In today's world, Real-Time Strategy games are certainly less prominent than they were 10 years ago but the one's we have are phenomenal. In comparison, some of the older Command and Conquer titles feel dated. The single mouse button system, the poor graphics which make it difficult to tell what units you're moving and the lack of any type of tutorial or unit descriptions. All of these are artifacts of a previous age of gaming. Still, since the original Command and Conquer is one of the earliest RTS games, it can be a fantastic reminder at how far the genre has come.
Even though the gameplay for these early games can feel ancient, the storylines are still phenomenal. The Tiberium Wars with their science fiction take on the future of our world, the Red Alert games with a more light-hearted campy look at how our world could have looked and the Generals series with a more modern warfare take on the series. For some, the storylines will make the older games worth playing through even without the nostalgia factor for long-time fans of the series.
The real reason to buy this game is for the newer titles in the Command and Conquer series. Red Alert 3, Generals and Command and Conquer 3 are the stand-out titles in this collection and make the whole thing worth buying. For anyone looking for great RTS games, these three plus their expansions are each easily worth the price of admission.
There are a few downsides to this collection though. The first and most upsetting problem is that none of these games are available on disk. In fact, this is really just a code making the games available through Origin, EA's download service. As far as I can tell, you don't have to remain online once the games are downloaded but I haven't spent much time offline gaming. This could be a serious problem though for those who may not have reliable internet access or aren't fans of Origin. The second problem is that some of the older games took some serious troubleshooting before they would work on my 64-bit Windows 7 OS. Every game from Red Alert 2 on worked without any problems and Tiberium Dawn worked fine but the others took some work and EA's tech support required several emails before they could solve the problem. Still, I did manage to get every game on the collection to work eventually. Last, Command and Conquer 4 is certainly a low point of the series and it can act as a painful reminder as to why they haven't made a C&C game for quite some time since then.
This generation has had some great value packs and this is no exception. If you are a fan of Command and Conquer or RTS games in general, this collection has some great selections. It does have its drawbacks but if you can look past those and are willing to put a little work into making a few of the older games work, it's a wonderful series and this complete collection of all 17 games can provide a lot of fun. As an added bonus, buying this collection will give you early access to the beta of the new Free-to-Play Command and Conquer when it is released.
Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>
My childhood through teen years and now were always filled with Command and Conquer games. These RTSs were what really got me into PC gaming and even to this day they're still a lot of fun. It's awesome to have these games all in one place now. Having to use Origin really isn't that big of a deal because you can play the games even if you go to offline mode. It's actually nice because it syncs your saved games to the cloud so if you spend a lot of time away from home playing on separate computers you don't have to start over. All games are great, but see the one issue I have below.So the reason I docked it one star is because of the fact that not all games quite work on all Windows 7 systems, but with some tweaks I was able to make it work. On my home gaming computer all games work fine without any needs for tweaks. However, if the odd resolutions bug you, you can go into the .ini files for Red Alert II, Tiberian Sun, Renegade (which can be found at /Program Files(x86)/Origin Games/**CNC Game Name**), Generals (found at Documents/Command and Conquer Generals) and change the files manually to a custom resolution (ex: 1920 1080). If you're unfamiliar with this, google "changing .ini files". Red Alert III and Tiberian Twilight are changeable to modern resolutions so this isn't necessary.
For those of you out there using laptops with Nvidia Optimus technology (changes between integrated and the Nvidia card to save power) here is how I made Tiberian Sun and Red Alert II work. I couldn't get either to work on my Alienware m11x R2. After lots of research and troubleshooting I found that going into the Nvidia settings and go to "Manage 3D Settings" and finding the games and forcing it to use the Integrated Graphics instead of the Nvidia card. Then go to your Intel settings, go to "Power" then change it to "Maximum Performance". Do this for both Red Alert II and Tiberian Sun, and if that doesn't work add the .exe files manually from the game folders and change it to only use Integrated Graphics. I just felt like this is a common issue so I wanted to share so others don't have to waste hours trying to fix it. Hope this helps!
Best Deals for Command and Conquer The Ultimate Collection
They finally got it right they didnt remove any content like they did in the First Decade but they added Origin DRM to it. Can be removed if you know what to doGames run if you your self did the compatibility modes yourself. If you are having troubles installing your original Disks aka in a 64bit windows this is one easy way to do it but over priced. Command Conquer Red Alert does not have the 3.03 Patch oddly enough but a smart user can just download it and do it yourself. Additional Content is Music Hits, wallpapers, 2 Videos for next F2P CnC (sigh if only westwood still owned CnC) For Updated Lan or Network play for the 2d Ones the good ones visit one of the fan sites even for IPX lan fix. There is no Remastering just so you know they claim to have remastered for new systems not at all....
If CnC Red Alert 2/Yuris Revenge or Tiberian Sun w Firestorm Crash look up the ddraw.dll User fix it fixes this on newer computers
Honest reviews on Command and Conquer The Ultimate Collection
I bought this collection to save myself the, small but existing, hassle of keeping track of physical discs and the need to install from them.But instead of making the games Windows 7-compatible they have made them Origin-compatible and thereby made them mod-incompatible.
After wasting HOURS trying to install a simple mod that allows me to zoom out, just a little bit further, I have now unistalled Origin completely and I will never install it again.
Since EA only release games on Origin this probably means that I will never buy anything from them again.
All they had to do was to save me a little bit of time and effort and I would have given this product a 5-star review.
I would have prefered that they had just stolen my money instead of both stealing it AND wasting my time.
No comments:
Post a Comment