I just played through the original Command and Conquer. Wow! The bad resolution hurts today. The music is still amazing (music is the only part of a video game that never ages). The cutscenes are still fun. I LOVE (LOVE LOVE LOVE) the political allegory of the GDI and NOD struggle. Truly genius work. This is a story no one would ever make today. The gameplay is extremely slow and sluggish. It can take an hour or more to complete some of the missions. And the missions are pretty bland. No, they are all very boring. What makes it worse is that the missions start off with you being able to build only a few units and slowly increase the number. You get the full complement only at the last mission. There are no interesting choices. The gameplay of Command and Conquer was much more fun in 1995. But the music and game universe are still unparalleled!
Tiberian Sun is next on my chopping block.
I’m also giving considerable time to the GoG free games to fairly review them. I am trying out Dragonsphere at the moment. The music gets extremely annoying. The voice acting is bad. The visuals are nice. These games never do what I want to do. First thing I did was go into the Queen’s room and try to open up all her things (won’t let me because my character is a wimp). I eventually found the Queen in the council room where she and my mother give me stuff and leave. I follow them but cannot find them!? I was hoping she would be in her Queen’s Room. But no. It’s sad that I find more fun looking at things, and reading the little text boxes, than doing anything. I hear the game is short so I’ll keep going through it.
From what I’ve played, my reviews for the GoG games are…
Tyrian 2000 – A+ (best PC shmup ever made? I think so)
Treasure Adventure Game – F (I hate this game so much. It’s an indie game, not an oldschool game. I think the people who like this are the ones who think Cave Story is the best thing ever made.)
Dragonquest – C (But I’ll downgrade it to D unless something interesting happens. My character is a wimp. He doesn’t hunt for sport, talks like an idiot, runs around alone, and takes forever to walk around.)
I’ll eventually get to Temptress, Teen Agent, and Steel Sky before I buy anything. Ultima IV and the Worlds of Ultima I own the original boxwork (and cloth maps). I won’t review them as I consider the Ultima games on a different plane. Due to their enormous age, they require a massive amount of ‘old school goggles’ to get into them today.
By looking through the forums, both on GoG and outside, I have noticed some incredible games being completely overlooked by everyone. It is like everyone is huddling around a few games (the CRPGs such as Baldur’s Gate, Planescape Torment, Icewind Dale, etc.), some of the big franchise names, but some of the best games on there aren’t being mentioned by anyone. “What are they?” Let me download them to make sure GoG put them up there correctly. This will take a while.
Anyway, here is some love for Command and Conquer. Act on Instinct people!
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