Addicted to the Tiberian Sun

Command & Conquer - Tiberian Sun
*****

PC

Westwood

$109.95 MA15

Reviewer:Peter Eley

It took several days to get round to doing this review - Tiberian Sun is so addictive I couldn't bring myself to alt-tab over to Word.

Just when we thought real-time strategy was dead, out comes this superb game.

It is the third in the excellent Command & Conquer series and is certain to become a best seller like its predecessors.

The great thing about Tiberian Sun is its familiarity. If you've played C&C Red Alert, you'll feel at home as soon as you install it. The storyline's the same - the GDI (read US) and NOD (read nasty Commies) are battling it out on a bleak post-apocalyptic world.

The interface, control screen and menus aren't that different either. And the graphics aren't off another planet, although they are a significant leap forward in 3D detail, lighting and landscape effects.

But there are many changes that make this the best RTS game to date.

One of the problems with such games is "tank rush" - when you're playing the computer its sole tactic seems to be to build up a huge force and throw it at you en masse. If you survive, you'll win - but it can make for a boring game.

Tiberian Sun's artificial intelligence has much more tactical awareness, to the point where it can be hard to beat the computer.

Like earlier C&C games, single-player mode is based around missions which rise in difficulty as well as expanding the technology tree as your campaign progresses.

It also has skirmish mode under the multiplayer options. And one of the best new features lives here - the random map generator.

This is a sophisticated feature, even including an artificial intelligence setting which gives the game unlimited playability.

Unlike the similar feature in Age of Empires, you can't save, but that adds to the challenge - get it right or you're history. It also means some rather long sessions, too.

Those familiar with Red Alert might be fazed by many of the new units. Although the game is basically the same - mine tiberium, build a barracks and weapons factory to get troops and armour, a high-tech centre to get nukes and so on - the units, and what they do, are different.

For example, the mainstay of the GDI is two mechwarriors - missile-launching Titans and machine-gunner Wolverines.

You also get infantry equipped with jumpjets, and hovercraft tanks. The NOD ranks are more high-tech and include hunter-seeker droids and a burrowing personnel carrier that can surface in your base.

Figuring how they all fit into the strategic pattern takes a lot of working out, which is my excuse for not having won a game yet.

It's hard to fault it, though I found the game a bit dark at 640 x 480 res and enjoyed it more at 800 x 640.

It stuttered occasionally when playing with big maps. But there were no real problems, and it installed and played like a dream - no messing around with 3D cards and graphics drivers.

Multiplay is well supported, with LAN, modem, serial port and Internet options, the latter through Westwood's own site.

Required: Pentium 166, 4Mb video card. Pentium 200 recommended.

* Send your comments by e-mail to peter_eley@herald.co.nz