posted
Hi guys, I come here today to ask all of you, including OSC, about your favorite games. Games driven by great stories, sagas.
Namely I'm inquiring about one series that is currently hanging in limbo, uncertain of its own future.
That is the Command & Conquer series, its canon, the original C&C games created by Westwood Studios (Red Alert, Tiberian Dawn and Renegade, Tiberian Sun, Firestorm - in that order of the storyline).
I am the author of the Canon of C&C Encyclopedia on Planet Command & Conquer: http://www.planetcnc.com/features/encyclopedia/cnccanon I'm also the producer and story editor of a game a dedicated group of fans and developers is making in the series, focusing on a group of GDI commandos fighting political intrigue, military objectives and the general Brotherhood of Nod influence on the world arena: http://www.dead6.net
That series of the original storyline is currently in danger. Call and educated guess, or an educated feeling, if such a thing exists. So I'm trying to find out just what people think of the series and its storyline - and there's no place better for that than this, Orson Scott Card's forum.
quote:Red Alert, Tiberian Dawn and Renegade, Tiberian Sun, Firestorm - in that order of the storyline).
I'm confused. C&C Red Alert and Command and Conquer are two totally different storylines, and isn't Renegade the MMOFPS? I don't understand your post at all. How could you be the "author of a encyclopedia" about C&C and not know this?
posted
Ah, thanks for your reply. I knew this would come sooner or later, but it's good that it came ASAP.
Let me explain. First of all, there is no MMORPG in the C&C universe. Renegade is the shooter (FPS/TPS) of the C&C series. It is based in the same timeframe of events as Tiberian Dawn. Tiberian Dawn, incidently, is the original C&C. It's just another name for it. As it is the dawn of the Tiberium age.
Secondly, it's a common mistake to think Red Alert to be a seperate storyline. The truth of the matter is that Red Alert was created as the direct prequel to Tiberian Dawn, the original Command & Conquer strategy game. Red Alert basically sets up the alternate universe of C&C, and shows the Brotherhood of Nod's influence on the Great World War II, faught between the Allied countries and Stalin's Soviet Union. If you read the encyclopedia, you will clearly see the connection.
The confusion of seperate storylines only came when a subsidiary of Westwood Studios, Westwood Pacific, created Red Alert 2, a humorous game loosely based on the concepts of Red Alert, without any real fictional connection to either Red Alert itself or its sequel, Tiberian Dawn. Or perhaps it is less a lack of ficitional connection, than it is just deliberate inattention to the larger scope of the storyarch as it was outlined by the original writers.
It remains to be seen if the makers of future C&C games will fix the inevitable plot hole that is Red Alert 2 in its entirety or not.
Thridly. Covert Ops was the expansion pack to the original C&C, Tiberian Dawn.
posted
I didn't say MMORPG. I said MMOFPS, which is what Renegade is.
Red Alert 2 is hilarious and outside of the storyline? Are you referring to the childish military jargon-spouting tripe that every C&C game had during every single second of the game? Are you referring to the crappy dialog and sad acting in every minute of FMV in all of the games? Are you referring to the weak premises and stupid ideas in C&C made to fill the holes left by using the Dune II game engine?
The games were never brilliant or great storytelling. They were just fun. I found Red Alert 2 to be tons of fun and far more entertaining than its cloddish predecessors because Westwood Pacific cleaned up the interface and made the game physically attractive.
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quote:Red Alert basically sets up the alternate universe of C&C, and shows the Brotherhood of Nod's influence on the Great World War II, faught between the Allied countries and Stalin's Soviet Union.
The Brotherhood of Nod? I don't exactly remember, but isn't the idea that Tesla, still distraught over Hitler's distruction of his people and Europe, created a time machine and went back in time to assasinate a young Hitler? This then created a shift in Mid-20th century events leading to an outright war with the Soviet Union instead of Germany.
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posted
Right, sorry. You said MMOFPS. Renegade is not MMO. You're thinking of PlanetSide.
I never said that RA2 was hilarious. It was just an attempt, a deliberate one, at making a humorous game. I didn't say it was a good attempt. But it is not connected. That was deliberate as well, by it's all new developers. And I'm referring to the way that, unlike the other C&C games, Red Alert 2 goes out of its way to mock itself. Gameplay wise it was, while a step backwards from its predecessor, Tiberian Sun, in a few areas, a superb experience of C&C gameplay. No doubt about it. Fun. Fast. Action packed.
But I have to disagree in regards to the storyline of the other games. While they did have their weak moments, and some quircky ideas, as well as some badly acted scenes (not much, some), the storyarch was still carefully designed and well told in most cases. Although it could have benefited from a more organized storytelling than the two sides of a coin method used to this date.
As I said, the Encyclopedia shows all that.
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posted
I believe that was Einstein. But that is only the intro to the Red Alert game and the entire series. That war, as the story tells it (and it does tell it, if you only pay attention to it and take the time to understand it), gives Kane and his Brotherhood the basis for what they would need at a later time, thirty years later to be exact, to come out of hiding and expand the Brotherhood and reach its goals.
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CNC Generals is fun-- I never had any of the originals, so I can't talk about those. I'll pick em up... one day...
I've been playing Simcity (Classic/2000/3K/3KU) since the original came out when I was 5 (i think?). At the time I didn't know what I was doing, but it was fun nonetheless.
And Homeworld is one of the few games that I would call a work of art.
[ August 21, 2004, 11:08 AM: Message edited by: James Tiberius Kirk ]
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posted
I definately agree with homeworld. I didn't really even enjoy the game, but the story was great and I wish I could have found a way to turn it's music into MP3s...
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posted
I think it's hard to beat the Max Payne franchise if you're judging by these criteria, though I tend to think that the best way to approach a game is to derive the story from the needs of the gameplay, rather than vice-versa (though I do have conflicts with certain of my coworkers over this issue).
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