renegade single player experience.

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While at Westwood, myself and others got a chance to play through some of the single player missions in Command and Conquer: Renegade and the new build of the multiplayer C&C Mode.

 

We started out Renegade with their intro mission, mission zero, which greeted us with a very well done cut scene setting up the storyline for the mission. After the cutscene you are immediately thrown into the middle of a battle where GDI soldiers are surrounded and outnumbered by nod forces. You are the commando sent in to take out the nod forces and save the GDI soldiers. For this level it is all desert terrain, and the mission starts out rather easy but progresses giving first time FPS gamers a chance to get into the game without being overwhelmed. Almost from the start you pick up new weapons and are allowed to drive tanks around.

 

I finished mission zero and managed to finish two other missions. Each mission had unique objectives, characters, and also introduced the player to new weapons and vehicles. The first mission sends you on a coastline, with hills and nice grassy scenery filled with houses and nod soldiers. You are assisted by GDI soldiers and are allowed to drive vehicles as you look to free captured soldiers from NOD.

 

Mission Two puts you in a snow terrain where you have ten or so sub missions and also have to fight off hordes of NOD infantry, chemical troopers, and more. There was so much to do in that level that if I finished all my objectives the mission could have taken hours to complete. It was more then double the size of mission zero that we played, and I was told that that was not the biggest mission.

 

The controls and in game interface will be very familiar to FPS players. The HUD displays your health, armor, weapon, and ammo left and the movement controls are the default arrows and a,s,d,f…ect.

 

Graphically, Renegade is pretty good. There has been a big difference in textures and the overall look of the game from the first beta I played. Every unit, vehicle, and building is detailed. Unlike in C&C mode, the single player Hand of Nod building has upper and lower levels, each with some sort of eye candy or enemy inside, so you always have something to do. There are also civilian buildings which you can go into which are highly detailed with furniture, breakable windows, and more.

 

I was told while playing that there were around one hundred different death animations, which is nice because in most FPS games you will shoot someone in the leg or the head and they move the same way if you were using a shot gun or pistol. In Renegade, players move and react depending on the weapon and where they are hit.

 

Westwood has also captured the sounds from Command and Conquer very well. Fans of the games will instantly notice certain phrases, screams, or yells from the original C&C and Tiberian Sun. The soundtrack for the game gives it a movie feel. Whether it is intense action or just walking up a hill, the soundtrack changes to fit the mood of the game, which is very nice to have. I don’t know how many times I have played games where they have a soundtrack that just runs and keeps repeating itself no matter where you are in the game.

 

For those that were complaining about the standard machine gun being too weak in multiplayer, you do not have to worry about that in single player. It only takes 10 or so rounds with your machine gun to take out most infantry so as long as you conserve your ammo you won’t have a problem.

 

I also did not experience any bugs or crashing while playing the game. I never had a problem running it. It loaded fine through all missions, and graphically, everything looked good.

 

Overall, Renegade is really looking to be a quality game. This build I played, of course, wasn’t the finished version and as I said I encountered no bugs and everything looked great to me. I can’t wait to see the finished product when Renegade hits shelves this February.

 

Renegade Single Player Impressions by Apocalypse