Are you ready for the ultimate real-time strategy experience? Gather resources, build your base, and create the most powerful armies in the world before engaging the enemy in all-out war.

Tiberian Dawn. The game that started the C&C series and introduced the world to GDI, Nod, Kane, Tiberium and Mammoth tanks!

Fight as the Global Defense Initiative or the Brotherhood of Nod as they clash over the rare mineral Tiberium in the classic original series. Challenge the red menace in an alternate universe in Red Alert, then step into the near future with Generals as China and the United States battle the Global Liberation Army, a terrorist organization hell-bent on bringing the world to its knees. However you play, you’ll enjoy limitless hours of RTS Command & Conquer gaming with 10 base games and 7 in-depth expansion packs.
Note: GameSpy ended all hosted game services in 2014, which affects the online multiplayer aspect of one or more games in the collection. Learn more about this in our FAQ.
Game Features:
Engage in intense, strategic battles. Make the most of every move as you order soldiers, vehicles, and aircraft across large maps filled with enemies, traps, and mission-critical resources. Move single troops, select small groups, or issue a unified attack order to all allies as you work to defeat the opponent.
Collect, create, conquer. Success in battle requires more than just a keen battle strategy. Fight for control as you struggle to collect the resources necessary to build new bases, troops, and weaponry, all while keeping the enemy at bay.
Command and Conquer everything. Explore the wide range of Command & Conquer games and fight every war from both sides! Rediscover the epic conflicts across two decades of gameplay. Take a first-person view of the C&C universe through Command & Conquer: Renegade – the series’ one and only first-person shooter – or start playing from the very beginning and enjoy the frenetic style of combat, immersive strategy and campy banter that launched a generation of strategy warfare games.
Collection includes:

• Command & Conquer
• Command & Conquer: The Covert Operations
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert: Counterstrike
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert: The Aftermath
• Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun
• Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun Firestorm
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge
• Command & Conquer: Renegade
• Command & Conquer: Generals
• Command & Conquer: Generals: Zero Hour
• Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars
• Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars: Kane's Wrath
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3: Uprising
• Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight

It’s a bold move when a game developer turns its hand to a genre it previously has little experience at. Certainly Westwood is more flexible than most software developers, as aside from having single-handedly created the modern strategy game, is has over the years released some passable titles outside of the select and direct world of Command & Conquers toy soldiers. In fact, before it rose to become the biggest name in strategy gaming, Westwood was the crown prince of role-playing, having created both the Eye Of The Beholder and Lands Of Lore trilogies. In adventuring circles too, Westwood is fondly thought . of, if not for the Kyrandia series,then for the still worth playing and comparatively youthful R. Blade Runner.

Not that we’re for one moment suggesting Westwood has the Midas touch. Closer to a nugget of poo than gold was the online-only C&C: Sole - Survivor, a prequel of sorts to the very game we’re here to evaluate. It was a very bad online version of Ikari Warriors, basically, and even though it bore the C&Cname, it probably wouldn’t garner more than a few cursory lines in the 'Authorised History Of Westwood Studios’, if such a book existed. The point is that while Westwood hasn’t been afraid to dunk its potatoes in other pots of paint, the finished picture hasn’t always been worth sticking to the fridge door. Imagine earth without people. And with FPSs especially, there are so many masterpieces around that there was a very real danger that C&C: Renegade could well be, well.. a bit knob.

Cry Havoc And Let Slip..

Renegade is two years past its original release date and clearly from what we saw more than three years ago, it hasn’t quite kept up with the leaders in terms of looks. Back then it looked stunning, the Al showed immense promise, and there were plans to let players fly around in C&Cs airborne vehicles. From that wish list only a few features remain intact; the name of the game for one, an optional third-person view and the fact that you can drive a few ground-based vehicles.

Evidently much has changed over the course of the game’s protracted development and, for better or worse, due to technical limitations or whatever, Renegade doesn’t quite offer the same level of realism or interaction it once hoped to. But it has to be said, for all the underwhelming features we are left with compared to other games in the genre, Renegade does at least feel like you are a part of the C&Cworld, as if in fact, that far above the maps across which you fight, there is a spotty young commander sitting at his PC dragging invisible boxes over the units around you and watching the war unfold across a 2D map.

Though there isn’t much in the way of commanding or conquering to be done, Renegade is cloaked head to toe in the trademark Command & Conquer uniform. For one thing, you play as one of the GDI’s specialist commando units, so devastating in the strategy game that they could complete some missions unaided. Here of course you control one such commando, looking upon the world through his own eyes rather than from above. Captain 'Havoc’ Parker is his name and despite the switch to 3D, he’s about as onedimensional as they get.

First Blood

As is the case in film, to enjoy a game, especially one such as this, it is imperative that you can either relate to or sympathise with the character you are playing. For all his inane musings and constant gurning, Max Payne at least had motivations above that of iust dealina death to anyone who got in his way. Here you’d get the feeling that even John Rambo would be a bit embarrassed to know Mr Havoc. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to save prisoners, sabotaging Nod buildings or killing hundreds of enemy soldiers of course, that’s what soldiers do after all, it’s just that in this case Havoc has so little else to his character that it won’t be long until you wish you could just join the other side. Unfortunately you can’t, you’re stuck with him and it helps things considerably that it’s only during the game’s cut-scenes that you’ll have the opportunity to want to put your fist through the screen, so relentless is the game in terms of pace. One minute you'll be running across open land gunning down Nod soldiers, another you’ll be hopping into a tank taking helicopters out of the sky. Though the game is far from cerebral, there is at least enough to do to keep you entertained, albeit at a very basic level. Be prepared to leave your brain in the jar on the mantelpiece and you’ll be happily dribbling onto your keyboard, that’s all I'm saying.

Nodding Off

As has been the case with all of Westwood’s strategy games, Renegade comes complete with a suitably mundane storyline. Set just after the original Commands Conquer, you are sent to find out what The Brotherhood Of Nod are up to, having captured three leading Tiberium scientists for some secret project, which, inevitably, could change the course of the war. And so it’s up to you to traverse the impressively large maps, either by foot or in one of the many vehicles either lying around or airlifted in especially for you, inevitably and gradually filling in the gaps in the story until the final showdown. Along the way you get to fight alongside your old Dead-6 commando unit, meet up with your ex-girlfriend who had the good fortune to see sense and join the other side (no doubt after having met you) and of course plant your trademark C-4 explosives in Nod buildings to put them out of service.

Now despite claims of offering both all-guns-blazing missions and those where you might need to take things a little more quietly, for most of the game there is very little need to go around on tippy toes. Thanks to some pretty basic Al in fact, even in those instances where you might think you’d need to keep to the shadows to avoid being seen, it’s rather fortunate for our gung-ho hero that the Nod soldiers have very little battle training. It’s almost as if the Nod commanders have gone around their troops and said to them 'You stand there and if you see any of the enemy, either run towards them or shoot them. If possible, both.’ That rather basic strategy seems to be the case for the vehicles as well. Occasionally a soldier may turn tail and run back around the corner, but not for any determinable reason other than they might have left the iron on.

This was on the medium difficulty setting, but even on the harder of the three settings there seems to be no discernible difference to how the enemy reacts to your presence. They might be more numerous, have more health or have hidden ammo, but apart from that, difficulty doesn’t have much bearing on how intelligent the enemy are.

But rather than be disappointed by the very crude intelligence exhibited by the enemy, it was in a sense just how it should be. The Command & Conquer strategy games have hardly been the most challenging of games. If you’d care to whip off your rose-tinted spectacles you’ll remember how early CSCtitles were dogged with poor pathfinding. Even Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2 were both rather basic in terms of Al; the computer's only real advantage in battle being its obvious dexterity when it came to giving orders. True to form, here the enemy fights by the adage that it’s quantity rather than quality that will win through, yet like every other seemingly substandard feature of the game, because it is Commands Conquer, we’ve become so used to its over-simplified world that you automatically forgive it if its failing. It’s a bizarre thing to point out, but if the Al was as good as Half-Life, it just wouldn’t feel right.

It’s exactly the same story with the graphics: The sky is blue, grass is green, Nod wear bright red and the Tiberium looks like fluorescent snot - just how C&C should be: garish and distinct rather than realistic andengine is hardly what you’d call cutting edge, to which the fact that Westwood had to take out player-controllable aircraft is ample evidence. The overly angular terrain in particular stands out as a sore point, as does the fact that Westwood has yet to grasp the concept that human beings need to move their feet in order to turn on the spot. If I didn’t know any better I’d say Renegade was using the Quake II engine, such are the few graphical features that make any positive impression. On the plus side, there is always plenty going on and even our rapidly ageing Pentium 733s managed to keep up with the pace.

You Can Play Nod

In terms of the weapons and vehicles, like the rest of the game in fact, you could easily point out that there are better examples of each in a variety of other games. All the weapons are flimsy and unconvincing and one or two next to useless (the grenade launcher being a perfect example). Unlike much of the game, the weapons don’t seem to follow the same C&C rules; in that you can’t take out a tank with a pistol for example. Fair enough, but neither is a rocket launcher particularly effective against a human. Very odd that. But apart from a couple of strange inconsistencies with C&Creality, the weapons do their work, and at least it is a typically diverse arsenal, from the auto and sniper rifle to personal ion cannon. Nothing really stands out in isolation however, so let’s move on to the vehicles.

Considering how tight pretty much all the levels are, the vehicles have been worked into the game very well. In most cases they look suitably authentic and move as you would expect (although for that real C&C flavour you really shouldn’t be able to move and turn at the same time), plus they aren’t treated like pithy rewards as vehicles so often are in first-person games. Most important of all is how important the vehicles are to the multiplayer game, specifically CSC mode.

Mode warriors

CSC mode is where Renegade shines, and when I say it shines, I mean without it we’re talking a 60 percent-ish score. CSC mode is the reason why people will buy Renegade, and it’s the closest we’re probably going to get to a real 3D CSC battle. How it works is each side has a base, made up of a barracks, Tiberium processor, power plant and vehicle factory, plus the assorted faction-specific gubbins like defences and such. The aim is simple, to get a beacon into the other side’s base and call in an Ion or Nuclear strike. The more popular way of winning is to score more points, which usually involves keeping the Tiberium flowing in, revenue from which you can use to buy vehicles, change to a better character and so on. It is arguably the vehicles themselves that make C&C mode stand out. Tribes 2 had them of course - ones that even flew, but they were little more than crude shapes effectively made out of Duplo bricks. Here the battle is on the ground, up close and personal. Unfortunately it’s not the full fried breakfast, since you can’t add any new buildings to your base, neither can you destroy the enemy's base beyond making buildings inoperative. Worst of all there isn’t anyone taking charge, which kind of makes a mockery of the name Commands Conquer mode, since everyone just seems to do what they want.

The End Bit

Westwood has always said that its aim was to create a game true to its real-time roots; one that fans of the C&C arcade strategy games would take to like a GDI hovercraft to water, while at the same time provide enough of a challenge for seasoned first-person purists to enjoy. To that end Westwood has only been partially successful. I can’t speak for everyone, but as both a CSC fan and someone who has played every first-person shooter ever made (even South Party, I can honestly say that I have enjoyed playing Renegade and yet, had I not played it I wouldn't really have missed much. Renegade has pace, plenty to do and for C&Cfans especially it really does bring the C&C universe to life, but compared to other first-person shooters it isn’t a particularly amazing game. The Al is laughably basic, the graphics unsophisticated, the interface overly complicated and the characters cliched and wooden. Perhaps the best thing about the game, apart from the multiplayer mode, is that someone saw fit to include the playable demo of Medal Of Honor on the disc. However, though it may drive many to buy what is an infinitely more accomplished game, fear most will be making an exchange before too long rather than parting with more cash.