PixlBit

Shouldn't that be “divide and conquer?"

Command and Conquer is a real-time strategy game released for the PC in 1995, and ported to the Nintendo 64 several years later. It brings with it updated graphics and a few bonus missions, but the core gameplay remains the same. With clunky controls and straightforward missions, the game doesn't offer anything unique, but the foundation is still solid.

Upon booting up the game, I was greeted with a computerized female voice saying “Installing,” followed by a lengthy sequence of green text appearing on a black background that detailed all of the files being installed. After remembering that I'm not using a computer, I pressed Start to skip the rest of the nonsense and get to the main menu. There was no training option, so I selected “New Game” with the hope that the first few missions served as a tutorial. To my surprise, the mission briefing was fully voiced, something that isn't common for a Nintendo 64 game.

Once at the battlefield, my first thought was “Boy, this is ugly.” I know the Nintendo 64's resolution is pretty low by today's standards, but I don't normally notice the black lines that run through the picture. Perhaps the dull green landscape, blurry mountain sides, and tiny troops aided that. Remembering seeing an Expansion Pak logo when booting the game, I paused and went for the options menu, there finding a resolution option. After changing it from “medium” to “high,” the battlefield looked significantly more clear.

With that sorted, it was time to figure out the controls. The analogue stick moved the cursor, and holding the A button was used to select units. Once selected, the A button was also used for directing the units where to move by pressing it on the ground or an enemy, although pressing A twice in succession would actually deselect the units. I did that accidentally more times than I care to admit... The R button brought up a menu on the right side of the screen, which showed build choices and the radar. Why something as important as the radar is hidden away in a menu is beyond me, though this menu has a bigger issue: the analogue stick now selects options in this menu and can't be used to control units while this menu is active. Yikes.

In the second mission, I had two different infantry units, gunners and grenadiers. But unless they were firing, I couldn't tell who was who, they were just so tiny. Hovering the cursor over a unit revealed its identity, though it took a couple seconds for the name to appear. This became a larger problem in the next mission, when the weapon-less Engineers joined my forces. Then I had a valuable unit in my group who can't fight, but I couldn't tell which ones they were without spending precious seconds hovering the cursor over every soldier.

Fortunately, at that point the game decided to tell me how I can assign a set of units as one group. This seemed like something I could have used from the start, but oh well, at least I was finally deemed worthy to bare this knowledge. Up to four groups can be designated, each to one of the C-buttons, so I could separate my non-combat units whenever a firefight breaks out, and send my Engineers to capture a building without my gunners attacking it in the process.

As each new mission unfolded, a new unit or building was introduced. However, I was starting to notice a trend that each mission followed, which was that victory always required destroying all enemy units and/or structures. After a while, I decided to just look up a level select cheat online; I rarely use this sort of thing, but I'm no fan of this genre and was simply growing bored of this game. I wanted to see if any later missions were more interesting. There was never really any deviation from that goal, and most of the new units or maps didn't change how it could be accomplished.

Command and Conquer 64 is a decent game in itself, though it doesn't accomplish anything to combat the notion that real-time strategy games don't work well on consoles. The tiny units practically require the Expansion Pak to discern, though the field is still too zoomed out, and the controls are cumbersome and unintuitive. If these shortcomings can be overlooked, the fifty-some campaign missions can entertain for a while, plus there are some extra challenging bonus levels that will require the utmost strategy.