Command and Conquer (and Red Alert!) Remastered

Why is it free? I don’t trust that.

Because it is and you should. Would I recommend some silly crap to you sir?

After sitting through all three hours of Crapoo the Poop-Clown Saves New York on your recommendation, I’ll admit that I trust you more than ever, Brian!

Google gives me nothing. What the heck is that?

Oops, zoomed in too far on that last one.

This is the only game in the series that I played, but it was very amusing. You missed out by not playing the Soviet campaign too. Red Alert always did a good job in varying up the campaign. They’ll hit you with a few missions of “AI is constantly throwing enemies at you while you build a base”, but then let you go destroy some shit as Tonya, etc.

That game was the best! I heard they’re doing a sequel, “Crapoo the Hershey Squirt Highway”.

Petroglyph should just straight up take the name back and rename themselves to Westwood and then proceed with remastering RA2 and Tiberian Sun to the quality level of this remaster (which is fantastic) and then make new CnC 4 game.

Well, I wouldn’t really categorise this as a ‘new’ game either. I played and loved these in the 90s but should’ve been content to leave it there. Though if we are counting new old games, there is of course Age of Empires II, which I picked up for the first time (ever, I mean) a month or two ago and holds up waaaaaaaay better than this. That game is probably peak harvester if that’s what you’re yearning for.

Are you asking if you should play it if you’ve never played it before? Probably not. Maybe this niche of the genre has been a bit of a desert lately but I couldn’t in good conscience recommend you play this when both C&C3 and RA3 remain playable, even if you’ve ‘done’ those before. Load up the Challenge Mode in RA3 Uprising, it’s as good as the solo play ever got in my opinion (though C&C3 entire is still very good). I still crank that one up from time to time for a replay.

People still play these online too, though it requires a bit of hackery to work around the corpse of GameSpy C&C:Online - Command & Conquer online multiplayer server

I must say I found c&c holds up remarkably well. The little screams of infantry dying are both funny and horrifying.

There was already a new CnC 4 game in 2010:

Or maybe you meant that it was terrible, so we should ignore that one and that Petroglyph should make a new one?

Perfectly normal. Perfectly healthy.

Just you wait until you land on a beach with a MCV and 2 grenadiers under assault by 3 turrets! (Oh and there is definitely a flame tank nearby too)

The hardest GDI mission in the game. You have to go right and then north under sustained turret fire. Find the clearing, and then build your base there. Then you should produce 2+ crucial bazooka infantry and a handful of rifle pawns. Have all the assaulting tanks fire on the pawns while your bazooka infantry do the work. Micromanage until you are strong.

I have to admit, the screaming is the saving grace when rollerskate flamethrower dude flambés 20 troops in one go because they’re too busy snapping themselves to the grid to shoot back (not that they often bother with that even when they’re stationary).

That is exactly what I meant, yeah.

I’m playing the NOD campaign and I forgot how difficult the flame troopers are to use. They’re always killing themselves!

CnC4 was super horrible, worst CnC game ever. This guy who worked for 1UP also didn’t seem to like it.

Holy shit, good ol’ C&C certainly has that one-more-round je ne sais quoi. Lovin’ it!

Also some missions are just bastards. This one I left the game on had me land six grenade chuckers and a base on a hot beach. Three turrets and a tank that just moseys on up. Can’t start building as there’s no room on the beach. I fought through the turrets and tanks with the six dudes. Started looking for a place to build a base. Ran into a flame tank. Thought “let’s try that shit again later”.

If that’s the mission where you’re trying to rescue Mobius, then you’re best off trying to run the MCV directly past the turrets, up to the right, and sneak your way up a bit before setting down your Construction Yard. Don’t bother trying to actually clear the landing zone since it’s not really viable with your starting forces anyway.

After somewhat bouncing of the original C&C remaster I decided to give Red Alert a go and, wow, it is so much better. Once upon a time I knew this fact already, of course, but the balancing and QOL jump from one to the other is a pretty stark contrast.

Coupled with the modern UI options I’m actually, dare I say it, having fun. Frustrations and imbalances are still there, sure, but this is a substantially better experience. Fingers crossed somebody makes use of that ‘open source’ code to crowbar the RA changes into C&C.

Red Alert has always been better throughout the two franchises IMO.