Command & Conquer

Command & Conquer
The series logo in Command & Conquer 4
Developers	Westwood Studios (1995-2003) EA Los Angeles (2003-2010) Victory Games (2011- ) EA Phenomic (2011- )
Publishers	Electronic Arts
Platforms	Apple Macintosh, Nintendo 64, PlayStation, PC (MS-DOS, Windows), Sega Saturn, PlayStation Portable, Mac OS X, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
First release	Command & Conquer 1995
Latest release	Command & Conquer: The Ultimate Collection 2012
Official website	www.commandandconquer.com

Command & Conquer (abbreviated as C&C or CnC) is a real-time strategy video game franchise, first developed by Westwood Studios. The first game was one of the earliest of the RTS genre, itself based on Westwood Studios' landmark strategy game Dune 2 and introducing trademarks followed in the rest of the series. This includes full motion video cutscenes with a notable ensemble cast to progress the story, as opposed to digitally in-game rendered cutscenes. Westwood Studios was taken over by Electronic Arts in 1998 and eventually closed down in 2003. The studio and some of its members were absorbed into EA Los Angeles, which continued development on the series.

The first installment, Command & Conquer, was released worldwide by Westwood on August 31, 1995. The plot is set sometime in the near future where the Earth becomes infected by a mysterious resource known only as Tiberium. A global war ensues between the UN formed Global Defense Initiative to contain it and the cult quasi-state revolutionary Brotherhood of Nod, led by the enigmatic Kane, which seeks to harness it. Highly successful, it was followed by Command & Conquer: Red Alert in 1996 which is set in an alternate universe where the Soviet Union wages war with the Allied West. Developed as the prequel to the original, the Red Alert series was spun-off into a separate, lighthearted and comic series, while the original game and its sequels became known as the "Tiberium" series, retaining its sci-fi and serious tone. The first game is sometimes referred to as Tiberian Dawn as a result.

The original game was followed by Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun in 1999 and its expansion pack. In 2002, a first person-shooter set in the Tiberium universe, Command & Conquer: Renegade, was released and praised for its online features. The highly anticipated Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars was released in 2007 and followed by the expansion pack Command & Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath. Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight, released in 2010 as the conclusion to the Tiberium saga, received noticeably more mixed reviews because of its deviation from traditional gameplay. The Red Alert series was continued by the 2000 title Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2, its expansion, Yuri's Revenge and Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 in 2008, which introduced a third "Empire of the Rising Sun" faction. A spin-off game in 2003, Command & Conquer: Generals, set in a more realistic near-future and featuring the United States and China was followed by an expansion pack, Zero Hour.

The series was originally marketed to an Anglophone audience, though many of the games have been translated into other languages including Russian, 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. Other games for platforms such as iOS and web-based have also been developed. As of July 2010, the Command & Conquer franchise consists of eleven games and eight expansion packs. The first three games of the series have been released as Freeware to promote the successors. EA has confirmed that a new free-to-play game, entitled Command & Conquer, is in development with the studio Victory Games. It is set to be the next game in the series and is expected to be released in 2013. The Command & Conquer series has been a commercial success with over 30 million Command & Conquer games sold as of 2009.

Gameplay

The Command & Conquer games belong to the real-time strategy genre, with the exception of the first person shooter Command & Conquer: Renegade. A staple of the series is the parallel campaigns of various different factions to one central storyline. Games in the series also offered multiplayer game options, via LAN and modem connection. All games in the series have also offered online play.

All Command & Conquer real-time strategy games except Command & Conquer: Generals and its expansions have featured the "side bar" for navigation and control as opposed to many other similar games where the control bar is located on the bottom of the screen.

Command & Conquer gameplay typically requires the player to construct a base and acquire resources, in order to fund the ongoing production of various types of forces with which to assault and conquer the opponent's base. All available structures of the faction chosen by the player are constructed on-site at so-called "construction yard" - which typically begin as large-sized vehicles capable of deploying themselves into the aforementioned construction yards, called MCVs or Mobile Construction Yards. When a construction yard has finished building a new structure, the player can select a spot near to a preexisting structure in order to place it, where the prefabricated building will then rapidly unfold in a distinctive manner.

In all games in the series except Command & Conquer: Generals and its expansion, Zero Hour, funds are acquired by specialized "harvester" units which bring their cargo (Tiberium for the Tiberian series of games or ore or the more valuable gems for the Red Alert series) to a "refinery" structure. This in turn will convert the raw material into usable resources, expressed as credits. The raw materials themselves, in games released before Red Alert 2 as well as Command & Conquer 3 require storage space in the form of refineries and, in the case of excess, "storage silo" structures.

All factions have structures and units with similar functions at their disposal. However, they are adjusted to fit each faction's theme and have somewhat varying properties. Units can be classified into infantry, vehicles, and aircraft, each with their own subdivisions (note: in the Red Alert series there is also naval craft available). Unit effectiveness against opponents follows the rock-paper-scissors (intransitivity) principle found in most real-time strategy games.

Virtually every type of structure in the series acts as a tech tree node, and additional units, structures and faction-specific abilities will become available as new structures are built and placed. Access to advanced units and abilities may be temporarily blocked if the required structures are destroyed or if they are not being provided with adequate power by the supporting "power plant" structures.

Games

Tiberium series

Command & Conquer, released on August 31, 1995, was the first game in the series and is widely considered as the title which originally defined and popularized the real-time strategy genre. Command & Conquer introduced the warring factions of the Global Defense Initiative (GDI) and the Brotherhood of Nod. Command & Conquer was well received and was widely praised by critics: "Command & Conquer is one of the finest, most brilliantly-designed computer games I have ever seen" said GameSpot reviewer Chris Hudak. Command & Conquer has attained 94% as an aggregate score from Metacritic with the less well received Covert Operations expansion pack obtaining an aggregate score of 72% after its 1996 release.
Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun, released on August 27, 1999, takes place approximately 30 years after the events in its predecessor. While the original Command & Conquer's plot was centered around an allegorical world politics setting, Tiberian Sun shifted this to a more sci-fi-like setting against the apocalyptic background of Tiberium beginning to assimilate vast portions of the Earth's ecosystems. In 1998, Westwood Studios, the developers of Tiberian Sun, was acquired by Electronic Arts. However, EA had no direct part in the development of the title. Compared to its predecessor, Tiberian Sun relies heavily on science fiction technologies and introduces a new isometric game engine featuring varying level terrain to give the impression of a true 3D environment.

The full motion video is also scripted differently; while the cutscenes of Command & Conquer and Red Alert were filmed from a first-person perspective, Tiberian Sun used traditional cinematic shots for its FMVs featuring well known Hollywood actors such as James Earl Jones of the original Star Wars trilogy and Michael Biehn of Terminator and Aliens.

Tiberian Sun was not as well received as Command & Conquer with an aggregate score of 80% and 73% for the title and its expansion pack, Firestorm, respectively. However the solid storyline, new concepts, more realistic graphics, atmospheric soundtrack and traditional gameplay were praised by critics, making up for its weaknesses.

Command & Conquer: Renegade, released February 26, 2002, takes place in the final days of the events of Command & Conquer and was the last Command & Conquer game to be created by Westwood Studios before their liquidation in 2003. Unlike any other games in the series, Renegade is a first person shooter giving players their only chance to see the Command & Conquer universe from a first person perspective. Although receiving average reviews, with an aggregate score of 75% on both GameRankings and Metacritic, Renegade was praised for its online features: GameSpy awarded Renegade its 2002 "Wish it had been better" award, condemning the single player but saying that "C&C: Renegade's multiplayer was innovative and fun". Online play was praised for encouraging teamwork and coordinated assaults, unlike other contemporary first-person shooters.

Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, released March 29, 2007, was a return to the real-time strategy roots of the Command & Conquer series. As a direct sequel to Tiberian Sun, Tiberium Wars is set approximately 17 years after the events of Tiberian Sun and features the introduction of a third faction, the Scrin. The sequel was highly anticipated by fans and critics alike and attained an aggregate score of 85% from both GameRankings and Metacritic. PC Gamer U.S. gave the game its "Editor's Choice" rating at 90%, stating that "One of the greatest RTS franchises of all time returns to glory", while PC Gamer UK gave it a more reserved rating of 82%, stating that it was "A welcome, but limited, return."

Shortly after the release of Tiberium Wars, the expansion pack Command & Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath was announced. Released on March 24, 2008, Kane's Wrath limited the player to only the Brotherhood of Nod in the campaign mode, though the original factions and six new sub-factions are available for the new strategic mode and skirmish mode. Reception was mainly positive with the expansion attaining an aggregate score of 77%.

Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight, released on March 16, 2010, sees a big change in gameplay from the previous Command & Conquer by removing the resource gathering and base building elements in previous games as well as the removal of the third faction, the Scrin. It is a direct sequel to Kane's Wrath (however not directly following on from its storyline), and is set 10 years after the game's final events, a time when Tiberium has advanced to its next evolutionary stage, and is rapidly spreading across Earth making it soon to be uninhabitable. The only positive comments are aimed at the multiplayer mode. Main criticisms were the problematic control scheme, the departure from the traditional Command & Conquer basics, the fact that the game seemed more adapted for multiplayer rather than solo play, the short campaign with a negatively criticized campaign ending and the troublesome unlock system.

Red Alert series

Command & Conquer: Red Alert, released on October 31, 1996, is set in an alternate universe 1950s and was originally made to be the prequel to Command & Conquer establishing Red Alert as the prologue of the entire Tiberium series of games. Since then Louis Castle has said that connecting Red Alert with the Tiberium series was a "failed experiment". Red Alert introduces the Allies and the Soviets as rival factions roughly analogous to NATO and the Warsaw Pact of the Cold War. The game was received well by critics and has the highest average score of any Command & Conquer game with an average of over 90% from GameRankings and Metacritic, unlike the title's two expansion packs, Red Alert: Counterstrike and Red Alert: The Aftermath of which both received below average reviews for the series with 63% and 70% average scores respectively. Before being re-released as freeware on 31 August 2008 by Electronic Arts Command & Conquer: Red Alert had sold over three million copies.

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 was released on October 23, 2000. It featured a Soviet invasion of North America with tanks, conscripts, gargantuan airships, and psychically dominated anti-ship giant squid. Since that game lacked reference to the Tiberian series, the connection established in the first Red Alert game became unclear. Opinion on whether or not the time travel events of the series were forming a separate continuity or just another side adventure on the way to the Tiberium era was divided. However, it has been implied by the original creators of the series, now working at Petroglyph Games, that Red Alert 2 takes place in a parallel universe that came about as a result of time travel experiments taking place some time into the Tiberian series. Red Alert 2 was again received fairly positively with an aggregate score of 86% from GameRankings.

An expansion pack to Red Alert 2, Command & Conquer: Yuri's Revenge was released on October 10, 2001. In Yuri's Revenge, an ex-Soviet figure named Yuri, tries to conquer the world using psychic technology and his own private army. The expansion pack received mostly positive reviews. GameRankings reports an average score of 85% based on 31 reviews, making Yuri's Revenge the best received expansion pack in the entire Command & Conquer series.

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, released on October 28, 2008, followed up on the story of Red Alert 2 and continued the series' more "light-hearted" take on Command & Conquer. Red Alert 3 escalated matters further by introducing many new comical units and the very well received Empire of the Rising Sun faction, an anime inspired version of the Empire of Japan. Executive producer Chris Corry stated in a pre-release interview that Red Alert 3 will further differentiate the playable factions from each other and "[play] up the silliness in their faction design whenever possible." This approach was seen as popular with Red Alert 3 obtaining an aggregate score of 82% from Metacritic. A stand alone expansion to Red Alert 3, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 – Uprising was released on March 12, 2009 to fairly poor reviews for the series with an average score of 64% from Metacritic. Another downloadable standalone game for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 was released known as Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 - Commander's Challenge which contained the Commander's Challenge mode of Uprising for consoles.

Command & Conquer: Red Alert (iOS) was released on October 16, 2009 for the iOS which was a continuation of the story of Red Alert 2 and takes place before Red Alert 3. It contained two factions the Allies and Soviet Union with a third faction, the Empire of the Rising Sun, to be added in its expansion pack.

Generals series

Command & Conquer: Generals, released on February 10, 2003, had a plotline which was completely unrelated to the other games of the Command & Conquer series. Generals is set in the near future and features the United States, China and the fictional terrorist organization, the Global Liberation Army. Generals uses an engine dubbed "SAGE" (or Strategy Action Game Engine) and is the first fully three-dimensional Command & Conquer real-time strategy game. After its release, Generals received mostly positive reviews. Based on 34 reviews, Metacritic gives it a score of 84/100 which includes a score of 9.3/10 from IGN. Generals has also received the E3 2002 Game Critics Awards Best Strategy Game award. One review noted that Generals was the first ever Command & Conquer real-time strategy game that did not include full-motion video cutscenes to tell the story and that it departed from the unique interface and base-building mechanics that had characterized all of the previous C&C RTS titles.

An expansion for Generals, Command & Conquer: Generals – Zero Hour, was released on September 22, 2003 to further the Generals storyline. Unlike Generals, Zero Hour featured the return of full motion videos to the series. Zero Hour obtained much the same reception as Generals with an aggregate score of 85% and 84% from GameRankings and Metacritic respectively.

After EA Los Angeles started up their new internal group Danger Close and switched its focus to the Medal of Honor series, EA launched a new studio named Victory Games to continue the Command & Conquer franchise. On December 10, 2011, Electronic Arts posted that the next game in the series would be Command & Conquer: Generals 2. On December 14, it was also announced that a new browser-based, free-to-play MMO Command & Conquer game is currently under development, under the name Command & Conquer: Tiberium Alliances. On December 15, Tiberium Alliances began a closed beta.

Future

      On August 15, 2012, it was announced that Generals 2 would be repurposed to a free-to-play game known as simply Command & Conquer. The new game will be based around the Generals franchise and is currently planned to be released in 2013

Resources: Wikipedia®