Command & Conquer Renegade Review - PC Game Reviews

Command & Conquer Renegade Review

real-time strategy games but their latest product, Renegade (a FPS), has failed to impress the gaming community.

There is a hint of story as well. It's the year 2020 and a war is going on for world control between the Global Defense Initiative (GDI) and the Brotherhood of Nod.

You play the role of GDI Captain Nick Parker (Havoc) and your mission is to collect information on a new Special Forces group known as the Black Hand. But this is not all. Plenty of twists are added in between the missions.

Most of the missions in Renegade are massive thanks to the latest engine by Westwood. This engine has the capability of rendering huge areas. There are also controllable vehicles that you can drive throughout the game. It is said that Westwood developed the engine especially for the interactive vehicles. But on the other hand these massive levels are often added with various twists, which really stink. The in-game map is useless because it reveals the area as you move around the map. The missions in Renegade are similar to the standard shooters like 'destroy this' or 'find this' and to keep the player busy there are various primary, secondary and tertiary objectives.

As mentioned earlier the engine has the capability of rendering massive areas but at the same time it provides some 'quirks'. The game crashed many times so it is advisable to quick save from point to point. In one of the missions my save game crashed so badly that I had to start the level all over again.

The game's sound could have been better. The developers have added some sounds from the original C&C but that sounds equally bad. The music seems just like the original C&C with a few changes here and there but is nowhere close to the background scores of the current breed of shooters. This affects the gameplay to a huge extent.

Renegade is fun to play when it comes to combat. Each enemy displays a health bar (in the easiest difficulty mode) that is quite helpful. There are lots of weapons available but the best are kept for the multiplayer mode. Most of the weapons available in the single person mode are standard FPS fare. There is a sniper rifle, a chaingun, rocket launcher, grenade thrower etc. There is no scarcity of ammo until or unless you play in the hardest difficulty level.

The game also has AI problems. Many times NOD soldiers are seen running straight towards you like maniacs. These brain-dead idiots are often seen shooting without any cover. But the best part of the game is the controllable vehicles. You can control almost any ground-based vehicle and it can save your ass from the enemy vehicles at times.

Probably the best part of Renegade is the multiplayer mode. There are no objectives than to destroy each other's base. On the way you can set up various defense systems like 'the turrets'. Online gameplay is possible if you find any servers but my recommendation is through by LAN. There is also an option for offline multiplayer practice but that is restricted only for 20 minutes.

Renegade is not a bad game but there are some clichés, which make it a not so good one. At the same time we can't blame someone who has never developed a first person shooter. Its class is not equivalent to the current FPS based on Quake or Unreal engines but at the same time Westwood has made a pretty decent debut in the ring of FPS developers.

In the end, I will say that despite of so many clichés Command and Conquer-Renegade is fun to play and not a bad deal after all.

Pros - Controllable vehicles, cool multiplayer mode, massive levels, fun combat.

Cons - Bad AI, frequent crashes, sound clichés, engine needs to be

Submitted by - Shubhank