commence a 45-second countdown, after which the superweapon will hit (an Ion Cannon strike for GDI; a nuclear missile strike for Nod) and will destroy any structures or units in the vicinity. However, enemy engineers can disarm this beacon.

[edit] Red Alert Series

In the original Red Alert titles, the Soviets, and in multiplayer games the Allies, can build a missile silo. This missile, however, was not as devastating as any other nukes in the entire history of the game, being barely able to destroy anything beyond light tanks, infantry, and light buildings. Each side also has a distinct "lesser" superweapon that has more of a support role (rather than inflicting direct damage). The Allied Chronosphere enables the player to teleport one vehicle to any location on the map, while the Soviet Iron Curtain makes a vehicle temporarily invulnerable. Both have their drawback, however. The Iron Curtain only lasts for around 45 seconds and can not be used on infantry. The Chronosphere creates vortices with prolonged use and the teleported unit will return to its pre-teleport location after a period of time (MCVs circumvented this; if the MCV deployed itself into a Construction Yard, the building would not be moved.) Also, using the Chronosphere on a transport unit is of no use, as the units inside the transport are lost; it also kills infantry instantly.

In Red Alert 2, the Chronosphere and the Iron Curtain are much more powerful since they can now affect multiple units at once. The new Chronosphere also does not revert the vehicles back to the main location as it did in the first game. The Allies also command the Weather Control Device that can generate a massive lightning storm that covers a large area and randomly strikes at targets below. The Soviets control a more powerful version of the nuclear silo, which irradiates the ground in a radius of where it lands and obliterating most of its target. Yuri's faction, introduced in Yuri's Revenge, has the Psychic Dominator that transfers the control of all units in the target area to the Yuri player and damages buildings heavily. The lesser superweapon of Yuri is the Genetic Mutator that instantly mutates infantry in the target zone into The Hulk-like Brute soldiers under the Yuri player's control. In Red Alert 2's expansion, a force shield ability is also introduced to all factions, provided if the player has a Battle Lab. The Force Shield functions similar to the Soviet Iron Curtain, but protects the player's base from all other superweapon attacks, although when activated, it drains the player's base of power for a short period.

For Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, the Chronosphere and Iron Curtain remain, although both factions' major superweapons have been changed. The Allies now control the Proton Collider, which fires five yellow bolts at the target area in an arc from where the Allied player has placed the superweapon. The Soviets are armed with a Vacuum Imploder that launches a missile whose warhead behaves much like the Scrin Rift Generator in that it inflicts damage over time to structures, and drawing in all units within its area of effect to be instantly destroyed. The Empire of the Rising Sun has the Nanoswarm Hive as their lesser superweapon which creates an impenetrable shield around the target area to stop an attack force or block access to an area of a base. Their major superweapon is called the Psionic Decimator, and it creates two energy fields: one black which steadily shrinks around the second field, which is light blue. When the black energy field compresses so much that it fits inside the blue one it expands rapidly and everything within the blast radius has damage inflicted on it. Of all of the major superweapons in Red Alert 3, only the Psionic Decimator and Vacuum Imploder can reliably hit air units.

[edit] Generals Series

Each of the three factions in the C&C Generals titles (The USA, China and The GLA) have a distinct superweapon. Also, for a first time in C&C history, Generals also features the ability to use multiple superweapons by building more than one superweapon structure.

  • USA has the Particle Cannon which resembles the Ion Cannon of the GDI, but instead of a short burst fires a sustained beam which can be moved around to hit various targets. The Particle Cannon has a very limited area of effect around the beam and is better suited for hitting several densely-packed targets or moving units than laying waste to the entire screen. It is the fastest recharging superweapon in the game, able to be used in relatively quick succession. Area effect damage is limited to the trail of the beam.
  • The GLA (Global Liberation Army) has an array of SCUD missile launchers bundled together, called the Scud Storm. When activated, the Scud Storm launches a salvo of SCUD missiles that rain down upon the target area. The random nature of missile hits creates a very large area of effect but also hampers precise targeting. Additionally, the missiles carry biological warheads (which can be further upgraded to carry a deadlier strain of anthrax), and contaminate the target zone in a similar fashion to the radiation effect of the nuclear missile. This contamination lingers longer than the radiation and is particularly devastating against infantry while also damaging light vehicles, but deals almost no damage against buildings. The Scud Storm is slower than the Particle Cannon, but faster than the nuclear missile.
  • China keeps up the tradition of nuclear weapons in the C&C series and can build a missile silo to launch a thermonuclear ballistic missile. The missile deals heavy damage to a considerable area around its ground zero, and can destroy multiple structures and/or units in an instant. The nuclear explosion will also irradiate the area, damaging any units (and also buildings to a lesser extent) that stay near the ground zero for some time after the initial explosion. The nuclear missile has the slowest recharge time out of all the Command & Conquer Generals Superweapons.
  • Additionally to those superweapons, certain "General upgrades" also give an opportunity to strike anywhere on the map, with one of the most powerful being the USA Fuel Air Bomb (and by the events of Zero hour, the MOAB), especially when used in conjunction with the Particle cannon.
  • In the Zero Hour expansion pack, some of the additional generals have modifications to their faction's superweapon. The Chinese Nuke General has a cheaper and more powerful nuclear missile, and the American Superweapon General's Particle Cannon is cheaper and stronger, at the cost of having a shorter duration upon use . Each of the GLA Generals also applies their unique strategies to modify their respective Scud Storm launchers. The Toxin General's Scud Storm can leave a more damaging cloud of toxin in the form of Anthrax Gamma; the Demolition General's Scud Storm does more base damage without leaving behind toxic waste; and the Stealth General's Scud Storm, while not altered in terms of damage output, can be camouflaged, making detection and destruction of his superweapon difficult.

[edit] Interface

All of the C&C games except for Generals have a similar interface, featuring a double-columned scrollable build list on the right of the screen. If the player has met certain conditions (e.g. acquiring necessary technologies, having certain buildings already built, or having enough money) the structures and units on the build list can be put into play. Generals changed this style of interface to one more reminiscent of Blizzard games such as StarCraft. Generals was not seen as a "true" Command & Conquer game by many fans because of this change.

The original Command & Conquer sidebar was restored, beginning with Tiberium Wars; the latest had three columns instead of two, with the unit or structure upgrades/actions bar in the lower part.

[edit] Resource management

Tiberium must be harvested by special vehicles called Harvesters that have to travel to the Tiberium field, harvest it, and return to a refinery to unload the Tiberium for further "processing" into credits.

In Tiberian Sun, there are two types of Tiberium that yield differing amounts of credits per amount harvested. It is also very toxic to infantry units (with the blue also being flammable and explosive). Additionally, Tiberian Sun was the only game featuring orange "veins" which can't be processed into money; rather, it was used by Nod as the base ingredient of the aforementioned Chemical Missile. In the Red Alert series, the main item to be harvested was "ore". It is similar to Tiberium, but is non-toxic to infantry and slightly slows the movement of vehicles while they are on the ore. The more valuable substance in Red Alert were called "gems". Gems, however, did not regenerate as did the Ore/Tiberium. Control of the Tiberium/Ore on the game map was a vital part of strategy. In Red Alert 2, Oil Derricks were first introduced into the game, which generated a constant flow of income for the player. Also in Red Alert a common strategy was for the soviets to build many harvesters*which had machine guns on top of them) and mine from the same places as their enemies, which would deny the allies access to resources if a player wasn't paying close attention to his harvesters)In Tiberium Wars, the Tiberium Spike served as the Oil Derricks did in RA2. Some maps also contain civilian Tiberium Silos that grant credits when captured and allow for more storage of Tiberium. Kane's Wrath also introduced Epic Units, two of which can produce credits either by driving over tiberium (as in the case of the MARV) or destroying enemy units within range (as in the case of the Eradicator Hexapod).

Generals de-emphasizes the role of resource management in game strategy. Instead of Tiberium, there is a fixed amount of "supplies" contained in boxes that can be retrieved by certain units called resource gatherers, with the resource gathering structure placed near the supplies. Unlike ore or Tiberium, supplies do not regenerate, requiring the game to provide other ways to generate income. The USA has a Supply Drop Zone, which calls in planes to drop boxes of supplies. China has hackers, who can generate increasingly high income through hacking the Internet. The GLA has the Black Market, which generates 20 credits every few seconds. At the same time, the GLA can gain additional money through destroying enemy units. A General Upgrade enables GLA to gain as much as 20% of the cost of an enemy unit. Additionally, all sides may capture civilian oil refineries to generate 200 credits every few seconds. Since these buildings / units did not have a build limit players in this game could create a runaway economy fairly quickly.

Red Alert 3 also has a new type of economy: the "Ore Mines" which are closely related to WarCraft 3's mine system. The player builds a normal C&C Refinery close to an ore mine, the Harvester that spawns will collect ore and then return to the refinery again and again until the mine runs dry. This change was made for players to be able to focus more on fighting and less on managing their economy.

[edit] Online

When internet gaming became popular in the mid-late 1990s to the 2000s, Command & Conquer games had a large Internet presence. In the early stages, Command & Conquer would go by the Battleclan system in order to create a set of teams or clans, which would pose as battle groups for game tournaments.

Command & Conquer was not the only Westwood Studios game that would follow this practice as there were many more. The games that would use Battleclans were Tiberian Sun and its add on pack Firestorm, Red Alert 2 which later merged its battleclan system with Yuri's Revenge and the original Command & Conquer game. Whoever would play under your clan name would add points to the clan scoreboard if that person won the game, though there was a table for both winners and losers.

The WOL (Westwood Online) Ladder is the original online ladder for the Command & Conquer series. Nowadays, the ladder used in these games is the one used on the XWIS server.

Now that Command and Conquer are in the hands of EA, EA have setup their own servers and ladders for the later releases.(From Generals onwards)

[edit] Development team history

The Command & Conquer franchise has been produced by three different studios to date:

Westwood Studios (1992 – 2002)
EA Pacific (a.k.a. Westwood Pacific) (2000 – 2003)
EA Los Angeles (2003 – present)

[edit] Evolution of the trademark

Over the years, some C&C Games had more specific Command & Conquer logos. The initial C&C DOS Logo was Gray.

A golden version of the same logo was used on C&C'95, Command & Conquer: Red Alert, Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun, Command & Conquer: Sole Survivor, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 and their expansions.

The Command & Conquer: Renegade logo uses the same gold logo, but embeds it in a background with metal texture.

The Command & Conquer long logo was developed for Generals with a completely different design; the words being placed horizontally, rather than the vertical alignment of the previous versions; the & symbol was also encased in a reticle. The same logo was also used for its expansion pack, Zero Hour.

The early C&C 3 concept logo seemed to be combining aspects of all previous logos. The font was in the Generals long-logo style, while the words were placed vertically like in the classic variant. The final revision of the logo went back to the design of the original ones. Red Alert 3 used the same font as the finalized C&C 3 logo, but used the Generals long-logo style as seen at top.

[edit] Awards

Command & Conquer's long history resulted in Guinness World Records awarding the series 6 world records in the Guinness World Records: Gamer's Edition 2008. These records include "Biggest Selling RTS Series", "Most Number of Platforms for an RTS", and "Longest Running Actor in Video Game Role" for Joe Kucan, who has played the part of Kane, the villainous mastermind of the series, for 14 years.

[edit] Command and Conquer TV

Command and Conquer TV are several small internet shows made by EA to announce new developments, showing off game replays, game strategies, information on C&C games under development and overall Command and Conquer news. C&C TV features three shows: "BattleCast Prime Time", "Command School" and "The BattleCast Minute". "Aftermath" was a former show that has since been cancelled.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Command & Conquer (PSP) at IGN
  2. ^ "Command and conquer:Renegade, on IGN". http://pc.ign.com/objects/013/013180.html. 
  3. ^ Electronic Arts (2003-02-11). Command & Conquer Generals Ships. Press release. http://games.ign.com/articles/385/385755p1.html. Retrieved on 2008-04-28. 
  4. ^ a b Westwood Studios (1997-10-24). "Westwood Studios Official Command & Conquer: Red Alert FAQ List". Westwood Studios. ftp://ftp.westwood.com/pub/redalert/info/RAFAQ19.TXT. Retrieved on 23 April 2007. 
  5. ^ a b Adam Isgreen (2006-12-18). "C&C Timeline (II)". Petroglyph Games. http://www.petroglyphgames.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=1455&st=0&p=20748&#entry20748. Retrieved on 2007-08-23. 
  6. ^ a b Red Alert 3: Uprising announced
  7. ^ The Armchair Empire - PC Reviews: Command and Conquer - Generals Score: 7.9 / 10 - Omni (June 8, 2003)
  8. ^ Paul Mallinson (2002-05-31). "Games that changed the world: Command & Conquer". CVG magazine. http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=49038. Retrieved on 2006-12-22. 
  9. ^ http://www.armchairempire.com/Reviews/PC%20Games/command-conquer-generals.htm
  10. ^ http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6198367.html?tag=latestheadlines;title;1
Notes

[edit] External links

[edit] Official websites

[edit] Other

For a list of fansites, see the Command & Conquer entry at the Open Directory Project.
v • d • e
Command & Conquer
Video games
Main universe:
Spin-offs:
Playable factions
Generals series:
Characters
Tiberian series:
Red Alert series:
Miscellaneous
 
Companies
Developers
Westwood Studios (1992–2002) · EA Pacific (2002–2003) · EA Los Angeles (2003—)
Publishers
Virgin Interactive (1992–1998) · EA Games (1998–2005) · Electronic Arts (2005—)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_%26_Conquer"
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