Command & Conquer

"Command and Conquer fans will like it; everyone else stay away"

With the exception of Starcraft 64, there are no other real-time strategy games on the Nintendo 64, and for a good reason: the sheer amount of micro-managing done with the N64 controller is beyond comprehensible. But the folks at Westwood brought their PC classic to consoles, but unfortunately, the whole game feels incredibly dumbed down.

Command and Conquer is a classic real-time strategy game that takes a more contemporary approach than that of Starcraft. In the 21st century, a global war is fought between good and evil, like G.I. Joes versus the Cobra army. Throughout the whole game, you'll be playing campaign missions for two different faction: the Global Defense Initiative (yellow) and the Brotherhood of NOD (navy blue). Each side is primarily the same except for a few varying units, different buildings, and unique battlegrounds. For instance, the GDI campaign takes place in Europe but the NOD campaign takes place in Africa. With the exception of the campaign and a few bonus missions, there's no free-play mode and especially no multiplayer. Even though Starcraft 64's split-screen play wasn't outstanding, it was miles better than what C&C has to offer.

The core of the gameplay is standard entertainment for RTS enthusiasts. By mining a toxic substance called Tiberium, you'll earn cash to expand your base and build a small variety of units such as infantry, grenadiers, hummers, tanks, and rocket launchers. As you amass a large army, you can drag and click your army to your orders. You can hotkey up to four squads using the C-buttons, and you can quickly build any units you like by simply pressing the Z key to bring up a menu. Besides the fun of mass-producing units and going on a killing spree, the rest of the game is a real deterrent.

Most missions will have you building up your army and destroying all the enemy units in the area. Others will have you begin with a predeployed army, sent to destroy a specific unit on the map. There's also the Commando--a one-man army who has some of the best quotes from an RTS unit in his gruff, commanding voice. He can kill infantry in one shot and can blow up buildings with C4. Unfortunately, he's defenseless against vehicles, and these missions usually involve the most trial and error of all the missions. The mission design isn't very original, but it's not terrible either.

There's a few features that are sorely missing from this game. For instance, you can't create a backlog of build orders or set rally points. Every time a new unit is built, you have to open up the build menu, select the unit again, and go back to the factory and move the unit into battle. The cursor is expedient and can be used quite liberally, but it's easy to misclick, forcing you to go back and reselect your units again. It's impossible to select specific unit types, which means that, unless you feel like sorting out a potpourri of units, you'll have to move in the infantry with the vehicles, which is bad since most infantry get in the way of enemy vehicles and can actually get run over and instantly die. There's a command to order your units to scatter and avoid too many casualties, but most infantry just gang up together and become hamburger meat for enemy tanks.

Even moreso, the AI must be ordered to attack every individual unit or else they'll move to where you ordered them, getting shot at in the process. Your units never autonomously attack enemy buildings within their range, and if an enemy, such as a grenadier, begins to attack your units from outside their attack range, they stand there taking hits without responding to the threats. Basically, the gameplay boils down to one thing—massing up an army and moving them in, attacking one unit at a time. It becomes quite an annoyance after several missions.

Even though C&C's presentation captures one of an edgy global war with the obvious technological motif, the graphics are not so outstanding. Most units, especially foot soldiers, are incredibly tiny and undiscernible—more like plastic Risk soldiers than actual units. Most big units such as tanks and buildings can be made out, but the framerate really isn't good enough to hold up the frequent micro-managing, which means that if the game “lags up” while you're giving an order, you'll have to go back and redo it all over again. At least the sound is “memorable.” Most notable of the sound would be the death screams from the infantry—they scream bloody murder as if they were being tortured in some horror flick. When the body count gets high, this gets very annoying. Other sound effects include some generic rock beats and muffled voice messages between missions. Nothing is really stellar about C&C's visuals, and that hurts.

Overall, if you are a fan of Command and Conquer, you will enjoy this game in an “oh it looks cute” kind of way. However, this is just a clunky single-player version of the PC classic, so unless you have a good reason to avoid the PC version, then be skeptical about picking this up.

Presentation: 7/10 – Well, it's a Command and Conquer game. Some cool menus with neat transitions here and there.
Gameplay: 5/10 – Some RTS fun to be found, but it's hard to order units around, the AI is stupid, and there's no multiplayer.
Graphics: 5/10 – Blotchy, stubby units become an eyesore after a long while and the framerate is inconsistent.
Sound: 6/10 – Some interesting but generic rock tunes with awful death wails and muffled voiceovers.
Replay Value: 5/10 – There's about thirty missions in the game, but besides this, there's nothing else to do in this game besides try for high scores.

Overall: 5/10.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 07/12/07, Updated 09/04/07

Game Release: Command & Conquer (US, 05/31/99)