What's the Big Deal with this Tiberian Sun?

If you're asking yourself this question, odds are that you haven't had your PC more than 2 years or so. Because back then, there was one question and one question only on the lips of RTS players "So, C&C or StarCraft/WarCraft?" Man oh man, that question has led to flame wars, debates, in-depth comparisons and a split in the online RTS community. To this day, for many gamers, there exists only one alternative to StarCraft, that being C&C: Red Alert (and optionally one of the expansion packs.) They swear by it like StarCraft fanatics swear they'd never touch Total Annihilation.

Nod Flag

Reach out and kiss someone

This, inevitably, leads you to question why. Why the big deal? What makes these games so special? Well, let me give you a bit of history on Command & Conquer, which basically means no less than giving you the story of the beginning of real-time strategy.

The First True RTS

Believe it or not, real time strategy games didn't start with WarCraft II and Command and Conquer: Tiberian Dawn. They didn't start with WarCraft either. No, for their origins, you must look to Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty. While many elements of real time strategy were present in games before Dune II, and many elements have been added since, all the core parts were first included in Dune II. From the obvious such as real-time gaming, to different tech levels, collection of resources and … well, everything RTS.

That's McNeil, the GDI you

Cool flag shot

About the only things missing from Dune II that are standard fare in today's games are unit groups, being able to select multiple units, and multiplayer.