Command & Conquer Remastered Collection Is An Absolutely Wonderful Restoration Of A Classic Series

Command & Conquer has made a glorious comeback with the recently released Remastered Collection.

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It’s hard to remember, but Electronic Arts used to be a publisher focused on providing unique experiences within the industry. The past 10 or so years have seen the company focus almost exclusively on yearly franchises, but it wasn’t too far back that one could grab an EA title and expect something hyper polished and fun. Command & Conquer was one such series and it has made a glorious comeback with the recently released Command & Conquer Remastered Collection.

I’m struggling to write something that doesn’t sound like an overstatement, but this is one of, if not, the best remasters currently available on the market. From a purely content standpoint, you’re getting a ton of content here that would easily justify a $60 purchase. That everything has been lovingly recreated and polished up for modern standards and only costs $20 is just sublime. Couple that with how everything runs smoother than it ever before and works without any kind of bugs and you’re into impulse-buy territory.

That last part isn’t always a given with remaster efforts. You can find any number of hastily thrown together projects that weren’t given the proper budget or time of day (BioShock Collection being a prime culprit), but what EA has released has much more in common with Microsoft’s recent repackaging of Age of Empires. The games in question might be old and a little outdated, but they are given the best possible presentation one could have hoped for.

We’ve covered what this particular package contains in a previous post, so I’ll save all of the explanation here. What you likely want to know at this point is whether or not Command & Conquer is worth your money in 2020. The biggest factor for your enjoyment is going to be what you want out of an RTS game. C&C was released in 1995 before a lot of modern flourishes were introduced: this is very firmly a pre-Warcraft III game, for better or worse.

I haven’t entirely worked my way through Red Alert, but the original Command & Conquer still holds up pretty well. Since it is so basic, there’s no fussing about with needless units that are just variations of each other. Everything is given a specific purpose that is explained wonderfully with the new HUD system (taken from Command & Conquer 3). Minor tweaks like queuing up units in production help the flow of the game feel a little more modern without destroying the careful balance from the original.

About the only thing I would have liked to see added is an ability to select all of the same types of unit at once, ala Total War. Still, you’re hardly controlling units in the hundreds, so it’s not that big of an issue to tangle with. Fully remappable controls also help you customize where you want hotkeys, so you can help yourself along there.

The biggest treat here is the audio/visual component, which feels sublime. This may not knock your socks off with raw technical prowess, but putting on the HD visuals feels completely natural. The attention to detail in recreating the original art style is immaculate, going even a step further than Age of Empires: Definitive Edition. I could swear Command & Conquer always looked like this, but a quick swap to the pixelated original reveals how far we’ve come over the years. Even with the very pure experience fully playable here, I find it hard to flick away from what Petroglyph has achieved.

The remastered soundtrack, as well, keeps the spirit of the original OST without tampering with things too much. You can play the original song files, or use a playlist that incorporates both the remastered songs and unaltered versions. The sound quality on the originals isn’t bad, but the clarity of all of the new tunes gives a hardcore atmosphere to each mission.

If everything mentioned still doesn’t float your boat, then Command & Conquered Remastered’s mod support will likely be right up your alley. The Origin version (which was tested for this feature) has a few extra steps to jump through to get mods working, but the Steam version contains Steam Workshop integration. With a few simple clicks, you can grab thousands of mods with ease. A quick browse even shows things like cheat codes, tweaked unit names, and quality-of-life mods.

It really is remarkable how well-crafted this remaster is. EA and Petroglyph have gone above and beyond with providing the definitive Command & Conquer experience for fans of the series. That the price tag is $20 instead of a full $60 is just icing on the cake. I can’t say with 100% certainty that you won’t run into problems -a few users on Steam seem to be having issues-, but my five hours testing this resulted in no crashes, no glitches, and no unintentional mission failures. Everything runs without a hitch.

If Petroglyph does continue on with remastering old Westwood Studios games, then it’s safe to say they’ll be worth picking up without question. Command & Conquered Remastered Collection is an absolutely wonderful celebration of this storied series and possibly the best release EA has put out in over 10 years.

A PC copy of Command & Conquer Remastered Collection was provided to TheGamer for this impressions piece. Command & Conquer Remastered Collection is now available on PC via Origin and Steam.

Link Source : https://www.thegamer.com/command-and-conquer-remastered-impressions/