This Week I Have Been Mostly Playing…
Command & Conquer - Remastered Collection on PC
The definition of nostalgia is a sentimental longing or wistful affection for a period in the past. And C&C certainly does that! For me Red Alert (half of this remaster) was a brilliant game and I have fond memories cooped around Shifty's family computer in his kitchen late into the night. We must be talking 21 years ago now so let’s go off my extremely vague memories before seeing what the hell they have done to this ancient title.
The red of the soviets and most of all the Tesla tower. My immediate thoughts when I hear Red Alert, those proper Sci-FI towers that attack enemies after with jolts of electricity. I used to build dozens around my bases, ensuring an impassable electrical wall. There was Tanya, the kick-ass Allied agent who could do everything (except not get eaten by dogs). And the level editor. I used to spend hours creating maps where my base was shielded so I could build a huge army. I cannot for the life of me remember why I did this so often?
Oh now I can. 10 minutes into this INCREDIBLY difficult game and with 5 game over screens already. Brutal is probably the most apt word. Enemy attacks are onslaughts and my clicks per minute are through the roof compared to something like StarCraft. As an RTS aficionado I can understand that some of the earliest games will have their growing pains. The main one so far is how overpowered infantry units are, with even just a couple enough to cause a lot of damage. The ability to run them over with tanks is gory and great but isn’t enough of a balance when unit movement is all over the shop. I would like the power to crush enemies brought back to other games, mind.
Anyway, I have mainly played through the Allied campaign (saving the Soviets for later) and it’s the usual mix of base building and single unit levels. As I said, on normal difficulty it’s tough but maybe I have just gone soft? The main selling point of this collection is the revamp of audio and visuals. It sounds amazing, the music is absolutely classic though the overuse of some unit responses grates very quickly. The campaign starts with the original graphics and it makes Minecraft look flowing and elegant. What did I expect?! The first command is to swap over to the new look via the spacebar and it looks infinitely better.
It is very playable in this guise, you can see the thought, love and care has really gone into it. Reports online say the multiplayer modes are fun and robust but you know me, single player all the way! I can’t really remember good unit combinations and had to look up that to take over enemy buildings you need the health to be in the red zone for an engineer to go in. Maybe 20 years is too long for out and out nostalgia or maybe my memory is just crap? Anyhow it’s amazing what they have done and keeps an all time great available for many years to come.
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