Command and Conquer : Tiberian Sun
Wrongly Forgotten Sequel #1
Type of Game
The same as Command & Conquer one, but dipped in a bucket of tar, dried with charcoal, and sealed with dark matter, to make something really gloomy.
Release date on our machines
August 1999. Before Age of Empires 2, after Total Annihilation: Kingdoms. Before WarCraft III, but after Dune II. You've got to know that.
Developer
Westwood Studios Inc. a name that still gives me shivers of happiness, if pronounced under the right conditions. Tragically disappeared in 2003, absorbed by the ogre EA, just like its former parent company, Virgin Interactive Entertainment, sob sob.
Publisher
Electronic Arts Inc. were they still going strong in 1999, or had the company already crossed over to the other side of hell?
C&C Tiberian Sun : available on Steam via EA Play, and in the Bundle Command & Conquer, the Ultimate Collection (I highly recommend this last choice).
The very first Command & Conquer drove me crazy about strategy games. Unless it was Warcraft II. But uh, let's go with Command & Conquer, I'll have less trouble making the connection. Its first “sequel”, Red Alert, had me salivating right up until its release, then gave me long hours of pure bliss. However, it lacked a little touch of magic, lost to other great things, but a tiny bit of atmosphere below its predecessor. With Tiberian Sun, set in the same timeline as the very first C&C, I could have found that perfect setting again. At least, I should have pounced on it like an ex-vegetarian on his first roast chicken in ten years. But I didn't, and to this day, I'm still puzzled by this gap in my videogame journey. What could have happened?
The unthinkable put in reserve
The culprits could be Heroes of Might and Magic III, messy teenage hormones, a desire to live outside rather than in front of the computer, money spent on fashionable skater clothes and cheap beer rather than Windows 95-compatible CD-ROMs. Should I regret not having swapped my roller-skating trips to the beach, my endless games of HoMM III, my first boozy evenings out, and my blow-offs with the girls for sessions of Command and Conquer 2? For the sake of this text, of course! But in all sincerity, uh... yes too?
What an atmosphere!
If I understood correctly many of the complaints about the release of the Command & Conquer and Red Alert 1 remake in 2020, Tiberian Sun would have the largest fanbase in the franchise. Most of the Steam comments looped around “When is Tiberian Sun's turn?”, “Fuck C&C 1, release 2!”, “No Tiberian Sun remake? I'll burn down your houses and assassinate...”. Well, no need to read too much into it, I imagine that Tiberian Sun's biggest fans have their own way of sharing their feelings. So why all the passion? Perhaps because, in terms of atmosphere, it's nothing like the first one. The darkness is darker than the darkness itself, both in the script and in the art direction. While the cutscenes between each mission are back for my pleasure, the budget allocated to them seems far more substantial.
They're still funny in spite of themselves, overplayed and a bit silly, but not as much as they used to be. That's a shame. And we're starting to see some familiar faces, James Earl Jones and Michael Biehn in particular. I think I would have loved this more mature version of one of my favorite games of all time. It would have fit in with my pseudo-rebel attitude of the moment. “The game's really understood what teenagers go through, you know? Not like my mother!” But now let's talk content! The first question we ask ourselves when we discover a new RTS is: “What new units are there, god damn bomb of a wooden mortar shell?” Yes, we all ask ourselves that exact question. From this point of view, it's half sail, half steam. Explosive disk-launching infantry? I respond with a quizzical pout. Why disks? The things in the back of the track and field locker at school?
While we're on the subject of sports, why not send some rugby players with nitro in their pockets? The ORCA bomber? Yeah, didn't that one already exist? Yes, but with rockets, not bombs. On the other hand, the Disrupter, with its destructive wave, absolutely rocks! I'd even seen an image of him in a magazine, a cinematic showing off his full potential. At least, I imagined I'd discover his potential via this single six-by-four-centimeter screenshot. Well, I was right. But what else? The force field around the walls? Right on! The banshee? So awesome! Especially since we're back to the legends of the past, such as the stealth tank or the obelisk of light, or myths that have been refurbished.
Farewell to the mammoth tank, welcome to the huge quadruped equipped with double railguns, christened Mammoth Mark II. Here's all the fun you can have crushing the poor foot gunners, who can still be forced out of their barracks, despite being even more blatantly obsolete than before. A subtle blend of fresh blood and familiarity, presented via a revamped interface. The opposite would have been a problem, even if I loved the ugly unit portraits drawn with a finger dipped in mud. Two breathtaking, well-stocked campaigns give us time to familiarize ourselves with all this, following the same model as the previous opuses: the world map that changes color according to the missions, set against a backdrop of eerie music, oh la la la! A darker, much better version of the Dessous des Cartes (a very good french geolopolitical TV program).
Kane, the indestructible big baddy who's always three steps ahead of the rest of the planet, once again plays the troublemaker. Tiberium, the plant of extraterrestrial origin that has fascinated me since the first mission of the first C&C, sets itself up as the great global threat. Just like the two times before? Yes, exactly! But even worse. Add mutants and cyborgs to the plot, mysterious technologies from outer space (but not from the same time as the tiberium, because it had to be original), and you get a better film than most SF productions in the history of cinema. And what's more, they let us direct the actors, manage the lighting effects and everything! Yep, I think I've invented hot water by mansplaining the concept of interactivity.
Admittedly, we'll be slaughtering a couple of hundred extras an hour without blinking an eyelid, which isn't very professional. But dying victims aside, we're on the verge of perfection, am I right? Actually, no, far from it. Despite all these improvements, especially the graphics, I find the whole thing less precise and a hell of a lot messier. The tiny units, the maps glued with a 150-index UV filter... it's a change from the big pixelated things, but at least we knew where we were clicking, in the year of our Lord 1995. Well, I was still young when Tiberian Sun came out, so I could have adapted in a few minutes, no doubt. The fact remains, though, that the charm is lost, my ancestors. I'm losing my cursor, it's impossible to micro-manage anything in this mess!
The Tiberian Dark XxX Shadow XxX Depressed Sons
This time, Frank Klepacki has put away his big guitars to compose a soundtrack that fits perfectly with the game's post-apocalyptic theme. He also proves his versatility and confirms his talent, already validated three times in the past, no matter what musical style he draws on. Yes, I like it, I can't find a fault with it, so much for objective criticism. You won't read anything here that disparages him in any way. The same word keeps coming back to my face with each passing minute of O.S.T.: dark, dark, darker and darker. Boy, is it dark! Hey, I love it, no criticism of Frank's compositions, I said. The music veers between depressed ambient and polluted industrial electro, sometimes even reminiscent of Starcraft at its darkest! Like a little Marine abandoned on a planet saturated with Hydralisks. Forget coolness and insouciance, we're gaining in maturity and badassery. Considering we're talking about a world war with ultra-futuristic tanks and chemical bombs, I can understand the artistic choice. The coherence of the first one takes a hit, given that we were launching entire bunches of nuclear missiles to the sound of R'n'B calibrated for Pattaya parties. In the end, we're still bragging just as much, but not in the same way. At least war is still cool, but it's bad now too. Good news!
Regretted brooding
Of course I would have loved this game as a kid. That said, Heroes III took up so much of my free time when it came out, that even if I'd bought Tiberian Sun, I probably wouldn't have spent hundreds of hours on it either. I can understand the enthusiasm of fans, though, especially if they haven't experienced the two older games in the franchise. I didn't think I'd come across such a dusky title; I was rather expecting to rediscover the gossipy delirium of Red Alert. But in the end, I prefer the turn taken by Westwood (brrrrr, shudder). At the dawn of the year 2000, there was no better way to illustrate the “mixture of fear and excitement” aroused by the passage to the next millennium. Yeah, I stole the quote from the Space Force series, I think it's so perfect.
Obviously, today, I remain far more attached to the unlikely cocktail of Tiberian Dawn. But I might have a different opinion if I'd had the second opus in my hands at the time. Frankly, they would have promoted it by playing on teenage emotions, with messages like: “COMMAND & CONQUER: TIBERIAN SUN (the announcer shouts in a big voice)! The strategy game that understands you better than your own parents! Pulverize your depression with WAR! A conflict that will give you back your JOY OF LIVING!” At that point, I would have bought it outright without hesitation.
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