Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun (PC)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 3.5 stars Very good
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 7.9 (3.5 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Greg Kasavin
• Reviewed on: 09/01/1999
• Updated on: 11/09/2000
• Released on: 08/24/1999
• Originally published on GameSpot: Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun (PC) Review

Although several expansion packs and the pseudo-sequel Red Alert have been published over the last four years, the Command & Conquer series has never yet surpassed or even matched the level of excellence with which it began. And so there's a lot at stake with Tiberian Sun, Westwood's third major release in the series, especially because it draws directly from the original game for its inspiration by returning once again to the conflict between the Global Defense Initiative and the Brotherhood of Nod. But because Westwood has no intention of risking any more than necessary, Tiberian Sun predictably takes very few risks of its own, and feels and plays just like the original Command & Conquer.

Tiberian Sun will look immediately familiar to Command & Conquer players, although a closer inspection reveals that the game's terrain graphics are far more sophisticated than they used to be. Realistic topography and colored lighting effects make Tiberian Sun's terrain look great, and because explosive weapons leave craters or knock down bridges, the terrain provides an important new tactical consideration. You'll notice a few other additions to the battlefield, including a second, more valuable type of the mysterious resource Tiberium and even Tiberian mutants that will attack your forces on sight.

Although the game's landscape looks different from previous games in the series, its right-hand interface is identical to how it's always been - one scrolling column is devoted to units and the other is devoted to structures. You can designate hotkeys for faster scrolling, and you can queue up to five units for production from a single facility, though you'll need to build structures one at a time. The interface takes up a fairly large portion of the screen, but that isn't much of a problem because the units themselves are small. That's not to say all the various infantry and vehicles in Tiberian Sun look bland; if anything, a lot of them look bizarre, and it may take you a few hours to get accustomed to the game's new look.

While your infantry units are still little animated sprites that look much like the infantry units in every Command & Conquer game, your vehicles are drawn using voxels, which in practice lends them a rough-hewn three-dimensional look. It's not a bad effect, and you'll see its advantages no sooner than when your harvester lumbers up and over the nearest hill. Some of these voxel units do look pretty bad - the Devil's Tongue Flame Tank looks like a giant shoe box, a far cry from Nod's menacing original. Other units, like the GDI Titan, a gigantic walking tank, look fantastic. You'll also notice and appreciate the game's subtle special effects, like the Titan's red laser targeting pointer, damaged units billowing smoke and showering sparks, and Nod cyborgs ripped in half but still alive and shooting.

Tiberian Sun's units include a number of throwbacks to Westwood's classic Dune 2, including a Nod buggy, which is a spitting image of the heavy quad, and the GDI Disrupter, which may as well have been called a sonic tank. Likewise, the story involves a breed of mutants indigenous to Tiberium-infested regions, which closely parallel Dune's enigmatic Fremen. Dune 2 fans will enjoy such references; Command & Conquer fans may find them disconcerting. The fact is Tiberian Sun is a science fiction game. The original Command & Conquer, though it took its share of liberties with unit design, was still dominated by readily recognizable tanks and troops. Tiberian Sun, by comparison, offers not even a single mundane unit for either the GDI or the Brotherhood. Even the lowliest infantry are armed with pulse rifles.

This emphasis on science fiction wouldn't be so problematic were it not that Tiberian Sun rather shamelessly borrows unit designs from other science fiction real-time strategy games, including Dark Reign's burrowing APC and Starcraft's transforming siege tank. The consequence is that fans expecting trucks, tanks, and planes will be disappointed, while those already acclimated to science fiction real-time strategy will find that most of Tiberian Sun's units are unoriginal. It's also unfortunate that the game maintains the series' convention of sounding completely boring - while gunfire and explosions are right on, your units' spoken acknowledgements become repetitive and tedious within minutes. At least the game contains an excellent soundtrack whose wide variety of intense and catchy techno beats will bring back fond memories of the first game's great musical score.

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