C&C: Remastered (20/20$)
It could be worse
Shit took me like a full hour
Command and Conquer has been a dead franchise since 2007. It is a series that is built on 90's ideals. Soviets in space, cornball live action cutscenes, and synthesizer tracks that you can’t stop listening to. These are what make a C&C game, and Command & Conquer Remastered is a perfect love letter to 90’s gaming. The modern updates they made solve just enough quality of life problems that plagued the 90’s release. Yet, C&C Remastered keeps some annoying systems that the game wouldn’t be the same without. Not everyone is going to like this game. When stacked against modern games of the same genre C&C Remastered will feel choppy and almost incomplete. It is important to understand that this game is not trying to compete with modern RTS games. In Fact, This game was released with the sole purpose of capturing the feeling of playing the first games, both good and bad.
The evidence of this is the care they put into ensuring this was a remaster and not a remake. The game opens by “running tests,” on your PC and then determining that it is able to access a secret file, found within the old game, that contains the remastered features. It’s a small note that adds to the time warp experience of playing C&C. There are two games within the Remastered, C&C + C&C:Red Alert. Both games have multiple campaigns filled with different missions, some of which are optional, some of which can be played on different maps, and some are unique events like only controlling one unit. With such a wide range of single player missions, the game easily offers over 20 hours of gameplay. This is all before the multiplayer which is the real meat of these games. The multiplayer has benefitted from the years of strageies developed by the hard core 90’s community. All with the new quality of life features that make playing this game so much easier when compared to the original release. Which a player will greatly appreciate as this game is hard. The people playing multiplayer will stop you. They did not tone the AI down either. The A.I. is the classic 90’s made A.I. that literally cheats to beat you. Beating a mission on the hardest difficulty with be a slug fest that puts your skills to the test but is frankly less fun and more of a pain.
Especially since the developers kept the old code for the game, including the unit pathing. The pathing is so bad in these games that it will lose you a game at some point. This is where the game falls short of modern RTS games like Company of Heroes 2, Starcraft 2, and the various Total War games. However, I am biased when looking at this pathing, I think it’s shittiness is beautiful and in line with playing a 90’s RTS. Yes, you will lose a 50 minute long match because your harvesters have entered into a logic loop, but if you git gud then maybe you would have noticed them not mining and fixed it. This is because all these shortcomings can be navigated around if you are hyper aware, yet sometimes you don’t want to have to play like a pro to feel like a pro.
So Command & Conquer Remastered is in this weird league of games where it can be compared to games that wouldn’t have existed without it. That alone proves how good of a game this is. Add in the fact that it is technically two games in one, plus handful logistical changes that make the frustrations of the OG AI tolerable, and you see that it is completely worth the money. Which is even more admirable when compared to the incredibly lackluster remasters of Starcraft, and even Warcraft III. It feels great to play a game that has been made by people who love the original image more than modern ideals of gaming. If you like RTS games, buy it now (20/20$). If you are unsure, it will be on sale in the blink of an eye and will remain played as the defacto version of the game.
