TR Forums

Hey!

Steam is having a sale on these games: http://store.steampowered.com/sale/commandandconquer

I've never played C&C... Which one should I get first?

i would have recommended the original red alert lol, it was awesome , its old oh and not on the list so i would reccomend you start with Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars

Given that I don't see any of the earlier versions listed I would say from that list you should choose C&C Tiberium Wars. That gets followed by Kanes Wrath since it's the follow up to Tiberium Wars. I haven't tried the Red Alert 3 versions but I believe they play much the same as the C&C 3 games. One thing that I've heard from many people is to stay away from C&C 4 as they changed the game play quite a bit from the previous games (plus I believe it requires you to be online to play.) At the very least try and get a demo (if there is one) or find someone that can demo the game to you before purchasing it.

The C&C 3 games were quite fun where it's all about building a base and then expanding out from there to defeat the enemy. I believe one of the main changes with the C&C 4 game is that they took away the base building which will change the game quite a bit.

Either way I think any of those (outside of C&C 4) should be quite enjoyable. To simplify

C&C 3 Tiberium Wars then Kane's Wrath
C&C Red Alert 3 then Red Alert 3 Uprising

that's the order to play them since the second game listed builds on the first (and I believe they require the first so you have to have TW for KW, and you need RA3 for RA3 Uprising.)

(If you can find any of the old C&C games available for sale online (they should be around) you could give them a try or find one of their demos. The C&C games all played much the same from the original C&C game to the C&C3/RA3 releases so if you like how the original plays you will probably like the others.)

If you want to pick up the earlier games you could go for Command & Conquer: The First Decade. It's got all of the original versions of C&C so you can play it from the beginning. (Not that you need to.)

http://www.google.com/products/catalog? ... nd+conquer

It's a good deal since you can get it for as cheap as $10

Generals.

I have to say, the original CnC Red Alert is probably one of my top 3 favorite games of all time. Just flat good. The CnC Generals games were also VERY good. I would play it right now if I had an XP box around with it installed.....

Every install of it I've done finds a "serious error" (well-known, unpatched, unfixable bug) across three versions of Windows and three copies of the game, eventually. That said, it's extensible, well-loved by the mod community, they didn't neuter any important strategy elements like certain sequels did, and the graphics are recent and good enough.

My first CnC game was Red Alert.

It depends. Command and Conquer, Command and Conquer: Red Alert and Command and Conquer: Generals all have their own stories. So if you want to play them for their story (and CnC does have a good story) you'd play like so.

CnC -> CnC: Tiberium Sun -> CnC Tiberium Wars -> CnC4

CnC: Red Alert -> CnC: Red Alert 2 -> CnC RA2 Yuri's Revenge -> CnC Red Alert 3

CnC Generals (stand alone)


If you want to play them in the order they came out (and watch how the graphics and gameplay mechanics unfold)

CnC -> CnC Red Alert -> CnC: Tiberium Sun -> CnC Red Alert 2 -> CnC: Generals -> CnC: Tiberium Wars -> CnC: Red Alert 3 -> CnC4


If you want to play what I consider the best of the series, and no matter what, you have to play these 3.
CnC: Tiberium Wars (what I consider the most balanced game play, excellent graphics, units offer great tactics to do interesting attacks with. My friend and I still play this. Oh, and it has Michael Ironside acting in it. No more needs to be said.) The expansion, Kane's Wrath adds some great units to multiplayer that are great fun to skirmish with. The single player campaign you can skip, it's rubbish.
CnC: Red Alert 2 (One of the most fun games to play. The units are pretty crazy fun, and it's just a really really fun game to play). Also make sure to get the expansion pack, Yuri's Revenge. It adds a third side and some really awesome new units. Can't just play RA2 without playing this as well
CnC: Generals (very different game play than CnC or Red Alert, much more closer to Star Craft. But still excellent fun). The expansion, Zero Hour brings some new units and is good times as well.

Honorable mention:
CnC 2: Tiberium Sun. Many fans consider this to be the best. The atmosphere was the best of any game I've played, and the story was top notch. The units were really great...it was also HORRIBLY unbalanced. Patches and the expansion (Firestorm) helped to even this up, but it's still pretty one sided.
CnC: Red Alert. BEST. SOUNDTRACK.EVER.


Games I'd suggest you stay away from:
CnC: Red Alert 3. They tried to take the fun and lightheartedness of CnC:RA2 and make it goofier. All they did was make the units stupid. They dumbed the gameplay down for consoles and it felt like I was playing a game made for toddlers (NOTE: I'm not dissing on consoles here). The first CnC game that I've EVER NOT finished. Mostly 'cause I was bored with it, mostly because of the changes to the game play to make it console friendly, mostly because the units were just dumb, mostly because it was just a rubbish game.

CnC4: I've never played it. But I've seen youtube video's of gameplay *shudder* They took your basic rts premise (StarCraft, CnC) and butchered it to some gawd-awful monstrosity. And yes, you do have to stay connected to the Internet to track your progress. Rather than in a traditional RTS where by advancing to the next level in single player mode you get access to new units (or even in skirmish where you get all the units to play with), CnC4 you have to gain experience to unlock new units. Some reviewers were saying that after playing 10+ hours, they still didn't have access to all the units on one side. Not to mention I watched all the cut scenes/story scenes on youtube and they absolutely destroyed what was an excellent story. The people who made this game will burn for what they did to the CnC franchise. Stupid story, stupid characters and the most stupid retarded gameplay. Do yourself a favor and stay away from this steaming pile of...
*wow...I wonder if I had something to get off my chest?*


Yes, I'm a huge CnC Fan and yes I'm very passionate about it.

The series peaked with Red Alert 2, which is my second favorite RTS ever behind Warcraft 3. It's been downhill since and it took a major plummet after the release of Generals. Too bad none of the good C&C games are in that sale... but maybe that's saying something.

Wow, thanks a lot for all the great info!

Looks like the best games are the earlier ones, even though C&C 3 and Red Alert seems to be very good as well. I can't seem to find a place that sells the originals though, or the First Decade pack, as a digital download. I don't know if they would work on Win7 though anyways.... mmmmm. Didn't realize the choice would be so hard hehe.

Sargent Duck wrote:

...

Tiberium Dawn was the 'other name' for the original Command and Conquer. Every time you say it you mean Tiberium Sun.

grantmeaname wrote:

Sargent Duck wrote:

...

Tiberium Dawn was the 'other name' for the original Command and Conquer. Every time you say it you mean Tiberium Sun.

Right you are. Thanks. And corrected

vince wrote:

Wow, thanks a lot for all the great info!

Looks like the best games are the earlier ones, even though C&C 3 and Red Alert seems to be very good as well. I can't seem to find a place that sells the originals though, or the First Decade pack, as a digital download. I don't know if they would work on Win7 though anyways.... mmmmm. Didn't realize the choice would be so hard hehe.

I've got Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit.

CnC Generals (and expansion) work perfectly fine.
CnC RA2 (and expansion) work perfectly fine. Installed them just now to verify. Well, since I just installed it I might as well go play it.

And you're probably not going to find the First Decade pack as a digital download. I imagine the First Decade pack would work, but the game was made for XP. Funny enough, when EA created the First decade, they ended up introducing a lot of new bugs in the games that weren't previously there! *face palm* Only EA...

The original "Command and Conquer: the First Decade" (now called Command and Conquer: Gold) is a free download from EA.

awesome link bdwilcox, thanks!

Here are the FREE Red Alert discs:

Soviet Disk - http://na.llnet.cnc3tv.ea.com/u/f/eagam ... etDisc.rar
Allied Disk - http://na.llnet.cnc3tv.ea.com/u/f/eagam ... edDisc.rar

You need DOSBox for them to run on Win7, but they do run. There are tutorials on Youtube for how to get them to run.

Can't get any better than FREE!! YAY