I know exactly what I was doing this week 25 years ago, give or take. While exact release dates for games weren't always set in stone at the time, especially on PC, we do know that the game's 25th anniversary is around this week. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2. One of the greatest games of its kind, it makes me sad and happy in almost equal parts today.
25 years ago, eleven-year-old Alex would have been excitedly rummaging through the local Comet store in search of if they had it however, I then head home, install… and watch one of the greatest video game intros of all time.
A masterpiece of pre-rendered feature-length video that is both amazingly well shot and unmistakably cheap. Those were the days when C&C was proudly represented by Westwood rather than EA, and so there wasn't yet much resonance in getting people into Battlestar Galactica, WWE Wrestlers, etc. Instead, you get hired actors, usually known for relatively thankless jobs in television (e.g. the President of the United States in RA2 later played the Vice President in 24), rather than doing equally thankless jobs in the video game industry.
Either way, it's a damn good thing. Much of RA2's storytelling is gloriously sloppy, so it's all scenery chewing. Likewise, it is difficult to imagine that his images of a captured New York on the verge of destruction could have been released just twelve months later, for obvious reasons. In this sense, he landed at just the right moment.
As I reflect on Red Alert 2, I'm reminded of Command & Conquer as a whole – and despairing that such a gaming staple is currently sitting dormant. The latest release of C&C is a mobile game, unbearable money-grubbing slop. Don't take my word for it: recent reviews on the Google Play Store call it a “parody insult to the original”, “bastard trash” and “trash”. And, as the owner of the intellectual property, Electronic Arts seems to be focused only on trying to create giga-hits that can move tens of millions of copiesIt looks like traditional C&C is unlikely to make a comeback.
The funniest thing about EA's direction of the C&C franchise is that it wasn't, as the memes suggest, entirely negative. People love posting this meme where EA is depicted as an adult executing one of their children, Westwood, before throwing him into the mass grave of shuttered studios. Or EA as the Grim Reaper knocking on the door of Westwood, Bullfrog and Pandemic making their way to a shaky BioWare. Yes, Westwood did close and it was a stupid decision. But much of what followed the C&C series was still very good.
“Generals” is a favorite song of many people. C&C3 took what made the Westwood games great and used EA's money and nearby Hollywood development studio to take them to the next level. Billy was in the game Dee Williams And Michael Ironside in this, for God's sake. And then, in my opinion, Red Alert 3 is (ironically, I know) the best Command & Conquer game. Superbly balanced, incredibly fun and with the narrative atmosphere of the most lavishly crafted B-movie of all time. After that, I must admit, everything went wrong. Ideas got in the way, talent left, and the team responsible for some great and one ineffective C&C ended up creating a forgettable single-player mode out of a forgettable Medal of Honor reboot, effectively marking the team's demise. Bad times. But what I will say is this: EA has had a pretty good run with C&C, including several successful and well-made console ports, which is no small feat for real-time strategy games.
However, the series now appears to be on life support, supported only by a stunningly shitty mobile game. They gave me hope Command & Conquer Update A collection of lovingly crafted visual re-imaginings of the first couple of games and their expansions. It seemed fair enough to assume that the next pair, RA2 and Tiberian Sun, would be next, but five years after that release, hope is dying. As a result, all we can do is hopelessly cast our eyes and minds back to the old games, in their former glory, and think of better times.
Or, well, almost. There are modern heirs to the throne. It would be unfair to write about the lack of modern C&C and not touch on this topic. Rising StormFor example. Tempest Rising is a game that is, to quote another review, this time from Steam, “C&C but with the serial numbers removed.” Free. Tempest Rising is excellent and worth the money for any closet C&C or RTS fan, but as good as it is, there's something missing.
These are damn FMV clips. I can't describe it, but as well-acted and animated as they are, Tempest Rising's 3D models just don't make that impression. This frighteningly well done episodesand they were clearly created and designed to emulate C&C stories – but it's not the same at all. I need to see the scenery rock. I need to see extremely cheap and nasty green screen work. I need a legendary actor gnaw the landscapes with such fury that the authors clearly did not expect this. While the two halves were clearly created entirely separately, the truth is that the gameplay of classic C&C and FMV episodes never existed in a vacuum – the campiness of one carried over to the other, and the whole experience was better for it.
There is a certain energy here too. It's a vague and difficult thing to describe, isn't it? A I don't know whatas the French say. No matter how many C&C spiritual successors I've played, none have ever been able to truly and completely capture the energy and feel of the series they emulate. Perhaps this is one of those things that simply cannot be reproduced without analyzing the IP itself. What… ah. This will require EA's blessing.
I view the sale to EA as a disaster waiting to happen. Will BioWare ever release a new one? Mass Effect or Dragon Age in this mode? For various reasons I am not convinced. But if anything comes out of this deal, perhaps the sheer level of debt that EA is about to saddle itself with could inspire the company to do something it's never considered before: sell off intellectual property it doesn't plan to use. I feel like Command & Conquer still has legs – just maybe not from a company that wants to sell tens of millions of units of everything.
We live in hope. As Einstein himself says at the beginning of Red Alert: Time will show. Hopefully we won't need a time machine to change. this timing, however. In the meantime, happy birthday to Red Alert 2. One of the GOATs. I'll blow it up Hell March 2 (and then 3) today at maximum volume.
