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$20 GOTW: Command and Conquer: The First Decade
by William Talley, filed in $20 Game Of The Week, Games on Apr.30, 2009
When you think of great real time strategy games and franchises, several names come to mind: Starcraft, Warcraft, Age of Empires, Total War, and Warhammer. One name that you may also think of (or should) is Command and Conquer. EA/Westwood’s RTS series made a huge impact on the genre when it debuted in the mid-90s, and today, it retains its status as one of the most enjoyable RTS franchises in gaming. Yes, there are games with deeper gameplay mechanics and better play control, but very few have contributed as much to the genre as Command and Conquer did. Now, fans of the series can play through the game’s glory years on this DVD, which contains every C&C game up to and including Generals, their expansions, a poster, and a DVD containing a documentary. This disc contains it all, from when GDI first threw down with NOD, to Red Alert’s alternate reality, to Tiberian Sun’s bleak post-apocalyptic future, to Red Alert 2’s goofiness, and to General’s more realistic spin on C&C. It even contains Renegade, the first person shooter spinoff putting players in the role of Havoc. Although it wasn’t well received as the rest of the series, it was cool being able to see many of the Command and Conquer units close up and get the chance to pilot some of the vehicles. Of course, Command and Conquer wouldn’t be complete without the series’ enigmatic villain, Kane. Be warned, it’s imperative that you visit EA’s website for information on the latest patches and fixes, especially if you’re a Windows Vista user. You’ll also want to visit this site and download the fan made patch 1.03, as it fixes several issues throughout each of the games. The game takes well over 9 gigabytes of hard drive space, so make sure you have plenty available. Apart from those issues, fans of the series, as well as RTS fans in general, will want to pick up this dvd. It’s basically a history lesson about the progression of one of the genre’s most memorable titles.
*sigh*
In the mid 90s, it became clear that video games weren’t just for kids anymore. If Mortal Kombat and Wolfeinstein 3-D made that statement, then games like Doom and Eternal Champions placed an exclamation point at the end of that statement. Politicians, right-wing talking heads, talk show hosts, and lazy parents soon discovered that (read: scapegoated) video games, along with gangsta rap were the same satanic evils that comic books and rock ‘n’ roll were during the 50s and 60s. To temporarily ward them off if nothing else, a rating system was established. With that in place, developers were given a free pass to test the limits of what’s appropriate for a video game, although it was clear that some lazier developers were simply putting blood and guts into video games for their own sakes. Thus, for every Duke Nukem and Samurai Showdown, we got a dozen more Time Killers. In 1997, one game, more than any other signified the worst fears of every parent/teacher group, congressman, and clergyman: Running With Scissors’ shooting game, Postal. What makes this game even more disturbing is how eerily close it is to certain real-life events that tragically still go on today.
Before SoulCalibur, Samurai Showdown bought weapon to weapon fighting to the fighting game genre. With the franchise’s historical Japan setting, progressively complex battle systems, and interesting cast of characters, the Samurai Showdown series stands as one of the fighting game genre’s most unique games, 2D or 3D. It also managed to create some controversy of its own, as fatality-style moves can chop players in half, leaving geysers of blood spraying (although these were censored from many American releases, causing even further controversy). As they have done with many of their other game series, SNK has collected Samurai Showdown in an anthology. This disc contains Samurai Showdown 1 – 5 as well as 6, making this the first time that the Atomswave-powered 6 is available in North America. As with most other SNK compilations, the game includes a color edit option, art gallery, and options to tweak the graphics and sound. All of your favorite characters are here, from Haomaru to Tam Tam, to Galford and Earthquake. The selectable fighting styles in games 2 – 6 make the game complex and deep, such to an extent that it might scare off fighting game newbies, but longtime fans of the series as well as fighting game aficionados will want to add this game to their collection. 
1985 saw the release of one of the most influential arcade games of the past few decades. It was quite popular for its time. Matter of fact, you might have even heard about it, or if you’re old enough, you may have even played it. In the game, you (and a few friends) teamed up to smash a never-ending (well, at least until you destroyed the generators) stream of orcs, goblins, and other monsters in a fantasy setting. Your character’s health constantly ticked down, so grabbing food was a must. Also, there were several items spread around that could enhance your player. Players could either choose to cooperate with each other, or could work against each other to get the food and the high scores. This game was made by Atari and was known as Gauntlet. Though it’s simple by today’s standards, Gauntlet’s influence helped shape many other action RPG games, from Square’s Secret of Mana to Blizzard’s Diablo. However, a year after the release of Gauntlet, Konami released this game, Dark Adventure. While it had many similarities to Gauntlet, its high quality graphics, large sprites, and quirkiness made this game even better than Atari’s classic. Sadly, it wasn’t nearly as popular as it should have been.
One of the major complaints about the Wii is that Nintendo doesn’t cater to the hardcore gamer audience enough. I’m hard pressed to disagree, as I only own 4 games that aren’t Virtual Console titles, and one of them is a port of a 4-year old game whose sequel was just released this past March. With that having been said, I can’t believe how anyone, casual or hardcore alike, could have overlooked this 2008 title from Majesco/Budcat Creations. It’s a classic-style shooter with a very flexible set of creation tools. In fact, I’d almost go as far to say that this is the Wii’s answer to Sony’s Little Big Planet.