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» MEDIA (2) Amazing Environments! And Life Like Characters!

In 1995 a new series of games was born, its title was Command and Conquer. Developed by (now disbanded) Westwood Studios it brought the real-time strategy genre to the masses.
After 7 good years of sequels, expansions and new titles for the series; Westwood, in what could be heralded the single worst decision to be made by the company, decided to create a First-Person Shooter/Real-Time Strategy hybrid game and thus began a descent into mediocrity.

Command and Conquer: Renegade (which I will hereby refer to as 'CNCR' or 'CRAP') begins during the original Tiberium War in which the Global Defense Initiative (the good guys) are fighting to bring down a fanatical terrorist group known only as The Brotherhood of Nod (the bad guys), this is where you step in as the hard-as-nails all American action hero Nick 'Havoc' Parker, an elite commando that specializes in 'death defying' missions of courage... very original stuff I think you'll agree.

During the opening scene of the game your thrust straight into that heart of the battle; Tanks and Jeeps race by firing shells and bullets alike, Orca VTOL fighters fly past raining death on anyone unfortunate
enough to enter their field of fire, and then theres you; running around at the side lines killing random infantrymen... at this point I felt somewhat like a fifth wheel, certainly not an elite commando who's sole
purpose is to take out KEY targets and buildings, this is only where the poor design choices begin.

One of the key features of the game and one which is used heavily throughout is the ability to jump into pretty much any vehicle you can find and subsequently destroy any other vehicle that's smaller than you,
this wouldn't be a bad idea if only the game was capable of large world spaces; instead each level is more like a winding tunnel with barely any deviation from the roads and a complete lack of freedom that you'd expect when handed a speedy and agile Nod Buggy.

Now, seeing as it was developed by a studio that specialized in strategy games in which you fight an enemy capable of thinking (to an extent) and fighting back you'd expect the A.I here to be pretty competent at his job, whether he's a soldier or a tank driver or even just a toilet cleaner you'd think he'd react appropriately to the enemy commando invading his cubicle mid-flush, In this 'CNCR' fails miserably. The A.I (or lack there-of) is uselessly inept to the degree that you wonder why your even bothering to fight them, whether it's the fact that they barely notice you even when your filling their knee-caps with lead or that they don't react very well even when they have noticed you, it generally leaves a lot to be desired.
I have to admit it though that it does make you feel like your the elite amongst them, like you truly are the best of the best, which judging by the A.I isn't an altogether difficult feat.

The graphics while not technically bad for 2002 standards can only be described as bland and blocky, the environments which might seem large at first are very low detail with low resolution textures throughout and lacks the smaller details which are usually found in First-Person Shooters leaving the world around you feeling more like a large sandbox with an upside down bucket and a small puddle of water than a believable environment. Character models while showing some decent animation and overall design are fairly low detail with only the colour of their hats to descern where their allegiances lie (if it's yellow say hello, if it's red fill it with lead).

The Multiplayer aspect of the game is too old to have a large fanbase and so finding a server, if any, is difficult. If you can find a game though your treated to a solid class-based affair where each team has to build vehicles and destroy the enemies base, but while it was decent it never really grew to be anything more than a small nugget of goodness amongst a pile of trash.

In conclusion I couldn't honestly recommend this 'CRAP' to anyone even die-hard C&C fans should stay well clear of this abomination that tried and failed to merge two solid genres.