Soooo EA's CnC Forums...

[Shiner]

C&C TD: great. I still remember the feeling of more than 15 years ago, and my first GDI mission starting. Hell, just the installer was a feature in itself. And the movies: "Yes, power shifts more quickly than some people think."
RA 1: Great. not much to say about that.
C&C TS: Loved it. Probably my favourite, especially because of the music.
RA 2: hell, I loved it. THe gameplay, the speed, the fact that a skilled commander could match the sovjet's single minded brute power by using the full array of weapons the allies had at their dispose. Loved it all.

But than the great darkness came:
Generals: WTF??? Dunno what the idea was behind that game, I don't want to know either. If I could, I would like to ask a surgeon to remove all memories about that.
C&C TW: nice. Not good, not bad, just nice. Except that the aliens had the instant win button once you played for 15 minutes (mothership drop in ennemies base).
RA 3: Liked it actually. I hated that every frakking unit had 2 settings (and I hate every type of micro management). But for the rest, really nice.
C&C TT: nice idea, but I hate Unit caps, I hate needing to move my base around with my troops, I hated the storyline (my god, the actor that played the wife of the commander, I cannot remember any worse actor than that). So all in all, it is now resting and will never be played again.

[Peaches]

The series started plummeting when EA took over Westwood. Maybe "plummeting" isn't quite the word I'm looking for, but it sure didn't help anything. Also, you guys going chronogically are missing one big thing :P.

Dune 2. Oh man. I was waaaaay too juvenile to realize how terrific this game was. I wish I could just find it somewhere and run it on some old PC. But the concept, the innovation, it was all there. I know it's not part of the official C&C/RA canon, but you can't ignore it's influence on it. The minimap, the credits on the top-right corner of the screen, harversters, tech trees... Westwood had struck gold.

I picked up C&C at around the same time, but there was no skirmish mode (and I sure wasn't going to play multiplayer on that dial-up), so I never really got into it until much later. Needless to say, when I did try it again, it definitely was a quality product, especially considering its competition at the time of release.

My real experience started with RA1, when I was like 6. It was totally awesome because of the skirmish modes. What a wonderful thing, to be able to install a game and immediately have access to a freaking mammoth tank 15 minutes later. I played the campaign a bit, but as expected, I wasn't quite a stellar player, so I'd just play skirmishes over and over again (on the first map - A Path Beyond, yeah I still remember that) while playing The Hell March over and over and OVER again. Good times. At this point, everything Westwood had done was unquestionnably successful : innovative, deep, exciting and unique games.

Dune 2000 and Tiberian Sun were also fairly entertaining, but not as groundbreaking as the previous titles. They were quality products on their own, but didn't bring much novelty. Yet they were fairly successful and if you like RTS, you will likely like these, which is usually a sign for a non-terrible game.

Red Alert 2 was a great success, and continued Westwood's legacy of creating fantastic RTS games (although they also showed some good things with Nox, who, imo, is on par with Diablo I as far as RPGs go). They did a terrific job of continuing the Allied/Soviet war in a much more modern environment and greatly improved the gameplay without butchering it.

And then, the end. EA bought Westwood in 2003 and it all went to ****. Some people might love the titles that came after that, but the difference is still massive between pre-2003 and post-2003. Before the buyout, -everyone- (yeah yeah hyperbole) loved C&C/RA. Right now, it seems that most people like one or two of EA's sequels, but barely anyone is into the whole thing. The whole aura of innovation and perfection that Westwood built around their games just came shattered when EA took over. It's sad, really.

I myself have never gotten into the newer products. I admit they're not bad games per se, but they're not what I want from a C&C/RA game. I'd rather play SC2 than a pale imitation of SC2 with a side-bar in a universe that reminds me how cool the GDI used to be.

Thank god EA makes great sports games though :p.

[xSaul]

Yeah I hear ya peaches, and I quite love Dune 2000, I own an original giant box version of it and a strat guide or something that came with it. And EA, I love them in their own right. They messed up CnC, and I believe they shouldn't have taken over Maxis either, but the Sims are still going strong and thankfully they're staying pretty true to heart on the Sims. They messed up SimCity though.

What I AM greatful for from EA, is their reboot of Need for Speed Hot Pursuit series. They made it better, and I really hope to see more titles in that VERY old series. Now if only they'd bring Underground back.

[Peaches]

Yeah I hear ya peaches, and I quite love Dune 2000, I own an original giant box version of it and a strat guide or something that came with it. And EA, I love them in their own right. They messed up CnC, and I believe they shouldn't have taken over Maxis either, but the Sims are still going strong and thankfully they're staying pretty true to heart on the Sims. They messed up SimCity though.

What I AM greatful for from EA, is their reboot of Need for Speed Hot Pursuit series. They made it better, and I really hope to see more titles in that VERY old series. Now if only they'd bring Underground back.

My stance on Maxis is actually the complete opposite of yours. I never got into TS3 while I spent months on the first one, while Sim City 4 is one of my favorite games ever, but yeah I get what you're saying.

And yes I keep meaning to go back to Best Buy to buy their latest NFS but I keep telling myself to wait for NHL 2012 to come out. I'm so glad they've put that series back in the right track. NFS HP, HS and NFSU ate my teenagehood :p. I've tried Carbon (so-so) and Undercover (all right play-wise, but I really hate the whole open-city thing in a NFS game... it just fits GTA more).

Which one do you suggest between Shift 2 and HP?

[dab202]

Don't get me wrong, I love C&C just as much as the next person who grew up playing them. and I would do most anything to see Petroglyph get the rights to the series back. but not so that they could make another game, or redo what EA produced. so that they can stop making C&C games, yeah i know it sounds like treason, but sometimes when you have a really good thing going for you its best to let it die out in a blaze of glory, not slowly fade away. Do you think halo 4 will be any good as halo 1 threw 3, and I have herd nothing good coming from the reviews of Duke Nukem Forever.

The first decade disk is the pride of my game collection, I love them dearly (and think that putting all of Westwood's work onto one disk was the only good thing EA did to the series) but its time to let it go and look forward to the next big thing Petroglyph puts out, End of Nations.

[Jetsam]

so that they can stop making C&C games, yeah i know it sounds like treason, but sometimes when you have a really good thing going for you its best to let it die out in a blaze of glory, not slowly fade away.

The internet is no place for rationality and logical intelligent opinions!

Seriously though, you make a good point, although I would have to disagree in the case of the tiberium universe simply for continuities sake... I would prefer if Petroglyph had made a C&C3 instead of EA just to end the Kane story and then be done with it. There's nothing I hate more than an unfinished story.

[Peaches]

To hell with this. Solely because of this thread, I'm going to start tinkering around with my C&C:TD and RA1 CDs tonight to see if I can get them working on Vista or on my VM. I hope you guys are proud of what you just did.

[libbmaster]

To hell with this. Solely because of this thread, I'm going to start tinkering around with my C&C:TD and RA1 CDs tonight to see if I can get them working on Vista or on my VM. I hope you guys are proud of what you just did.

Our brain washing... it has succeeded...

[Jetsam]

To hell with this. Solely because of this thread, I'm going to start tinkering around with my C&C:TD and RA1 CDs tonight to see if I can get them working on Vista or on my VM. I hope you guys are proud of what you just did.

They run fine on Vista for me, I still play 'em every once in a while :P

[Peaches]

League of Legends is down. So yeah. I'm starting up the GDI campaign.

Holy hell nostalgia.