Westwood likes its cinematics, and the whole plotline of Tiberian Sun is stitched together with some very impressive film footage and rendered cut-scenes. Experienced and recognisable actors (James Earl Jones, Michael Biehn), combine with superb filming and a more than reasonable script to make it very watchable between levels.

New Lands
As mentioned earlier Command & Conquer fans are not going to faint from astonishment when they encounter the new graphics in Tiberian Sun. Although the basic technology and the iso-metric viewing angle remains the same, increased resolution and colour pallette has made a big difference to the game. Proper 3D interaction with the environment has also made the game more realistic and challenging. Vehicles travel slower uphill and faster downhill and weapon effectiveness is also governed by height differences between the location of units.

Perhaps the most interesting change is in the interactivity of the landscape. Terrain is deformable and pock-marked battlefields are not only attractive, they also become crucial to strategies. Cratered terrain can be used as an area-denial tactic while some land areas can be directly targeted and blown up to create fresh paths.

Another significant addition are bridges which can be crossed over, under, and blown up ­ the latter becomes a tactical science in itself. Blown-up bridges can be used as a temporary defence, denying enemy access until they can rebuild them, and if you lure an enemy force across a bridge and then blow it up, you can cut them off or destroy them in transit.

Although the game doesn't feature the extensive naval units of Red Alert, several units can travel on waterways, sometimes bypassing bridging requirements ­ GDI's Hover Multiple Rocket Launchers and the tough, versatile APCs which are valuable recon vehicles.

NOD has its own way of dealing with landscapes and this involves extensive burrrowing ­ Devil's Tongue Flame Tanks and Subterranean APCs can be used to breach base defences and surprise armies or harvesters.

Get Smart
The subterranean element of NOD serves to illustrate the crucial differences between the sides, not only in the strategies you use to win the game, but also the type of game you play. I found that as far as the single-player campaigns are concerned, the GDI one is the more interesting and challenging. While on the other hand, in a multiplayer game, it's more entertaining to play as NOD, because its stealth and long-range weapons come into their own.

Previous areas of criticism for Command & Conquer games, artificial intelligence and especially unit pathing, have been seriously tackled and cleared up. Enemy AI is good in single-player campaign mode, making smart choices, but a single scenario skirmish mode has also been included that put me to shame the first few times I played it. Its difficulty level is, like the single-player campaign mode, rated easy, normal and advanced, but the intelligence routines you play against, with a variety of names including Tzun Tzu, are very competitive and aggressive.

Pathing is the single biggest improvement I can recommend in Tiberian Sun. Like most of you, no doubt, when I send a group of units somewhere I would like them to go there without splitting up and wandering off in all directions like a bunch of blind drunk fools. Thankfully, Tiberian Sun's unit groupings tend to do the right thing. Send them over a bridge and they'll queue up like nice boys and go across ­ they won't wander off down the other end of the map for a fag.

Waypointing has also been effectively implemented, if in a rather garish fashion. Basically, you start off with your first waypoint (represented by a diamond with a little '1' attached to it), and then place the others (represented with subsequently numbered diamonds), wherever you like to create your first route. The first waypoint route you create is coloured red and subsequent ones are coloured blue, yellow etc.

Multiplayer Tiberian Sun is a real hoot, with some great maps and complete access to all the weapons available, once you get enough cash. Internet play will be available alonside LAN and null modem games, and with the variety of units now available (see Rogue's Gallery, page 94), you'll be kept busy. One little bit of advice for your first multiplayer game: choose green as your colour ­ it makes you difficult to see in Tiberium fields.

Alien Tiberium
As in the original, the basis of the Command & Conquer ecomomy is Tiberium harvesting and processing. Blue Tiberium is a new addition ­ a more potent version of the alien substance. It's much rarer than Green Tiberium, but also much more valuable. In multiplayer or skirmish mode it can make or break you, since it virtually doubles the value of each harvester's load. This allows you to build up forces much faster than you would normally be able to, achieving a significant tactical advantage.

Blue Tiberium is also twice as lethal for wandering infantry, so you need to avoid marching them through it and never, ever let them stop in it. Armoured personnel carriers are the safest bet in areas densely packed with Tiberium.

As if Tiberium wasn't dangerous enough, it now has several by-products that can make whole areas around Tiberium fields hazardous. Rolling worm-like entities called Viscereals are created when infantry units get killed in Tiberium fields. These will unpredictably wander around the map indiscriminately damaging or destroying units on contact, and can be a right pain in the neck.

Tiberium Fiends can also be a problem. These are alien creatures that resemble large, vicious wild boar, and although they will usually ignore passing units, if anyone opens fire on them they'll attack, spitting dangerous Tiberium-irradiated gunk and destroying hard-earned troops.

Another substance you'll encounter is the bright-orange Tiberium Vein, which is not entirely dissimilar to StarCrafts' Zerg Creep. It has an unfortunate pulsating hole in its epicentre that dog owners, whose pets have suffered diahorrea, might find all too familiar, and its role in the game is as a diseased byproduct of Tiberium's onslaught on planet Earth. This is nasty stuff, and it spreads too, potentially causing havoc to your strategies.

These hazards apply equally to both GDI and NOD forces, although you will find that there are parts of the game where Tiberium toxins are actually a bonus. This happens in the missions where you play as The Forgotten, Tiberian Sun's third race. Blue or Green fields hold no fear for a race that has already been mutated by the substance, and when they get injured a quick sortie back to a Tiberium field will actually heal their wounds. Tiberium Fiends also react differently to The Forgotten, which is a nice little surprise that I think I'll leave you to find out for yourself...

And So ...
While sadly, it's rare to come across a game that requires no patches, that plays without hitch or glitch, Tiberian Sun manages it ­ and this took time. The difficulty level is well balanced ­ challenging, but manageable in both campaigns ­ which must have taken time. Unit pathing and order compliance is vastly improved over Red Alert making Tiberian Sun pretty much a class-leader in this area. The same is true of many other areas. All this adds up to a complete gaming package that will have Command & Conquer fans rubbing their hands with glee.

I don't quite feel that it's the unmatched classic Red Alert was, but there's plenty to play and plenty to enjoy here. There will be detractors, of course. By sticking to a modified version of the sprite and voxel-based original Command & Conquer engine and eschewing polygons, 3D rotating textured landscaping, zoom functions and multi-part unit animations, Westwood has invited criticism from avant-garde gamers. But Command & Conquer has an established identity and Westwood would have been foolish to veer too far from that. If I want 3D I'll play Hidden & Dangerous, but for a resource-based strategy game this is plenty 3D enough for me.

This is Command & Conquer, and once again it's about to become the staple diet for millions of games players around the world. Just like the marketing slogan for a certain breakfast cereal used to say, it's the original and still the best.

System Requirements:
Pentium 166Mhz or equivalent, 32MB RAM, 4X CD-ROM, SVGA Video Card

Recommended: 
Pentium II-266, 64MB RAM, 2mb SVGA Video Card

Summary:
Pathing is the single biggest improvement I can recommend in Tiberian Sun. Like most of you, no doubt, when I send a group of units somewhere I would like them to go there without splitting up and wandering off in all directions like a bunch of blind drunk fools. Thankfully, Tiberian Sun's unit groupings tend to do the right thing. Send them over a bridge and they'll queue up like nice boys and go across ­ they won't wander off down the other end of the map for a fag.

Score: 9.6/10

Courtesy: GameSpot