Page 3 • Command & Conquer Remastered • Gaming • PC • Eurogamer.net

Deleted user 10 June 2020 08:36:29

@StixxUK I remember Dark Reign and Total Annihilation were similar to C&C back in the day. Thy're available dirt cheap on GOG although how they run on modern PC's I've no idea.

Rogueywon 10 Jun 2020 08:39:09 12,387 posts
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@StixxUK Starcraft 2 is probably your best bet. And its second and third installments are best thought of as games in their own right, rather than expansions. Their campaigns are just as long as Wings of Liberty's.

Your-Mother 10 Jun 2020 10:07:39 8,172 posts
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C&C3 and RA3 are both still really playable. Ymmv on RA3 though as they really doubled down on the b-movie schlockiness, some of which is in shockingly poor taste, but also has legit Hollywood stars insanely overacting (Tim Curry! JK Simmon! Hasslehoff!). Tiberian Sun and RA2 however are borderline unplayable nowadays, they’ve aged far worse than the originals imo.

StixxUK 10 Jun 2020 10:48:12 8,755 posts
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I played the crap out of RA3 back in the day, don't think I've played C&C3 (or 4 - is there a 4??)

I really enjoyed Tiberian Sun and RA2 as well, at the time. Maybe they're best left back in that time.

None of them are as legendary as the originals though!

Rogueywon 10 Jun 2020 10:53:28 12,387 posts
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C&C3 is decent, if a little barebones. Battles move at a breakneck pace and it can feel as much of an action game as an RTS. I liked it back in the day and it doesn't outstay its welcome.

C&C4 sadly exists, but we pretend it doesn't. It was terrible - replaced base building with a weird mobile base system and basically felt like a crappy phone game, released on PC. It required an always-on connection to play (and loved to boot you off near the end of a mission) and god knows if the servers are still up, so it might not even be playable any more.

I never rated C&C2 or RA2 even at the time - they felt outdated from the moment they launched. They lacked the technical sophistication of Total Annihilation or the polish and inventiveness of Starcraft.

Sharz 10 Jun 2020 11:00:58 2,121 posts
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StixxUK wrote:
Also, are there any good recent RTS's?

I pretty much can't find anything from the last few years, the genre truly has died out...

Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak
Dawn of War series
Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation
Starcraft 2 +expansions
Planetary Annilation: Titans
Supreme Commander series (yes i know a bit older, but by god its big)
Dungeons 2/3 if fancy a laugh
War for the Overworld
They are Billions
Halo Wars 2

Edited by Sharz at 11:02:52 10-06-2020

challenge_hanukkah 10 Jun 2020 11:57:04 14,394 posts
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No love for Age of Empires or Empire Earth?!

Sharz 10 Jun 2020 12:27:31 2,121 posts
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I was trying I think of newer titles. AoE is awesome but it is hardly modern.

Rodney 10 Jun 2020 13:10:37 5,029 posts
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Total Annihilation still holds up really well for a mid-90s game. I still play it when travelling and it's about £3 on GOG.

Rise of Nations is also on Game Pass on PC, and is pretty under rated. It's sort of a mix between Age of Empires and Civilization

Rogueywon 10 Jun 2020 13:12:56 12,387 posts
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@Rodney TA is great and was well ahead of its time. The way it integrated land, air and sea combat was really quite special. You could do proper amphibious landings with close air support in a way that was incredibly cinematic and which no other RTS (even Supreme Commander) has ever quite replicated.

RyanDS 10 Jun 2020 13:14:21 14,073 posts
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Would this work on a surface pro you reckon?

Rodney 10 Jun 2020 13:22:38 5,029 posts
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I've been playing Streets of Rage 4 on an i5 surface pro on ultra settings no problem so I'm sure it would run this

Bleh 10 Jun 2020 14:22:10 487 posts
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@StixxUK

8-Bit armies, it's also from Petroglyph and would say it's pretty close towards the C&C series.
Grey Goo, pretty decent RTS but it doesn't do anything special.
Northgard, fun game but it doesn't have a lot of similarities with C&C.

StixxUK 10 Jun 2020 17:20:21 8,755 posts
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@Bleh Thanks, 8 bit armies looks cool and apparently Grey Goo has music from Frank Klepacki (the C&C guy?). I'd never heard of either until now!

I had considered Northgard, it's been on sale a few times... maybe more Age of Empires-y (another classic, also with a great remaster)

One_Vurfed_Gwrx 10 Jun 2020 17:39:48 4,467 posts
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I never managed to get into Total Annihilation, it always felt a bit bland after Starcraft abd Dark Reign. Never played the SupComs (but they have juat appeared on GOG) nor Planetary Annihilation (or its updated version, Titans). I enjoyed SC2 and bought the second game in the trilogy but not played it yet (not bought Legacy of the Void as hard to find cheap standalone so will likely have to buy BattleChest and get the first 2 again).

Played through original SC1 campaign a few years ago and still enjoyed it (and started Brood War) and started my old C&C Collection but didnt play too far. I remember hunting subs being tedious in RA1 though and naval combat at the time being better in Warcraft 2. Enjoyed the 2 Halo Wars games on Game Pass last year even if they were a little simplistic.

Still undecided on the new C&C Collection...

Khanivor 10 Jun 2020 18:15:48 44,800 posts
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Total Annhilation was fun to play local MP. Just keep building and building your armies till the person with the crappier PC had to tap out because the game slowed to a stop.

Rogueywon 10 Jun 2020 18:31:56 12,387 posts
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@Khanivor Or do a rush with the flash tanks, so that the number of projectiles they spammed crashed the opponent's PC.

the_milkybar_kid 10 Jun 2020 19:43:51 8,474 posts
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Just here to shout out Tiberium Sun, I think it still hold up. RA2 for that matter. The collection with everything in is only a few quid

As for remaster, it's very, very nice. I've never had a problem going back to the old games every few years but the QOL just makes them lovely to play. Still to this day never ever got bored of hearing Hell March.

Still holding out that they'll one day do a 3d remake from the ground up.

StixxUK 10 Jun 2020 20:49:00 8,755 posts
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I could never get into Total Annihilation... felt like it had an impossible learning curve. Same with Supreme Commander when that came out - which felt to me very much like a spiritual sequel.

StarchildHypocrethes 10 Jun 2020 20:52:57 33,974 posts
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I'm quite enjoying Ancestors Legacy on xbox at the moment.

One_Vurfed_Gwrx 10 Jun 2020 22:39:31 4,467 posts
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StixxUK wrote:
I could never get into Total Annihilation... felt like it had an impossible learning curve. Same with Supreme Commander when that came out - which felt to me very much like a spiritual sequel.

Wasn't it pretty much sold as a spiritual sequel by the some of the same team? I do have the original (and Kingdoms) on GOG, maybe have to try them again some time.

Bleh 11 Jun 2020 08:35:33 487 posts
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@StixxUK I wouldn't be surprised if it's the C&C guy. Grey Goo seems to be made by Petroglyph Games as well. I believe that a lot of Westwood folks are in that studio.

The 8 bit series is a pretty fun game. Enjoyed my time with it.

Northgard is more about area control and managing resources. Armies are much smaller compared to the other games.

Not-a-reviewer 11 Jun 2020 08:59:07 7,686 posts
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I never got on with TA kingdoms but that was the setting more than anything.

RTS used to be my favourite genre but it says a lot that this remaster is my favourite RTS since Starcraft 2, before that Warhammer 1 and 2. I’ve always loved the base building and swarming side of things more than actual strategy.

Rogueywon 11 Jun 2020 09:24:37 12,387 posts
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@Not-a-reviewer TA Kingdoms was a bit pants. I appreciated what they were trying to do with it - four entirely different factions with different mechanics. It remains probably the most asymmetric RTS ever made. But it really didn't work. A couple of the factions (especially the one that magically summoned animals) simply weren't fun to play and the game itself descended to a glacial pace in the later missions because building up an army took so long.

StixxUK 11 Jun 2020 10:37:54 8,755 posts
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No base building as such (at least not in the RTS sense) but I did love Total Warhammer. Never played the sequel (the factions in it didn't appeal so much).

I've also just realised I have both Company of Heroes 2 which I haven't touched despite loving the first one, and at least one Dawn of War expansion unplayed

I haven't tried DoW 3 but heard it was shit.

disusedgenius 11 Jun 2020 10:43:37 10,677 posts
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It was very disappointing, yeah. I kinda got what they were going for but it was a swing and a miss imo. Not a complete failure but never really felt right. Another in a long line of RTS grappling with how much MOBA they should encorporate.

At the moment base building seems to have all gone into horde wave strategy games.

Rogueywon 11 Jun 2020 10:51:36 12,387 posts
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The Total War games are fundamentally Grand Strategy games which just let you play out the battles via RTS. The RTS stuff is very good, but you have to penetrate a thick layer of Grand Strategy to get the most out of it. The Warhammer titles have a gentler learning curve than the historical ones.

And Dawn of War 3 was bad. I couldn't bring myself to finish it. The singleplayer campaign had major pacing issues - getting resources and building up an army took forever, but battles were then over in seconds, after which either you'd won, or else you needed to spend another seeming-eternity building another army. Control felt "off" with a noticeable lag before units responded to orders. Plus they went for the three most boring factions from the setting and lost much of the personality of the first two games.

Rogueywon 13 Jun 2020 14:45:07 12,387 posts
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Just finished the Soviet campaign in Red Alert. For the most part, it's not as good as the original C&C. It was ambitious - the factions are much more asymmetric and the mission design is more innovative - but it mostly fails. It would take Starcraft to pull off most of what Red Alert was trying to achieve.

But the plot is pretty excellent. They play Stalin for laughs, but he does capture some of the paranoid insanity of his real life counterpart. The ending is a Crowning Moment of Awesome (TM).

Edit: Allies next.

Edited by Rogueywon at 14:45:23 13-06-2020

gammonbanter 14 Jun 2020 13:09:31 2,282 posts
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I remember red alert 2 and Warcraft 2 being some of my favourite games of all time, but found certain levels frustrating; the ones where you had to attack very quickly and manage a lean assault.

I preferred building a huge base and amassing a huge, albeit inefficient, army and then after my harriers had softened them up a bit, launch an all out ground war! Any part of the game that actually required resource management (and you know, skill) actually put me off!

Edited by gammonbanter at 13:10:01 14-06-2020

up_the_ante 14 Jun 2020 13:16:19 1,574 posts
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There are quite a few levels where the hardest part is the very start, staving off attack after attack with next to no resources. Once you get your base established it becomes a lot easier.

Command & Conquer Remastered • Page 3