System Requirements

OS: Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows 2000 CPU: 400mhz AMD/Intel processor RAM: 96 MB HDD: 300MB VIDEO: 16MB Direct X compatible card SOUND: 16 bit Direct X compatible sound card Age: Teen

I have played the original Command and Conquer game and it\'s pretty safe to say that this is completely different. Revolutionary even! It\'s still a strategy war game but you can get right in the middle of it first hand. Not only can you ride numerous war vehicles, you can also switch characters, and call nuclear or ion attacks. Needless to say I was very impressed. The demo is multiplayer only and you can play one of two teams; you can join the GDI or the Nod. The story goes as follows: Renegade takes place during the first Tiberium war.

The basic plot of the game revolves around the kidnapping of a GDI scientist named Dr. Ignatio Mobius, a world renowned expert on Tiberium and a specialist in the fields of physics, genetics, and chemistry. Mobius is believed to have been kidnapped by agents of the Black Hand, a group of highly trained assassins and commandos employed by the Nod to commit acts of worldwide terrorism. The Brotherhood felt they would be able to exploit Dr. Mobius, whose knowledge is essential in completing their aim of creating a new generation of soldiers mutated by Tiberium. To stop this from happening, GDI turns to an elite commando, Nick \'Havoc\' Parker, to find Mobius. With the entire Nod army between him and his objective, Havoc uncovers a web of deception insidious experiments, and the depths to which Kane will sink in his quest for global domination. * This is a multiplayer demo so you need to find a partner or two to play against.

There are LAN and Internet play modes. I was happy to see a practice multiplayer option but this is not available in the demo. The full version of the game will offer single player mode as well. The goal in the multiplayer is to destroy all your opponents buildings. Each building serves a special purpose where you can weaken them by eliminating their power source, refinery, or weapons base. To win the game you must place your nuclear or ion beacon in their base and obliterate them. This is not easy by any means, each base is heavily guarded with a strong self-defense system. Now that you know your goal, how can you accomplish it? Just like the original Command and Conquer series, you need resources to buy weapons and vehicles. So be sure to protect your harvesters. For weaponry you have your typical automatic machine guns, pistols, sniper rifles, rocket launchers, chain guns etc. There are a couple unique and powerful guns as well like chem sprayers and electric shock guns. Not to mention the typical explosives, grenades and launchers as well. The fun part is the vehicles you can use. You have heavy and light tanks, flame throwing tanks, stealth tanks, hover crafts, helicopters and armored cars.

This game offers room for customization. It looks like it will have MOD support, so keep an eye out for enhancements to come. When setting up multiplayer games you can set options for friendly fire, repairing buildings, weapon spawning, as well as victory conditions. The demo has only one map available C&C_undermix. When configuring your settings you can choose your video and sound driver, performance and graphics detail level as well as the control and character skins. There are so many skins to choose from. There are scientist, women, heavily armored, chem warrior and black hand skins. There is so much to tweak and with MOD support the fun will never end!

From a Christian Standpoint, this is a war game so there is violence. However there is no blood and gore, and when you die there\'s a funny boink sound. It\'s pretty light hearted. There is online multiplayer game play, so you\'ll be able to play against live people. You never know how rude or polite people will be, so I like how they implemented a swearing filter. If you don\'t like rough language you can turn it off. Most of the player skins are pretty clean. There was one rough looking female skin. She had tattoos and a flattering tube top. On a side note there are obelisks in the game.

The game is easy to install, it comes with Game Spy Arcade, which is good to have. The graphics are good; the player and vehicle detail is great. I wasn\'t impressed with the scenery or environment detail. Then again I only had one map to judge this on. The sound effects were good. I love the boink sound when someone dies. The weapon and vehicle sound effects were great, but the demo didn\'t have any background music. The game ran well in Windows 2000 no complaints, very stable. There is a patch for the demo that will help with the networking set up. For controls, you use the standard WASD for movement, and E to use items. The game play was phenomenal! A very original idea, and I am definately going to buy this game!

Final Ratings

Appropriate B Game Play A+ Graphics B+ Interface A Sound B+ Stability A-

Overall 90% A-