Command & Conquer: Remastered - Guess who's back?

Annoying. Anyways, a bit late, and you've all seen it, but this is for you @GethN7 :
Dancing Kane.gif

Kane Lives!
 
CNC Remastered is available for preloading on Steam now, and you guys should definitely check out the preview video Steam has with Joe Kucan, it's been around over twenty years and man looks like he hasn't aged a day. He's definitely still got the chops to be Kane.
With all the ruckus that was the riots, this slipped my mind. I'll go check it out.
 
So, played this (Tiberian Dawn) for an hour or so.

- Gameplay mostly unchanged. Where it was tweaked in terms of UI, it was generally better. The OG graphic is easily toggled with no noticable impact.
- Speaking of which, the new UI looks real slick.
- Movies are very noticably upscaled from whatever the fuck it was originally at. Bothered me some, but not a dealbreaker.
- The initial startup had some throwbacks, which was nice.
- EA was using its 1995 logo, lmao. A nice touch, if nothing else.
- Unlike Warcraft Refunded, there doesn't seem to be an internet requirement for single player.

Will report more when I try the Red Alert version.
 
  • Informative
Reactions: Book Thievery
CNC Remastered is currently dominating the top sellers right now on steam, so maybe if there's bigger and bigger support for this kinda remastering business we can see RA2/Yuri's Revenge and Tiberium Sun/Firestorm remastered as well? That would be awesome tbh, because while I like Tib Dawn and RA 1 a little, it's RA 2 and Tib Sun I'm REALLY into.

Oh, and before I forget...

PEACE THROUGH POWER!
 
Played for a bit, some initial thoughts.

The Good:
  • As stated above, gameplay is near identical, with a few quality of life improvements like units queueing. The changes that exist seem to be for the better.
  • Retro graphics now work fine on widescreen and at high res, including a zoom option.
  • The nu-graphics are reasonably good.
  • But if you don't like them, you can switch them off literally at the push of a button.
  • It's quite easy and granular to make most things (such as mouse controls) function as retro CNC or nu-CNC.
  • Multi player and skirmish support, which TFD didn't have. Not sure about matchmaking, I didn't look yet.
  • FMV quality, while far from perfect, is quite solid considering the sources are 25 years old and were never intended for this scale. Black bars are gone.
  • cncfunpark missions are supposed to be in there somewhere, although I haven't looked for them yet.
  • EA open sourced a lot of the code under GPL3, although I'm not sure how much specifically.
  • Steam Workshop/mod support.
  • KANE LIVES IN DEATH!
The Bad:
  • Unless I'm an idiot, the jukebox feature seems to be broken. You're supposed to be able to do things like turn off remixes, but I can't get it to work at all.
  • Sidebars and a few other things are nu-CNC only. Not THAT big a deal, they look good, but it might annoy purists. But since there's mod support I imagine this will be fixed within about 16 minutes.
  • Almost 20GB installed. What the balls? I assume it has something to do with the upscaling/conversion process, but seriously, what the actual BALLS?
All for the quite reasonable price of $20.

THIS is how you do a fucking remaster. I eagerly await the virgin Blizzard/Chad EA memes. And if EA doesn't do this for Sun/RA2, I will personally take a shit on their doorstep (in Minecraft).
 
Played some red alert. I really like that they put in all cutscenes. My original version for example missed the "Hitler assasination scene" The cutscenes though seem to have slightly uffered in regars to the usacling. Or maybe that's just me. all in all I think it's a lot of fun
 
  • Feels
Reactions: Book Thievery
Played some red alert. I really like that they put in all cutscenes. My original version for example missed the "Hitler assasination scene" The cutscenes though seem to have slightly uffered in regars to the usacling. Or maybe that's just me. all in all I think it's a lot of fun

Yeah, some scenes didn't upscale all that well, but they probably lost some of the original HD ones and had to make do with what they had on hand. Still better than the pixelated mess of the originals in nigh all cases.

Also, noticed the secret Giant Ant missions don't seem to be present in RA, unless those are unlockables.

Most of the remastered music is good, and I like we basically got all the stuff the Tiberian Sons did live in concert as a nice bonus, those all sound awesome.
 
  • Informative
Reactions: Balr0g
Wow, so EA does what Blizz don't? Oh, how far they have fallen lol.
If people didn't see the warnings signs from the Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 launch, they're legit consoomers.

The Blizzard that made Starcraft and Diablo 2 are long gone. The corporate husk that remains is utterly incapable of anything these days, it seems.
 
My thoughts, as an old RA1 fag.

+The "Introductory cutscene" is a mock-up of the old DOS installation screen, which was an excellent choice.
+The way they introduce you to the upgraded graphics was also a great choice.
+The new UI is nice, allowing me to queue up multiple units at once like in RA2, and having tooltips displaying how much power buildings will consume.
+Able to choose between remastered OST and SFX in the menu. Due to me being a nostalgiafag for this game, I instantly set them to classic.

-The only thing I didn't like about the UI is the way they changed how the power meter is displayed, with consumption being a colored portion of the meter instead of the dial moving up or down, which confused the hell out of me because the dial is still technically there, it just sits at the top of your power output.
-While the game ran smoothly for the most part, it had a tendency to stutter quite a bit when things exploded. I imagine this will be ironed out as patches or mods get made.
-The cutscenes do not upscale very well. I can still see the compression artifacts in them.
-THEY CHANGED THE COLOR OF THE ALLIED FACTION IN SOVIET MISSION 1 RUINED FOREVER RAWR RAWR RAWR

Overall, I'd say it's a positive experience. Aside from a few hiccups, it's the same game you remember, warts and all.
 
Last edited:
I noticed the AI slider is simple yet effective for the campaign:

Easy: Not entirely "game journalist" mode, but still pretty easy to win because the enemy isn't much smarter than the average casual player.

Normal: Competent like in the OG games, hard but still fair if you have a brain and some reflexes.

Hard: The AI is aggressive and will kill you if you give them any opening..
 
  • Like
Reactions: Book Thievery
Wow, so EA does what Blizz don't? Oh, how far they have fallen lol.
EA is such a weird company, when they let a studio just produce something without corporate meddling they can pull off some amazing work. Here's to hoping they rerelease Battlefield 2 without any fuckery.

Part of me heavily doubts that will happen because EA's corporate board still understandably sees Dollar Signs with the Battlefield brand and would not want any competion with the inevitable Battlefield 6. The reason they're willing to let the old veterans at Westwood (Petrograph Games) remaster C&C is because they've failed so many times at making a new game in the series.
 
EA is such a weird company, when they let a studio just produce something without corporate meddling they can pull off some amazing work. Here's to hoping they rerelease Battlefield 2 without any fuckery.

Part of me heavily doubts that will happen because EA's corporate board still understandably sees Dollar Signs with the Battlefield brand and would not want any competion with the inevitable Battlefield 6. The reason they're willing to let the old veterans at Westwood (Petrograph Games) remaster C&C is because they've failed so many times at making a new game in the series.

I hate to look a gift horse in the mouth but it seems like EA keeps going through this cycle where they try to do better before eventually falling flat on their faces again.

I can't really speak for their entire history but starting in the early 2000s the were releasing interesting games like American McGee's Alice and Clive Barker's Undying, as well the first few Medal of Honors, they then fuck up Medal of Honor with the awful Rising Sun and proceed to release almost nothing but sports games, racing games and licensed movie games for years.

Then they try to be better by moving beyond that releasing interesting stuff like Dead Space, Mirror's Edge, Mass Effect 2, Alice: Madness Returns and Dead Space 2, then they fuck up again with Mass Effect 3, the lame Medal of Honor reboot, SimCity, Mass Effect Andromeda, Anthem etc for years (Battlefield 1 is good at least)

Now they come crawling back again and try to win over some fan goodwill by bringing stuff back to Steam and releasing this and hey, I'm glad when they release something worthwhile, but color me skeptical that it isn't a matter of time before they fall flat on their faces again.
 
I hate to look a gift horse in the mouth but it seems like EA keeps going through this cycle where they try to do better before eventually falling flat on their faces again.

I can't really speak for their entire history but starting in the early 2000s the were releasing interesting games like American McGee's Alice and Clive Barker's Undying, as well the first few Medal of Honors, they then fuck up Medal of Honor with the awful Rising Sun and proceed to release almost nothing but sports games, racing games and licensed movie games for years.

Then they try to be better by moving beyond that releasing interesting stuff like Dead Space, Mirror's Edge, Mass Effect 2, Alice: Madness Returns and Dead Space 2, then they fuck up again with Mass Effect 3, the lame Medal of Honor reboot, SimCity, Mass Effect Andromeda, Anthem etc for years (Battlefield 1 is good at least)

Now they come crawling back again and try to win over some fan goodwill by bringing stuff back to Steam and releasing this and hey, I'm glad when they release something worthwhile, but color me skeptical that it isn't a matter of time before they fall flat on their faces again.
The people employed there do try with a vision. Titanfall 1 and 2 were clear labors of love that sadly failed to attract a returning playerbase. I've yet to play it because it's just hovering above that $20 bargain price but SW Jedi Fallen Order appears to be a lovingly crafted effort at making a slightly more mainstreamed Dark Souls-esque single player game.

The problem is that that game makers simply are overrewarded when they publish titles that have some sort of exploitative microtransactions. There's no doubt that Apex Legends and modern Madden makes EA signigicantly more money than a game that doesn't have some sort of turnkey operation funded by rich (or fiscally careless) gamers.

If EA makes enough money off this remaster they likely will commission Petrograph money for a new original Command and Conquer. If that happens EA's accountants will undoubtedly demand that the game feature a cashshop for Cosmetic Item at the very least. And there's definitely a market that will pay exorbitant fees to have their armies customized with their favorite tanks and rifles.

But RTS is one of the least vogue genres, even Activision-Blizzard more or less gave up on it. The wild success of Total War: Warhammer will hopefully inspire a new CnC that's designed around being fun for everyone while still generating healthy profits.

Oh and I wanted to add that Battlefield 1 was also a sign of EA letting a studio do what it wanted, unless it was just PR Fluff making a shooter themed around WW1 was allegedly the dream of one producer. Battlefield V was also DICE doing what it wanted, it failed because what DICE wanted was straight up idiotic.
 
I'm in the middle of the Soviet campaign and it's like I'm back in elementary school. They did good with the remaster and God bless them for getting Frank Klepacki back on to remaster and remix the soundtrack.
(...) virgin Blizzard/Chad EA (...)
What a timeline we live in where one can say this unironically and be right. And with the very franchise they buttfucked into the dirt they've kickstarted a redemption arc while Blizzard shit the bed with Warcraft of all things. Pottery!

Edit: And speaking of which:
88bu211o2xl41.jpg
 
I'm in the middle of the Soviet campaign and it's like I'm back in elementary school. They did good with the remaster and God bless them for getting Frank Klepacki back on to remaster and remix the soundtrack.

What a timeline we live in where one can say this unironically and be right. And with the very franchise they buttfucked into the dirt they've kickstarted a redemption arc while Blizzard shit the bed with Warcraft of all things. Pottery!

Edit: And speaking of which:
View attachment 1355867
Yeah, that's pretty close to what I was thinking, along with a few other details like Reforged demanding company ownership of mods while EA open sources everything. But I would also add to the right in giant red letters "DELIVERED EXACTLY WHAT IT FUCKING PROMISED".
 
Back