Comment by croon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by croon | Hacker News Reader

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I remember it very well myself, I was in my teens in -96. The animations in Tomb Raider were indeed amazing, even if the textures weren't.

Going on to play Quake (World) extensively, what was the most impressive (at least to me) when it first came out was the lighting and immersive/ambient sound, as well as proper 3D as opposed to Duke3D.

Red Alert had some of the earliest video cut scenes in a game I remember seeing, even if it was terribly interlaced and the acting was atrocious.

Diablo is still my favorite Diablo and Blizzard game. The music, the gameplay, the gothic design to me only got watered down in later iterations.

Thanks for reminding me of the classics. The leaps in technology back then was staggering. I always notice something here and there nowadays too, but I feel I haven't seen a leap since Half-Life 2 back in 2004.

This (1996) was a pivotal time for me as a gamer, even if we had Ataris and a Sinclair at home before that. It makes me very nostalgic.

> Red Alert had some of the earliest video cut scenes in a game I remember seeing, even if it was terribly interlaced and the acting was atrocious.

"From God, to Kane, to Seth, I am his right hand man" ~ Seth, Brotherhood of Nod, Command & Conquer, 1995

(People always give C&C:RA too much credit IMO, the original C&C was overlooked. But then I imagine Dune 2 players saying the same about C&C!)

I loved the original C&C and while I understand the appeal of RA because of Cold War nostalgia it always felt like more of a spin-off going in a completely different direction than a spiritual successor (or predecessor). C&C was at times corny but felt very much inspired by 1980s/1990s action movies in a way, RA was often bordering on satire.

There were some attempts to make RA1 an actual prequel in the C&C timeline but its success resulted in the timelines diverging too much.

I actually also kinda liked C&C Generals despite it having no relation to C&C other than the branding but sadly that series was pretty much doomed from the start.

I think in Germany it was marketed as C&C2:RA when it came out and it felt like a prequel to me. The videos, the units, everything was C&C. Tanja -> Commando Bot, Tesla Towers -> Obelisk of Light, etc.

Yeah, they ran into real problems when later titles came out.

The original C&C was released as "Command & Conquer Teil 1: Der Tiberiumkonflikt" ("tiberium conflict", instead of "tiberian dawn")

The original RA was released as "Command & Conquer Teil 2: Alarmstufe Rot" ("code red", instead of "red alert")

C&C2 was then released as "Command & Conquer Teil 3: Operation Tiberian Sun" (instead of simply "tiberian sun")

By the time C&C2 had been released the Internet was becoming a thing and still predominantly English so the different numbering schemes began causing trouble for English-speaking Germans.

I think they gave up on consistent numbering by the time RA2 came out (it wasn't actually called "Teil 4" IIRC) and if I recall correctly they just stuck to the English numbers with C&C3 onwards (yes, that means technically "C&C3" was ambiguous in Germany at that point).

<spoilers> In Red Alert there are some clues that the setting is tied to that of the original Command & Conquer however. For example Kane shows up on the Soviet side and it's strongly hinted that he is the same Kane as in Tiberian Dawn. This led to some fan theories that Kane is immortal because he's literally the Biblical character Cain, which was pretty plausible if you consider the other Biblical references ("the land of Nod" is where Cain was exiled and Kane is the leader of the Nod Brotherhood; Seth is Kane's second in command and also the name of Cain's and Abel's brother). I think there were also some conspiracies based on the re-use of German voice actors (I think Einstein's assistant was voiced by the voice actor who also voiced Kane? I don't think this is the case in the English version). </spoilers>

Ultimately this probably has more to do with budget constraints and that Biblical imagery is a cheap way to introduce some drama and I'm not sure whether this was ever intended as more than a not-so-subtle nod (heh) to Tiberian Dawn.

Fun fact: one major criticism of Tiberian Sun was that the publisher cast a new voice actor for Kane who sounded nothing like the first one fans had grown to love (his voice was also much lighter, leading many to joke that he sounded a bit emasculated). IIRC the official explanation was that the original voice actor had demanded too much money. In addition to the disproportionate hype the game had received prior to release that was also often pointed out as one of the major reasons it wasn't as successful as anticipated.

Yes, Tiberian Sun was a bit like Duke Nukem Forever.

Took too long and didn't bring much new stuff.

RA came shortly after TD. Not much had happend with strategy games till then and they just used the same engine and took everything for TD to the extreme (story, weapons etc.)

One year befor TS we got Starcraft, which took strategy games to another level, so they HAD to do more, but they didn't.

Anyway, the hype was probably enough to make enough money for the other titles, haha.

IIRC RA didn't actually use exactly the same engine as the original TD. I think the TD "Gold" (or GOTY?) edition ported TD to the engine of RA, which was slightly higher resolution and slightly prettier, so that's what most people think of when they think of TD.

Whether TD and TD Gold were actually different engines I don't know but it must have been at least an improved version of the same engine.

I think you're right that SC doomed TS to fail. SC was lauded for having three factions that are actually fundamentally different to a much greater degree than had been done before (e.g. Dune 2000) and had great storytelling compared to the well-done but low-budget and often cheesy narration in TD and RA.

TS tried to one-up the genre with its cinematic cutscenes but they ended up creating an actual protagonist so the result felt much more like watching a movie than something you're actually involved in (especially when the protagonist does more than reacting and following orders -- which was the sole reason having a protagonist became necessary at all).

Also, the engine was different and they tried to cash in on technological superiority with big talk of "voxels" but the end result just looked fuzzy and often sterile. They also tried to do the "multi-faction" thing by introducing the mutants (though not as a playable race) which confused the setting even more. TD was about futuristic modern warfare, TS was 100% sci-fi. In that sense I guess Generals was a bit of a return to the roots.

From what I remember, RA = Allied victory = C&C, RA2 = Soviet victory and diverged timeline. Kane was even in one of the cutscenes.

Yeah, RA2 really messed with fans' headcannons (sic) considering the Allied victory worked fine if you assumed the game was intended as a prequel.

I think C&C vs RA is one of those things where you're either one type of person or another. For younger me, the RA intro was one of the coolest things I'd ever seen in a piece of commercial software. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R6xCWcf_VU

I was more into C&C, though you're absolutely right, that RA intro was amazing! I liked the first RA game, since it was a little more serious... the second and third were a bit too campy for me given the setting of the first.

I played C&C through 3, but really hated the 4th. They ruined it by trying to make it some half-baked MOBA type thing. I still haven't even finished it.

> But then I imagine Dune 2 players saying the same about C&C!

In Dune 2 you could wall-in your repair center (or build other buildings around it); if you did so transport aircraft would come and get damaged vehicles from the battlefield, bring them to repair center and bring them back. Too bad I never found anything like that in any other relevant RTS since then.

also, use deviator on enemy unit, select it, order it to attack but don't select the target. When it changes owner back, select the target. Even though it's an enemy unit now, it will obey your order. Turrets won't attack it because it's an ally. When it destroys it's target (e.g. construction yard), it will wake up and try to attack you again.

The same trick works when the AI uses a deviator on your units too. Another funny bug I remember is that the range of the Sonic Tank is tied to the game speed, which is quite a nerf or buff because that is a very strong unit. Remember to set it to "slowest" when fighting the Atreides ;-)

Also, the speed setting seemed to affect the current screen more. At high game speeds, if a unit was being chased, you could keep your unit in the view with the enemy unit out of view, and your unit would get a massive speed advantage.

And you could leave an opening with a unit, placed in that opening, acting as a gate. If you wanted to repair something before it got badly damaged, you pass it through the gate.

I remember not being keen on C&C1 because of the horrible 320x200 resolution, when Warcraft 2 had moved up to SVGA. Red Alert ran in SVGA on Windows and was the game that actually made the C&C engine look how it always should have, and gave enough area to see what was going on the battlefield.

> even if it was terribly interlaced and the acting was atrocious

I feel like the acting is so bad it's good. It's become a cult classic.

Yes, I loved the cut scenes.

I think it was from later on (Red Alert 2 or 3?) but Tim Curry's "SPAAACE!" is a classic - even he is struggling to keep a straight face!

I miss FMV cutscenes. Another lost gem: Clive Owen in Privateer 2 (also 96, incidentally).

> Red Alert had some of the earliest video cut scenes in a game I remember seeing

Awww, you missed Mark Hamill in Wing Commander 3?

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