I’ve got the Red Alert 3 beta! Information coming soon…

Sorry, readers.  I know it’s been a very long time since I’ve posted this thread due to the fact that I’ve been both busy and lazy at the same time.  I know, it’s a paradox but that’s my excuse….

Anyways, just a quick note that I’m currently downloading the Red Alert 3 beta from FilePlanet!  I’ve got myself the actual beta key and I will post up any pertaining information regarding the multiplayer client.  It’s been a long time since I’ve played an RTS multiplayer session so if you ever spot me, SlavikCC, please go easy on me…

For anyone who cares about what I run, this is my rig:

Athlon 64 3500+ (oc’d to 2.5GHz), 2GB DDR RAM, EVGA GeForce 8800GT 512MB, Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS, 2x 160GB HD’s, 1x 320GB HD, 20x DVD burner, Windows XP Professional, 17″ Samsung LCD Monitor @ 1280×1024 resolution.

Frank Klepacki to perform with Video Games Live!

Yes, Frank Klepacki will be performing with a full symphonic orchestra and do the Hell March 1 and 2 in Las Vegas!!! ARRRGGGGHHHH! I need to get over to Las Vegas just to see this moment!!!!

Anyways, here’s the press release of the whole announcement:

LOS ANGELES, CA – June 11, 2008 – Video Games Live announced today that the music of the Command & Conquer franchise will be premiered for the first time ever this weekend during the Henderson/Las Vegas performance at the Henderson Pavilion with the Las Vegas Philharmonic. Las Vegas, Nevada is the birthplace of the Command & Conquer franchise which has sold over 22 million units worldwide. Initially created and developed at Las Vegas based Westwood Studios between 1995 and 2003, the award-winning franchise currently contains seventeen games with various expansion packs. The first installment of the series was released worldwide on August 31, 1995 and was based on Westwood Studios’ earlier strategy game Dune 2.

Joining the C&C World Premiere will be renowned C&C composer Frank Klepacki who (along with his band and the symphony) will be performing a special arrangement consisting of Hell March 1 & 2. Also performing will be legendary voice actor Dee Baker whose titles include Halo 2 & 3, Final Fantasy X-2, Metal Gear Solid 2, Kingdom Hearts, Gears of War 2, Viewtiful Joe, EverQuest II and Spider-Man among others. Other game titles featured with the Las Vegas Philharmonic this weekend will be Mario, Zelda, Halo, Kingdom Hearts, Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy, Sonic, Warcraft, Tron and many more!

For more information on the orchestra performance, go to this website here. I wish they would do a full-out symphonic orchestra of music from Universe At War….. If anyone out there is going to see the show, please get a recording or at the very least, a review!!

Command and Conquer: Renegade 2, linking the Red Alert and Tiberium universes

As some C&C fans may know, Westwood Studios originally conceived Renegade 2 as the prequel to first Renegade title, linking the Red Alert and Tiberium universes. This game would link the events after Red Alert 2 and Tiberian Dawn, although details of how it links was severely lacking due to the fact that the project was canceled for unknown reasons. If you go to the CNCNZ.com website, the website collected every single shred of game images and information it can regarding the canceled project. As one would look at the Renegade 2 image gallery, there are a number of images that pointed to the link between the two universes. One interesting image is the combination of the iconic Soviet sickle and the Nod’s scorpion tail, which foretells how Nod took advantage of the Soviet Union.

The prequel that would link the two universes was ultimately canceled and to put the final nail in the coffin, a recent interview with Louis Castle, who remains with EA Games to this day, decided that the Red Alert and Tiberium universes will never be linked ever again. Brett Sperry’s baby was Command and Conquer, rather than Louis Castle’s. For now on, we will have to deal with THREE C&C universes: Tiberium, Red Alert, and Generals. It’s a real shame that the original vision of Red Alert was completely changed over the years.

Another CD single, dedicated to Command and Conquer… Two Tribes!

As I mentioned earlier in my posts, I mentioned of another CD single that was released when Command and Conquer 2:Tiberian Sun was released. First, it was Cobalt 60’s Crush for the German Red Alert soundtrack but we’ve got something else from Germany. It’s a Frankie Goes to Hollywood song, Two Tribes, by a German electronic-house-metal band, Think About Mutation. Yes, these genres may seem mutually exclusive to each other but their crossover types of music is actually awesome! I couldn’t find a proper image of the single itself so I had to snatch this from a German eBay auction bid.  Here it is:

Tracklist

1. Two Tribes
2. Angel
3. Breaktime 42

Yup, this female character is actually wearing the GDI helmet from Tiberian Sun (and in Tiberium Wars and Kane’s Wrath as well)!

Anyways, the CD single comes with a Quicktime MOV video of the Two Tribes song as a music video! All of the band members of TAM (coincidentally, their acronym is spelled as my last name) dressed up as GDI soldiers, as they play along the music. A bigger bonus is the inclusion of the cutscenes from Tiberian Sun, interspersed into the actual music video! It’s a perfectly fitting song, that sets quite well about the war of GDI vs Nod. Below is the music video found on YouTube.

Unfortunately, the band pretty much went defunct and all of their albums went out-of-print.  A number of eBay auctions related to this CD single can easily be found, which shouldn’t be too bad to buy.  European C&C fans may get them relatively easy due to the changing nature of foreign currencies.  You can also find their albums out there on eBay.  “Motorrazor” and “Housebastards” are some of my favourite albums, so check their music up for some dancing and moshing!

James Hannigan to compose Red Alert 3? A look at his past music.

As Lion’s Red Alert Den (RADEN) reported, it appears that James Hannigan will be composing music for the upcoming Red Alert 3 soundtrack. Unlike Bill Brown, Steve Jablonsky/Trevor Morris, James’ music is much more orchestral than the composers I mentioned. The quality sounds great, judging from his music jukebox he has on his website and sounded a bit more memorable than the previous music done for Tiberium Wars. If you listened to track 2, “Primus”, the music has more electronica elements, and track 21, “Cygnus”, has plenty of electronica with sampled electric guitar riffs. Based on my analysis, I predict that the Red Alert 3 soundtrack will be more orchestral that touches on 3 elements: Empire of the Rising Sun (more Japanese ethnic sound), Soviet Union (bombastic sounding), and the Allied (more patriotic/heroic). Some electronica pieces may appear in the game as well.

PC Gamer also noted that “Hell March” will make a return to the Red Alert sequel but it’d be hard to say how it’s going to composed. However, it’s obvious Frank Klepacki will not be able to compose Red Alert 3 due to his commitments to Petroglyph Games as sound designer/music composer and not to mention his side-projects and other live performances outside of his workplace. As soon as more details appear, I will update this blog.

Lessons Learned after the development of Tiberian Sun

I found an interesting article, interviewing a number of Westwood Studios employees, after Command and Conquer 2:Tiberian Sun was finished. Gamasutra.com had a really old article way back in 2000, detailing the production of the game and how much it created frustration and screaming by various programmers and such. Some of the features that the article mentioned include:

One of the times we tried to change the rules was when harvester threat-avoidance logic was introduced. I remember hearing lead designer Adam Isgreen screaming at his computer when his harvesters refused to obey his orders to retreat. We decided to scrap that idea shortly afterward.

The basic idea behind the dynamic-battlefield concept is that players’ actions alter the battlefield. For example, a player could set fire to trees to burn a path into an enemy’s base. We wound up cutting this particular feature because it caused path-finding problems.

The article mentioned many woes during the game’s production, including locking the documents too early (which means they finished audio features, mission design, etc), post-production movie problems, adding too many features, and scheduling problems. Overall, this left a number of C&C players feeling that the game was half-baked and overly-hyped as soon as it was released to stores worldwide. I remember reading many reviews giving less-than-stellar reviews of Tiberian Sun, including PC Gamer US giving Tiberian Sun a 72%. That was back when PC Gamer US was the pinnacle of PC game reviews and their strictness. I also distinctly remember many players complaining about the graphics in the game, complaining about the looks of the game units compared to the early beta screenshots, extreme amounts of brown and grey, darkness, slow and drab music, and the highly pixelated explosions. Some of the bigger complaints include the slowness of the gameplay and taxing even on higher-end Pentium CPU systems.

The add-on, Firestorm, rectified a number of responses by C&C fans and players, including faster gameplay, better game-play balance, twisting storylines, kick-ass music, and interesting missions. However, the Tiberium universe would later be buried and overlooked with the advent of Emperor: Battle for Dune, Red Alert 2 and Generals. Westwood would later attempt to revive the Tiberium universe by planning to do a full-fledge sequel, Tiberian Twilight, and even plans for a MMORPG, Command and Conquer:Continuum until Westwood merged with EA Games to the chagrin of C&C fans worldwide. Details of the C&C:Continuum will be covered on this blog later.

To read more about what happened with the development of Tiberian Sun can be read at Gamasutra.com.

Clearing up some confusion with the Red Alert:Counterstrike/Aftermath soundtrack

I’m going to write another quick note about the music from the Red Alert: Counterstrike and Aftermath add-ons for the PC version of Command and Conquer: Red Alert.  As some C&C fans may notice on the soundtrack playlist, all of the song names from Counterstrike sounded quite odd.  It was as if it were just mere filenames.  Right now, it’s time to settle this once and for all.

Here are the correct track names, confirmed by Frank Klepacki in an e-mail discussion I had with him many years ago:

1. 2nd_hand -> The Second Hand
2. Chaos_2 -> Chaos
3. Vr_2 -> Voice Rhythm 2
4. Shut_it -> Shut It
5. Backstab -> Back Stab
6. Under_3 -> Underlying Thoughts
7. Twin_mix -> Twin Cannon Remix

If my memory serves me right, Arazoid did not appeared in the game’s soundtrack playlist and another song, Journey, never appeared in the INI files nor inside the game files.  One of the songs from Aftermath, MechMan 2, had another song title named, “Running Through Pipes”.

My blog is featured on Frank Klepacki’s website!

Here’s the excerpt of Frank Klepacki’s May update on his news section of his website:

INTERESTING NEW C&C BLOG:

C&C completist Wilson Tam, has a detailed blog revealing and settling some of the old confusion regarding Frank’s original Tiberian Dawn score, including facts on alternate names of tracks, missing tracks, and varied versions on different platforms.

Also discussed in his blog is the German version of the Red Alert soundtrack which contained a bonus disc of bands, one of which had remixed “Crush” by Frank. A great read for what has been relatively unknown info. Check it out here:

http://cncrevealed.wordpress.com

I’m quite honoured that I’ve been mentioned on his website! His May update will be spread to many major C&C websites soon enough. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions on what I should add to my blog, contact me at wilson_k_tam (at) yahoo.ca.

Command and Conquer:Generals originally has an African tribal side??

Yes, you read this right. I’m going to write about another Command and Conquer universe, the Generals series. What was unique during the production of Generals was the fact that it has gone through significant changes during pre-production and mid-production. Generals was originally conceived to include three sides: the Americans, the Khan tribe, and the African war tribe. Details of why the African war tribe was eliminated in favour of the GLA side is unknown, but the production of the game goes way back around 2001 when Westwood in LA (later to become EALA then consolidated into EA Games as a whole) were tinkering around the SAGE engine. However, the events of September 11th, 2001 changed everything and EALA decided to make it less campy (?) and be more grounded in realism. Some units from the Khans, such as the rocket buggy and scorpion tank, were later moved to the GLA side. Even when the very first Generals preview on May 2002 was made public, the game mechanics and units were either changed drastically or removed altogether. The Gamespot preview can be read at this link.

There were also evidence that EALA wanted to create the European Union playable side if one were to look at the game files from the public beta CD given to selected players. One modding group is attempting to revive the look and feel of the Generals “alpha” version. You can go to this website but it’s been about a year since we’ve heard last of the group. In any case, you can look at the concept art of the African war tribe units and structures at this link.

CD Single: “Crush” by Cobalt 60

So, what does this have to do with Command and Conquer? There’s a very elusive CD single that was released by Edel, the same label that released the German Red Alert 2CD soundtrack, containing THREE remixes of Crush. Composed by Cobalt 60, a side-project of the famous French industrial group, Front 242, created the “Command & Conquer Mix” as a cover song of Crush. According to Discogs, Frank Klepacki was credited as the original composer of the song from Red Alert. Here’s the image and the tracklist:

1. Crush (Command & Conquer Mix)
2. Crush (Grrr Remix)
3. Crush (GZ900 Remix)

The second track was remixed by Cubanate, another industrial-dance-metal group, but with a heavier beat, lasting over six minutes. The third track, my least favourite, was done by Grisha Zeme, if my memory serves me right.  Currently, Discogs show two sellers of the CD single but the high Euro makes it quite expensive for everyone else.

Again, this CD single is extremely rare and hard-to-find, which was given to various DJ’s throughout Europe and it’s no surprise that a large majority of C&C fans would’ve not known about this release.  Cobalt 60 would later compose the music for another well-known PC game franchise, Wing Commander:Prophecy, which they did the main theme and music during training/multiplayer. Much like what they did for their Crush single, they also created the Prophecy CD single to various DJ’s with three remixes of the same song and an extended, remixed track from the game.

However, this is not the last CD single dedicated to Command and Conquer… stay tuned.