LogFAQs > #949936886

#50 Command & Conquer (Microsoft Windows, 1996)



Probably one of the most iconic PC games franchises of the 90s, Command & Conquer blew my mind when it came out. It was my first experience with Real-Time Strategy, and Westwood Studios mostly nailed it with this one. The company had released a previous RTS game in 1992, Dune II, which was kind of a proof of concept of the genre. With Command & Conquer, the team successfully iterated and improved on the design, resulting in a smash success.

If you've played almost any RTS game in the last 25 years, its easy to see how it was influenced by Command & Conquer. The game established the trend of providing live action video briefings before missions and full motion cutscenes after, which became very much in vogue for years. Gameplay is relatively simple with a straight forward base-building process, one single resource to collect, and a manageable tech tree. Both of the two factions are completely unique in design and aesthetics. Compared to today's strategy games, it's very pedestrian, but there was honestly nothing like it at the time. Another neat feature that we take for granted now was the ability to play a full campaign not only as the good guys, but also as the bad guys.



I know that it has not aged the best, although I understand that last year's remaster did a ton of work to bring the game along from where it was. The AI was rather pitiful and resorted to completely ridiculous cheats in order to make missions challenging. Command & Conquer still stands out to me as a classic experience that is simple to play and master, and introduced me to what became one of my favorite genres. And while without it, I might have eventually got around to playing some of the great RTS games in history, C&C was a wonderful first exposure to the genre that made my entry into that world so much more accessible.

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