Command & Conquer: Renegade Review

On the other hand, Renegade's got one big thing going for it, and that is the implementation of the game's general idea - to play a GDI commando who's thrown right smack in the middle of a C&C conflict. Rather than play it as a standard FPS, where its one man against an army, Renegade places the player in large-scale battles involving a lot of craft, infantry and armored vehicles. Since the AI isn't the greatest, it is up to the player to win the day, but the feel of being in a C&C game is most certainly not lost. It is the game's biggest selling point. Fans of the C&C universe will get a kick out of playing a commando in one of the many battles from the strategy game, especially when invading or inside a NOD base. As for your regular FPS fanatics who've never played a C&C strategy in their life, they might enjoy the variety of units, weapons and vehicles - something C&C games have always been famous for. However, it seems that Westwood programmers have still a lot to learn about weapon balancing as I've spent most of the time in the game using my assault rifle and the rocket launcher. The RL is way too powerful against vehicles, and the assault rifle is just too accurate at long distance.

Now... On to the multiplayer.

Westwood has gone to great lengths to make the multiplayer seem almost exactly like you're in a C&C game. Almost every building is back from the original game, in gloriously huge fashion, with one objective - blow up the other team's base. There are multiple roles that each character can play, with a variety of weapons available. It's a cross between Tribes, CounterStrike and Team Fortress, with each class change or vehicle purchased costing credits that are earned as the game progresses. Of course, your team's Tiberium Harvester is out there collecting credits as well, so it pays to keep that operational.

Multiplayer is available through GameSpy Arcade (which comes with the game), or through Westwood's proprietary Westwood Online gaming service. I tried the latter route, to see how easily a game can be joined, and it wasn't the most rewarding experience. Once I got my account set up, I realized that I couldn't use my name - SixShooter. The naming system caps off at 9 characters, leaving me with SixShoote. Gee, that inspires fear and awe into the hearts of my enemies. There is most likely a way to get my full name in there, but I have yet to find it. Time will tell.

The games themselves were quite fun. Vehicles can carry more than one person, with the second to join taking the part of the vehicle's gunner, but problems can develop if you get a terrible partner on guns, or one who has no interest in the game. I can definitely see a llama problem developing, if changes aren't made. (Note: The gunnery problem has been solved by a patch - Ed.) It's really a new experience, playing a RTS from a FPS vantage point, using similar tactics like a tank rush, or engineer rush. With flying vehicles to be made available in some maps, Westwood has really gone the extra mile to bring C&C into a new era of gaming.

The biggest issue I have with Renegade is the system requirements. Don't let the box fool you - it says you need a PII 400 or later to play, but the reality is that you need some serious horsepower to play this game. (Not to mention drive space - it takes up 950 MB!) My P3 600/GeForce 2 rig chugs along nicely in the single player game, but I can't get multiplayer to stay steady past 15 fps at any resolution. All I get is laggy, jumpy play. I've been able to resolve some of the issues, but ultimately multiplayer is a let down. I find I get shot while waiting for the screen to redraw the impressive structures, and it gets quite frustrating.

I so want to love this game - it has all the pieces necessary for a classic, but it just comes up short. It is 100% apparent that a lot of hard work and effort went into this game, and it shows. But it is also 100% apparent that this game is lacking in certain areas that prevent it from being the new 800-lb gorilla on the block. I would say that this game is about 2 or 3 patches away from being complete - fix the physics on the engine, scale it for lower-end machines, tweak the netcode on the multiplayer side and overhaul the AI and Renegade is the game that ever C&C fan wants it to be. It's a good game, just not a great one. But with a little TLC, Nick Parker will rank up there with the gaming elite, as he so richly deserves - at least in the eyes of the C&C fan.