Command & Conquer: The First Decade Review

By Jim Rossignol Published 13 March, 2006

Cha-ching!

Version tested: PC

I am occasionally forced to think that someone is having a laugh at my expense. "Please review the last ten years of the Command & Conquer franchise (enclosed)." Ten years? So that's five games and about as many expansion packs? And I still get paid the same rate, right? Right.

RIGHT!

Damn, well at least I was paying attention to something over the last decade. Imagine if I'd been into football or something. Christ.

Perhaps I should ring up that amphetamine addict I used know, but he's an insurance salesman now. Speed-induced psychoses clash with those Burton two-piece suits, or so he claims. No good. I guess I'll just have to start installing the blighters and begin that long haul review. I say goodbye to my loved ones, microwave my mobile phone and set the dog free into a nearby landfill.

But what is the method? Do I start at the beginning, play that first C&C game and go forward? Do I bow to the obviousness of chronological order? Do I simply rig up all the spare part PCs I have lying about and attempt to play ten games at once like some child genius defeating ten grandmasters at chess? I will tank-rush a dozen AI constructs simultaneously!

No. I shall play them backwards. Start with Generals and regress. Like some grotesque hypnotherapy session, I begin in the now and float backwards to where all these memories come from, surfing the present into deepest, darkest hours lost to gaming... times best left forgotten.

Installation. Whirring DVD.

'Command & Conquer: The First Decade' Screenshot 1

"Your mission, should you choose to pay money to accept it, is one of bloated nostalgia."

How's this for nostalgia: installation begins with you having to type in a decade's worth of serial keys. That's right, they couldn't be bothered to come up with a one-key-fits all, no you have to manually type in one hundred and fifty digits before you can even install.

Ah, but with installation motoring there's time enough to make a cup of tea, tidy my desk, and explain to Kieron what 'RTFM' means. Then, as planned, I begin lurching onwards into the recent past.

Command & Conquer Generals is a 3D RTS as slick as a glob of engine grease, and about as intellectually attractive. This is no Total War, in fact it's barely anything above what we'd demand from an RTS in 2006. Button pushing, repetitious but disgustingly compulsive. Hell, the explosions are ace and you've gotta build 'em all. You just have to; and you know how to. This is the rich top layer of sediment in our site of gaming archaeology. Recent but decomposing matter. Fertile stuff, but ultimately dead.

There's an interesting story attached to my own recollections of this game, since the early press versions weren't quite the same as the version that landed on the shelves, (or so the journo hive-mind reminds me). The difference was that the retail version didn't have the level where you drive around exterminating mobs of innocent people with jets of poisonous sludge. Was this entertainment gone wrong? Had Generals really gone further than all the other destruction and massacre and terrorist campaigns of the previous C&C games? After all, the tradition of Soviet vengeance and counter-culture death-mongers in these games had set a fair precedent for silly violence against the weak.

The shrieking, half-laughing, half-horrified reviewer in the office I was working in at the time of the original reviews certainly thought so, and so did EA, who were wise enough not to publish the fateful level in the version the cellophane folks got hold of. Of course these recollections are nothing to do with what you actually get in this box, but the memory of general indignation at a game turned nasty sticks with me like contact poison, and so I share it with you.

Generals, of course, is still bubbling away below the surface of current point 'n' build gaming, and doesn't look that old, or play too shabbily, but I suspect the real joys are further into the past, in the beasts that walked the Earth before the 3D RTS wars. In these polygonal times there's a near-essential absurdity of extra features amongst what your units can do and what hi-tech toys (and they really look like toys) you can deploy against your foe: it's almost too much to stomach - like eating the aforementioned compost of ideas. And I realise that this, right here, is where I lost interest in C&C. I suspect others did too. By now the primordial flame of RTS action was little more than a standardised logo. Others have taken the lead, and taken us into more interesting territory.

Back, back. And to Red Alert 2. The last bastion of the isometric master-games. Suddenly all sense of nostalgia is gone and I'm back in the processes that made RTS games so exquisite. Westwood had mastered its art, and had made the mastery of your art as a casual tactician (click, click, kill and gather) all too easy, and far too compulsive. Colourful, regularly silly, and possessed of a puzzle-perfect tactical challenge. It wasn't quite as exquisitely formed as its predecessor, but that didn't stop the RTS folks playing until their bones began to change. It's still loads of fun. It's still non-stop, relentless and oddly indulgent.

'Command & Conquer: The First Decade' Screenshot 2

Yesterday's futuristic battle units, yesterday.

Command & Conquer: Renegade. Hahahaha! Did you actually play this? The first-person shooter of the RTS... No, no, NO. I'm getting queasy just thinking about it. Going back and playing it, well, again, no. This is an appalling atrocity of gaming craft. This is one of those games where the idea, the pitch - of playing as the Commando on the cartoonish field of C&C war - was genius, and the reality something more like the dreams of a starving hobo clown. Move on!

1999. "Less like a date, more like a number we resort to in emergency..." says bearded genius Alan Moore. But the me of 1999 doesn't expect millennial doom because he is contentedly sedated and duly distracted with techno-conflicts of our possible future. At that time I live in a smoky university tenement with a crusty Dell Pentium and a copy of Tiberian Sun. Despite the weirdness of controlling tiberium monster things, and the possibilities for robots, and the years and years of wonder created the mech-combat trailer that came with the original C&C game, there was something missing from this game. Playing again now gives me the same gnawing sense that Tiberian Sun was just trying too hard, and missing the mark. Nevertheless it consumes an afternoon without even trying. The missions often miss a beat, but the production values are so high that the chunky pixels of yesterday seem almost like a retro-experiment gone wrong when seen on the screens of today. I never thought I'd be back here. And can barely entertain the fact that I'm enjoying it... weird. Wrong.

But there's further to go. Back to Red Alert.

When this arrived it was clear that Command & Conquer was unstoppable. The alternate-reality universe of Soviet Super-bloc versus Western Allies was even more compelling, even more vibrant than its predecessor. The base-building, unit pumping, objective-based game had reached a mature stage where it flew around stinging your senses until you were completely paralysed. Then it laid eggs in your brain.

Few people can look back on Red Alert without nodding quietly and remembering the days that seemed to vanish. It was the C&C where everything was in proportion, where the challenges were genuinely mixed and compelled you to find out what needed to be done to win. It was an exploration of gaming terrain, as well as blocky, pixelly terrain. Games are still trying to articulate that kind of gaming experience, albeit with graphics a billion times as complex.

And now it is 1995. Something is wrong with my hormones and I am in love with the girl with blonde hair and strong feminist principles. I am attached, via yellowed keyboard and ancient horizontal desktop computer to the original C&C game. It is a revolution. The revolution.

Point and click and they move. It's like Dune 2, only more militaristic. I am transfixed by the objective-based missions. Truly. This. Is. War. (In Real Time, not that cheapo incremental stuff we were palmed off with before.) Using the commando to explore what could be done with a single unit is a delight.

A pantomime of 'terrorism' plays out in front of my eyes. The pixel memories of protagonist factions GDI and NOD, dancing around each other for the first time. And then it comes to me: the entire world is living a dream of Command & Conquer. The all-encompassing terrorist threat is right here, seed-like in the comic ramblings of anti-Freedom mega-threat, Kaine. Perhaps he's really behind it all - stepping out of fiction to fool us all into thinking we need global death squads to keep the unfree in line.

I control a tiny commando. I am my own Pentagon. Cartoon point 'n' click carnage.

Ten years at the helm. No wonder our minds have changed.

And now, for just forty quid, you can know the whole of the past under one DVD, with no driver issues or boot discs and all that jazz.

Awesome.

I lean back in my chair and, in a moment of grim lucidity I realise: all of these games are already in a cardboard box in the shed. That means something. I just can't decide what.

Ah, I know:

6 / 10

Read the Eurogamer.net scoring policy
Picture of Jim.

About Jim Rossignol

Read more articles from Jim by visiting the Jim Rossignol archive page.

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Comments (61) Latest comment 5 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Huntcjna #1 6 years ago

    Harsh but fair.

  • wayn3h #2 6 years ago

    Command & Conquer: Renegade... xD that game was truely dire.. Come to think of it, I've never been a huge fan of the C&C series with the possible exception of Tiberian sun, which IMO was the best by far.

  • Artemus #3 6 years ago

    No mention of the borked LAN multiplay. Good old EA.

  • Royal Fool #4 6 years ago

    Eurogamer in "Yet another 6/10" shocker!

    The total value of this package cannot be argued though, at least not if you're a fan that never owned these games by yourself or even if you call yourself an RTS fan and have never experienced these games. But I agree with the score... there's simply not enough "new stuff" in this compilation. They could have at least upgraded the resolution options and multiplayer components.

    That and the original installers are missing. They could have at least made a new installer program with cool features...

    As for the negative comments on Renegade and Tiberian Sun... I vividly recall PC Gamer hyping these games up beyond all proportions. :)

  • SeesThroughAll #5 6 years ago

    Too expensive for what you get. Sure, I'd like a modern Pc compatible old C&C collection, but at this price... nope.

    Why didn't they ever make a C&C III? Why, oh why did EA have to kill C&C? Never more will we see the Westwood Studios logo. Never more will we see Kane's charisma.
    Gotta hate EA for perverting and killing a good franchise.

  • feinry #6 6 years ago

    ha, 6/10 is really harsh... in fact, i'm even surprised you reviewing it. The note must be the interest of buying this compilation for someone who has the original cds.
    C&C 1 and 2. RA 1 and 2... Four fantastic games
    I remember Generals. the fact they changed the core gameplay with this bloody unit to build instead direct building. A direct copy from Warcraft. And this political propaganda, disgusting. But the community managed to make it a great game on multiplayed. And ironically, the terrorist were the most played camp, before they offered the best variety. I reckon a lot of players expressed a disgust for US policy at this time by using the terro. At the end, Generals is a very good RTS.
    I'll certain buy this compilation and make my kids play it in 15y ^^

  • jack_klugman #7 6 years ago

    Do Jim and Kieron live together?

  • botherer #8 6 years ago

    "As for the negative comments on Renegade [...] I vividly recall PC Gamer hyping these games up beyond all proportions. :)"

    I'm not convinced that 47% counts as quite beyond *all* proportions. Nor the vividness of your recollection : )

  • LetsGo #9 6 years ago

    Hahahah! No-way! So you think C&CRA deserves at least a 6/10?

  • The12thMonkey #10 6 years ago

    Probably fair.

    Command & Conquer - very pure, but playing it now, it's shocking at how we used to put up with such basic AI. Being able to build a wall down to an enemy base and blocking everything in? Mad, indeed. Played it again a year ago, and it's great for a nostalgia trip.

    Red Alert - I always prefered the C&C universe over the RA universe, but Red Alert was, and still is, once heck of a good game. Like C&C though, played it last year, and definately showing it's age.

    Tiberian Sun - Still my favourite of the bunch. Perhaps an example of over-development, but it still is a solid game with a solid update of the core mechanics. Nice ideas, some poorly implemented though, such as the destructable terrain.

    Red Alert 2 - The EA mark was beginning to show by this point. It's still a wonderful game (as long as you forget all about Yuri's Cash-in, er, Revenge). The only problem I had with the game was the "up-balancing". Everything was powerful, and everything could turn the tide of a battle, so there was no reason to even try avoiding tank rush, except for asthetics. At least in Tib Sun, it sometimes felt like they had tried to take new strategies into consideration.

    Generals and Renegade can bugger off. Never got more than a mission or two into each. They both smacked of tripe.

  • coojam #11 6 years ago

    That's unfair on Renegade...I never played it because it got slated, but after buying The First Decade I gave it a shot...and its surprisingly good...

    It has explosive setpieces, teamwork, vehicles that you can hop in and out of...it was WAY ahead of its time...the comparisons between this, Halo, FarCry etc. are unbelievable. The cut scenes are a little ham-fisted like, but its just fun!

  • smelly #12 6 years ago

    See what happens when i dont post the usual "EG MUST BE FANBOYS!!" post!?

  • smelly #13 6 years ago

    As in, get over the score people!!!! Read the words luke.. the words..

  • TheJuriel #14 6 years ago

    Eh, it's 6/10 for the total package, sold at a high price. Because one game's great, doesn't mean the whole thing is.

  • d0bbo #15 6 years ago

    Great review, one of the most entertaining I've read for a while.

    It's six out of ten becuase it's essentially existing material reboxed and you probably own half of it. Did you not read the last few lines?

  • erp #16 6 years ago

    please tell me this is coming out on Mac OSX. please please please please please.

  • ave #17 6 years ago

    Reviews funny, but as usual from NGJ mostly un-informative.

    Great
    Edited by 1 at 13/03/06 @ 15:41

  • Crube #18 6 years ago

    So what does RTFM mean?

  • blueseagull #19 6 years ago

    NGJ = teh sux!

  • Stickman #20 6 years ago

    This review doesn't have to really be that informative surely? If you don't know what C&C's all about, then you're probably on here looking for eurogaymen or somehting.

  • pollster #21 6 years ago

    @Crube

    Well I work in IT and we use it a lot when our "users" log silly help calls.

    Basically i'll give you three of the words.

    RTFM = Read, The, #######, Manual.

    Put best Rolf Harris voice on, ahem: "Can you guess what it is yet?"

  • ave #22 6 years ago

    @Stickman: So why not just have a score for the review? Could have talked about whats changed, whats new, whats in the package, given a little summary of each game(It has been 10 years since C&C, perhaps you have an eidetic memory, I dont).

    Instead we get the usual NGJ stuff, and at the end a score that doesnt really have too much to do with the review.

  • mazzl #23 6 years ago

    RTFM = Read The F*cking Manual

    but a rain of handgranades alone should get this game a 10/10 ;)
    Edited by 1 at 13/03/06 @ 15:49

  • Stickman #24 6 years ago

    I'm not sure you need a photographic memory to remember what C&C is like do you? Maybe you do, maybe its just me, either way, I found the review well written. It came across as a gamer reliving a little nostalgia, which is precicely what you'd be doing if you bought this set.

  • gaijin #25 6 years ago

    @erp

    this is coming out on Mac OSX

    there, you're easily pleased...

  • N-Al #26 6 years ago

    I ordered this off play.com over a month ago and it still hasn't arrived... :-(

    It's the first EA game I bought in donkey's years, let alone pre-ordered, but that can be excused cause the majority of the content is pre-EA Westwood.

    Still, I'd rather like to play this now, damnit!

  • ave #27 6 years ago

    So Stickman, why bother with anything but the review score?

    It's a game REVIEW, not "Memoirs of an old C&C player"

  • smoison #28 6 years ago

    Nice review, was fun to read.

    Don't know why some people here are unhappy, they C&C Fanboys or something....

  • Stickman #29 6 years ago

    ave, as far as I'm concerned botherer (for I believe 'tis he?) has reviewed the game to a level that lets me get a feel for it. I'm not really sure what else you want from a review to be honest.

  • ave #30 6 years ago

    http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/ commandconquerthefirstdecade/review.html

    Read this fairly average review, contemplate the difference.

  • SeesThroughAll #31 6 years ago

    ahem, what review? ^

  • ave #32 6 years ago

    Copy and paste first line, copy and paste second line.
    <a href=http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/ commandconquerthefirstdecade/review.html>Lazy bugger</a>

  • urban #33 6 years ago

    ahhh good old westwood...before ea tarnished.

  • Hunam85 #34 6 years ago

    No mention of the lack of multiplayer and hideous bugs? Thats why i havent bought it yet

    /waits for EA to patch the collection into something worthwhile.

  • urban #35 6 years ago

    i've got the original box set....i wont be buying this one.

  • BremXJones #36 6 years ago

    Stickman: Botherer is Walker. Rossignol is (er) you know, I don't think he posts in the comments thread.

    KG

  • Kostabi #37 6 years ago

    The score seems spot on to me. Red Alert used to be a 9/10 but the goalposts moved long, long ago. Maybe it's just because I'm older and crave a bit more depth in my RTS games these days but it's hard to revisit C&C without wishing I was playing Total War or even Total Annhiliation instead.

    I pity the foo' who has to type in 10 seperate serial numbers just to install the thing. Well done EA!

  • stoopidgreg #38 6 years ago

    how can you give this a 6? it's well worth the money...

    /dnrtfa

    [edit] ok read some of it, then saw he was trying to say generals is shit. i'd like to point said "reviewer" in the direction of generals' gameranking of 85%
    Edited by 2 at 13/03/06 @ 17:41

  • Tomo #39 6 years ago

    Blimey, seems harsh to me. Granted I haven't read the review but I'd say it's pretty superb value for money considering most companies rehash 6 Megadrive games and sell for £20.

  • Stickman #40 6 years ago

    Ah, cheers KG. Then I shall christen Mr Rossignol 'Nostrils' due to his, frankly terrifying, mugshot in PC Gamer this month.

    ave - that is indeed a different review to this one. I found it dull, and a bit like a Year 9 book report.
    Edited by 1 at 13/03/06 @ 18:08

  • Nithron #41 6 years ago

    Forty quid? Amazon has it for 25!

  • Aretak #42 6 years ago

    And those who pre-ordered at Amazon got it for £17.99 thanks to a pricing cock-up. For that price, it's a bargain.

  • Stickman #43 6 years ago

    It'll not be a cock-up. On play, the earlier you order it, the cheaper it is. For example, I have STALKER (not that it'll ever come out), Company of Heroes and Neverwinter Nights 2 all coming to me for £18! Hooray for knowing which games you want!

  • Royal Fool #44 6 years ago

    botherer:
    I'm not convinced that 47% counts as quite beyond *all* proportions. Nor the vividness of your recollection : )

    42%, actually, at least according to GameRankings. But that wasn't really my point, anyway.

  • monochrome_blue #45 6 years ago

    Isn't the £40 thing a bit harsh, what with Amazon doing it for £24.99?

    Linky

  • dk_rare #46 6 years ago

    I'm confused, I got the introduction to the world of C&C, but I missed the review to C&C First Decade.

  • malloc #47 6 years ago

    Almost impossible to rate a compilation of games, as you'll never please the majority. Those that have never played any before, will have realised what they missed out on. Those that have the "must-haves" and wouldn't mind the others all in one go, probably won't get much. Fair, probably close to a 7 for me, but difficult to do much else, if they don't appear to have added anything.

  • Xerx3s #48 6 years ago

    EA's cheap-0-money making machine at its worst. 0_o

    "No, of course we will let westwood make the high quality of fun gameplay and not turn it into a sequel factory" & "We joined EA because they have the same high set of standards and innovationas we have" (interviews)

  • thefilthandthefury #49 6 years ago

    It has RA 2 in it, so it's automatically worth getting :D

  • Xerx3s #50 6 years ago

    RA2 was a new depth in the C&C series imo (after TS, also published by EA). 0_o

  • thefilthandthefury #51 6 years ago

    RA2 is one of my all-time favourite games and, IMO, the best RTS game ever made.

    But then again, I loathe Starcraft and Warcraft games. Awful.

  • Ryuken #52 6 years ago

    Anyone knows how Renegade in multiplayer is supported? That is still possible to play online now I mean? Say whatever you want about the game but that demo had great stuff in it imo.

  • PinkSpider #53 6 years ago

    I loved Renegade online! offline was boring though.

  • smally #54 6 years ago

    6/10 For this superb package? Are you mad

    12 Games for the price of 1, worth every penny. Each one of these games in the mammoth DVD is brilliant (excluding renegade). This is just a great way of releasing all the classics fit to work on modern pc's with no hassle. Sure you may already have the games, this great package fills in those odd addons or entire games you missed out. Even if i had every single C&C gam, i still would have got it, it's just so simple and easy having everything store on 1 DVD, worth every penny.

    Sure the old games such as C&C and C&C Red Alert can be now slightly annoying to play, with somewhat bad AI, but you play it because you played it years ago, you're remembering the days. Hell im playing them and am fully enjoyin them, also laughing at bad acting.

    You can't really rate this package to be a six, not when nearly all the games in the package when first released where around a 9. The average then would be 9, i give it 10 because it's great value for money, especially if you never actually played these before and it's all-in-one. Don't know what im talking about? Consider other series then such as Quake or Jedi Knight. What's the best C&C game, some would say Generals, some would say the original because thats what made this series, I say Red Alert because i grew up playin this game and couldn't get enough. Whats the best Quake game, some would say Quake 4, some would say Quake, alot i think would say Quake 3, personally i would say Quake 2, i grew up playing this game, and still today it is my fav game of all time.

    Oh and all the oldies have not been altered in anyway so you can play the classics the way they were first made, what more could you ask
    Edited by 1 at 14/03/06 @ 08:30

  • reality_cheque #55 6 years ago

    For me, this would get a 4/10 - the games are dated, no different to the original, and tbh I only ever really liked Red Alert (am more of a Starcraft man myself, C&C was too sluggish for me)

  • Stickman #56 6 years ago

    smally, if you regress even further, you probably grew up playing with Playmobil too. Would you rate that a 10 as well?

    Sure, there's some classics in there, for me its the grandaddy of resource gathering RTS, but if you look at it objectively, after a couple of hours nostalgia value, there's nothing that's going to make you want to ever play it again.

    It gets a 6. Above average. Not too shabby for some ageing games if you ask me, and worth the price for Generals alone, but 9 or 10? Behave.

  • Lagto_Soa #57 6 years ago

    Christ, I'd hate to be a Eurogamer reviewer. They just can't win.

  • Wrestlevania #58 6 years ago

    "They couldn't be bothered to come up with a one-key-fits all, no you have to manually type in one hundred and fifty digits before you can even install."

    Am I the only one who finds that level of sheer incompetance hysterically funny? It made me fire luke-warm Earl Grey through my nostrils. In the office. At a particularly quiet moment.

    Pretending there aren't two-dozen people watching you clean snot and tea from you keyboard isn't quite as difficult as I'd feared though, thankfully.

    Truly, a most excellent review Mr Rossignol. "Mad props" etc.
    Edited by 2 at 14/03/06 @ 13:38

  • dk_rare #59 6 years ago

    Why not just release Generals (or whatever the latest one was) and call it a Special Edition with all the old games in it, that would make it appear less like a bargain bin bundle bungle

  • bungalooBunny #60 6 years ago

    I love how certain people rush to buy 'classic compilations' that developers release just to cach in on a dead franchise.

    It's obvious this type of thing appeals to true fans of this (or any other) series due to being a collectors item, but at 40 quid you can't really expect anyone else to take this 'offer' seriously?!

    I think nostalgic garbage like this is lucky to get a score as high as 6/10.

  • Wayne #61 5 years ago

    Well I just ordered it and it only ost £18.