While the team took the classy route and used a lot of the sounds from the first C&C game, the weapon sounds are too weak. None of them actually feel substantial enough for you to buy into the world completely. This feeling carries over to the weapons. Still, it can't keep you from noticing that the figures in the game lack substance. Death animations, runs and even little throwaway movements are really well done and contribute greatly to suspending your disbelief. There are some really impressive motion-captured animations in the game that tend to minimize the sort of empty feel that the models have. Like when it snows indoors, or when two helicopters pass through each other.īeyond the somewhat flat graphics, the engine also seems to lack a sense of weight or momentum. At least a few of the glitches are good for some laughs. Lighting effects could be improved substantially and there are more than occasional clipping problems. While the character models are quite good, the environments are relatively blocky and the textures are flat. Sadly things don't seem to have improved much in terms of graphics - Renegade still looks good, but it's a bit dated. When we first saw the project (back when I was but a lowly cub reporter here at IGN), Renegade's graphics and lighting effects were spectacular. The price we pay for the immense levels is reduced graphical detail. At the start you may be standing on a landing spot on the beach, by the end you'll have traveled deep under the earth to the heart of a Nod base with nary a load. Each mission in your quest to uncover Nod's latest plot takes place in one immense level. GDI's interested in recovering information about the latest plans of Nod, a morally unambiguous terrorist group that's bent on world domination (the actual objectives during the mission are more specific, but not necessarily more clear). A few of the old sounds have even been used to add that extra level of authenticity.ĭuring the game you'll take on the role of Commando Nick "Havoc" Parker, the one-man army for GDI. That's not too surprising given that Westwood's in charge of the project, but it's still commendable. The units, buildings and situations are all exactly right for the license. In fact, the whole Command & Conquerishness of the title is its biggest draw and its best-implemented feature. The single player campaign is mostly enjoyable and makes excellent use of the franchise. There are some notable strengths here and definitely some innovative ideas but much of it is still a bit too unrefined to compete with the better action games (and some of the better RTS games) currently on the market. Throughout the course of development, we've kept a close eye on this one and have been among it's most ardent supporters, anticipating that the chance to take on the role of a single unit in a first-person view of an RTS world would be refreshing and original.Īnd while the end result is indeed an inventive and faithful interpretation of the C&C license, Renegade suffers somewhat from a few poor design decisions and embarrassing AI. Let's just say that when Westwood announced they were translating the concepts and content of their premiere real-time strategy franchise into a first-person shooter.
Let's skip the usual reminiscences nearly every gamer in the world is familiar enough with the Command & Conquer series (or if they aren't, they ought to be).