Latest news with #Command&Conquer
Daily Mail
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
PETER HOSKIN reviews Clair Obscur Expedition 33: Ooh la la! Welcome to the fancy French game where beautiful people battle Belle Epoque monsters…
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (PlayStation, Xbox, PC, £44.99) Verdict: Fancy fantasy Ooh, fancy! For that is the only permissible response to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. It's got a fancy name. It's set in a fancy fantasy version of fancy Belle Époque France. It's got fancy graphics and a fancy combat system. So, like I say, fancy. Let's take those things in turn, starting with the fantasy setting. Here, all the people are beautiful, well-dressed, Gallic and voiced by more or less well-known actors (including the great Andy Serkis). Except there's a problem: a nasty baddie known as the Paintress has split apart this world of boulevards and boudoirs. Every year, she claims a sacrifice of hundreds of people. Every year, an expedition is sent out, across the sea, to try — and, so far, fail — to put a stop to her schemes. This year, it's the turn of Expedition... 33. It's fair to say that things go badly when Expedition 33 get to the Paintress's realm. The first part of the game involves you — that is, the main character, Gustave — getting the band back together to take on this great malevolence (and her monsters) on her home turf. But what turf! This is an extraordinarily beautiful game, in everything from its expansive landscapes to the nuances of its characters faces. The creature designs, the foliage, everything... you just keep on wanting to see more. The real draw, however, is that combat system. It's turn-based in the style of Japanese RPGs like Final Fantasy and Persona: you go, then the monsters go. But it also features more real-time elements in the style of Dark Souls: you've really got to be quick and accurate with your button presses to evade incoming attacks. The result is something that's both familiar and new at the same time — and difficult, in a good way. You press on, and so do Gustave and his crew, slowly getting stronger and stronger. Fancy? Yes. But also pretty fierce. Tempest Rising (PC, £34.99) Whisper it, but Command & Conquer is back. The real-time strategy series that occupied so many hours at so many beige computers in the 1990s is finally back after a hiatus of about 15 years. We can all return to building bases, producing more troops and vehicles, and clicking them from one place to another in the hope of outmanoeuvring the enemy. Oorah! So why do we have to whisper it? Because this new game, Tempest Rising, isn't officially Command & Conquer. It's what might be called a homage or spiritual successor, but it hews so close to the original series that it's actually more a facsimile. How close? Well, instead of a technified conflict between the Global Defense Initiative (GDI) and the Brotherhood of Nod, we now have a, er, technified conflict between the Global Defence Force (GDF) and the Tempest Dynasty. They still take each other on in fact-paced battles on resource-laden landscapes. Even the soundtrack composer, Frank Klepacki, is a C&C veteran. In fact, the biggest difference might be that Tempest Rising has ditched the beloved filmed cutscenes in between C&C's battles — in which actors such as Tim Curry got to chew wholesale quantities of scenery — although it's replaced them with very similar-looking digital versions. All of which might sound like a bad thing. A cheap copy. But it's not. It's amazing how far Tempest Rising gets — across its two story campaigns and skirmish and multiplayer modes — by recreating C&C as you remember it. It's far better looking, of course. And faster. And, at least when it comes to the units under your command, more varied. But it feels the same. And until we get a new, genuine Command & Conquer release, that fact is going to make a lot of gamers very happy indeed. Including this one.
Yahoo
03-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Command & Conquer is back in the most surprising way
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. EA has just dropped some news that could interest any budding game developers. It's made four Command & Conquer titles open source, giving up the source code for the legacy real-time strategy franchise under a general public licence (GPL). The decision seems unusually generous from EA, and it could be a good opportunity for indie devs who want to build their learning picking apart games of the past (see our pick of the best game dev software to get started on your journey). EA has released restored original source code on for Command & Conquer and Red Alert, Command & Conquer: Renegade and Command & Conquer: Generals. It's been added to EA's GitHub page alongside the Command & Conquer Remastered Collection from 2020. The code was recovered and restored by EA technical director Brian Barnes, Respawn producer Jim Vessella and Luke 'CCHyper' Feenan, a Command & Conquer community member who proposed and organised the release. Feenan was involved the Remastered Collection and in getting the C&C Ultimate Collection on Steam in March. Fan projects have approximated the code in the past, but access to the full original code will help modders and restorers keep the games playable and could help new developers to hone their skills. Assets and cinematics haven't been made open source though. Meanwhile, EA is adding Steam Workshop support to newer Command & Conquer titles along with a modding support pack. This contains the source XML, Schema, Script, Shader, and map files for all SAGE engine C&C titles so users can make new maps and assets. EA has also published on YouTube newly discovered footage from the C&C Archive for C&C Renegade and C&C Generals featuring alpha gameplay and prototype cinematics. For more game inspiration, see our Monster Hunter Wilds review
Yahoo
28-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
EA is releasing the source code for Command & Conquer and adding Steam Workshop support to further 'empower' the community to create content for the classic games
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. The fully recovered source code for Command & Conquer is getting a public release Steam Workshop support for several Command & Conquer games has also been added A 'C&C Modding Support' pack for all games is also available for modding EA has announced that it's releasing the fully recovered source code for Command & Conquer. Luke "CCHyper" Feenan, a veteran of the Command & Conquer community, modder, and Admin of CnCNet, shared the details on behalf of the studio in a new Reddit post, confirming that the source code for Command & Conquer, aka Tiberian Dawn, C&C Red Alert, C&C Renegade, and C&C Generals + Zero Hour will be released to the public under the GPL license. In addition, Steam Workshop support will also be introduced for several Command & Conquer titles allowing users to upload their custom maps. These games include C&C Renegade, Generals and Zero Hour, C&C 3 Tiberium Wars and Kane's Wrath, Red Alert 3 and Uprising, and C&C 4 Tiberian Twilight. All Mission Editor and World Builder tools have also been updated, which means players can easily publish edited maps directly to the Steam Workshop. A 'C&C Modding Support' pack containing the source Xml, Schema, Script, Shader, and Map files for all the games using the SAGE engine will also be released for modders to access. "This has been another wish from the community for almost 15 years now so we're excited to finally make this happen, and we hope this helps you all in continuing to make amazing content and mods for the years to come These new initiatives were initially ideas proposed by Feenan, who was also a part of the development of the Command & Conquer Remastered Collection, following its release in 2020. "I know this will empower those in the community who continue to create content for these classic entries in the franchise, and I hope it will aid communities like CnCNet to continue to support these games and keep them playable for future generations to come," Feenan added. To celebrate the release of the source code, Command & Conquer Remastered Collection producer Jim Vassella shared that the team was able to discover and digitize some rare gameplay footage from the early development of C&C Renegade and C&C Generals. This footage is also now available in a compilation format for fans of the series to watch and enjoy. Best PC games 2025: the must-play titles you don't want to miss Xbox Game Studios boss says there are 'a bunch' of games yet to be revealed Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater's PC requirements confirm you'll need a high-end graphics card to run the game at its best settings
Yahoo
28-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
EA is "releasing the fully recovered source code" for 4 classic Command & Conquer titles, and it's the best thing a major publisher can do for game preservation
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Back in 2020, alongside the Command & Conquer Remastered Collection, EA released a portion of the source code for Red Alert and the original game. Now, five years later, that code has been "fully recovered" and made public alongside the source code for Renegade and Generals. "Over the past year I have been working alongside the amazing C&C stakeholders here at EA to restore the Perforce source code archives for the C&C games back to buildable states, which now provides us with the ability to patch these classic games in a deeper way going forward," community veteran Luke "CCHyper" Feenan, who also worked with EA on the release of the Remastered Collection, says in today's announcement. "As a long time modder, it was amazing to finally get a chance to deep dive into the source code for these games and see how they work!" The full source code for all four games is now available on the EA GitHub page. Feenan notes that "for those of you in the community who know me, you will be familiar with my strong advocacy for video game preservation and my support for the video game open-source community." Indeed, the release of code like this is perhaps the best gesture a major publisher like EA can make toward game preservation. Remasters - like the Command & Conquer Remastered Collection itself - can help keep a game available to modern audiences, but technology is going to keep marching on, and someday the official versions C&C will almost certainly be left behind again. The release of source code like this gives the community incredible options to keep these games in working shape for years to come. But game preservation is also about more than just making sure everyday gamers can keep playing old classics. It's also about saving the history of how these games came to be. One of the big efforts of the Video Game History Foundation is preserving "source" - not just code, but the art and other assets used in a game's creation. Source code often offers some of the greatest insights available on a game's development, and it's equally valuable to modders and historians. For most publishers, the idea of "preservation" starts and ends with reselling old games back to you, which is why I'm so happy to see EA go the extra mile with Command & Conquer here. (If only it'd take that same step with The Sims.) Here's hoping more publishers follow that lead. Of course, the most immediate benefit of having source available is for modders, and there's more news on the modding front, too. EA is also enabling Steam Workshop support for Renegade, Generals, Tiberium Wars, Red Alert 3, and Tiberian Twilight, allowing you to easily download custom maps. The Mission Editor and World Builder tools have also been updated to let modders directly upload their creations to the Workshop. Command & Conquer remains a mainstay among the best RTS games.
