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RENEGADE
REVIEW

Command & Conquer Up Close and Personal
The whole point of Renegade is to allow you to experience the Tiberian Dawn Universe as a single soldier rather than commanding an entire army. You can explore huge buildings and outdoor environments filled with Nod Soldiers and Vehicles.

Wreak Havoc - On foot as the wise cracking GDI Commando Havoc
In singleplayer you play as Nick 'Havoc' Parker, taking out the evil Brotherhood of Nod (almost) by yourself.
The basic storyline is that top GDI scientists have been captured and are being used to help the evil Brotherhood with their secret project: 'Re-Genesis.' All you have to do is save them and find out what Re-Genesis is.
The singleplayer consists of 11 missions, now that may not sound like much, but when you see how large and detailed they are you'll understand why.

Make your own rules - Use your own mix of brute force and stealth
Now this is where the packaging is wrong. On each level there is always an obvious path to get to the end of the level. To add variety, there are a number of Secondary Objectives that you can complete if you choose to do so, usually resulting in less enemy reinforcements, or more friendly reinforcements. However, they are all on the way to the Primary Objective and hardly require you to go out of your way and the rewards aren't that noticeable.
As there is only one route through each level, it's impossible to sneak round behind an enemy stronghold and sneak in through the back door, or climb a hill and Snipe 'em out.
Stealth is also difficult as it's just easier to run in all guns blazing then sneak around. So although it is possible to be slightly more careful with regards to attracting enemy attention, it's hardly worth it.

Dish out damage in 1st and 3rd person
This is a first for a game; you are given the choice of playing in either a Quake or Tomb Raider style view. 1st person is better for accurate targeting, 3rd is better for peaking round corners. When you climb ladders of get into vehicles the view automatically switches to 3rd person.

Sneak Inside full-scale structures - like the immense Tiberium Refinery.
This is one bit existing C&C fans will like, the buzz of seeing a huge structure towering above you which previously you had only viewed from above. The buildings really are absolutely huge! It is perfectly possible to get lost in them, the Hand of Nod training rooms and hospital facilities and the Power Plant has all sorts of generators and power monitoring equipment.

Drive Lethal Vehicles - such as the Flame Tanks and Mammoth Tanks
This is another draw for existing C&C Fans, Renegade allows you to really control vehicles that were small pixels before. There's a whole garage of vehicles, from the fast and light Hum-Vee, to the slow moving and heavily armoured death that is the Mammoth Tank.
Of course, it's still cool for players new to the C&C Universe, as there are no other games that allow you to drive such a diverse set of vehicles.
Now Westwood has added flying vehicles, the fun has taken off onto a whole new level, bringing all kinds of new possibilities and tactics.

Choose from a multitude of Weapons
Renegade has a huge armoury with 23 weapons of destruction. There are all kinds of things, ranging from the Silenced Pistol to the Personal Ion Cannon.
This is where Renegade differs from Tib dawn. As there weren't enough different types of infantry in the game, WW had to add new weapons that weren't in it. The weapons are based around existing ones, so there's the traditional Minigunner and Rocketeer. New weapons include the Tiberium Auto Rifle, Shotgun, Personal Ion Cannon and Ramjet Rifle.
The coolest things have to be the Super Weapon Beacons that are used to call in Nuclear Strikes or Ion Cannon Blasts.

Multiplayer Mayhem
This is the huge redeeming feature if the game, as it is the best multiplayer in a FPS, possible of any genre.
Basically you play on either GDI or Nod, and you have to defend your fully functioning base, while attempting to destroy your enemies'. You can use vehicles such as the Stealth Tank or the MRLS, or you could be Infantry, from Dr Mobius to the Nod Commando; Sakura.
It's like playing regular Tiberian Dawn, but instead of commanding an entire army, you are a simple soldier carrying out someone else's orders.

Now I've sorted out the slogans, lets get to the other stuff.

Graphics
The first thing that strikes you upon loading Renegade is how plain the levels are, they are very bare and contain only minor details. The terrain is also blocky - the steps are not rounded but slightly jagged. However the low levels of this kind of detail can be excused due to the shear size of the levels.
Renegade is not all bad news graphics wise. The character and vehicles models are very detailed and there are little indentations in vehicles. Unfortunately the vehicles don't show damage, which would have been nice.

Sound
The sounds are a slightly shaky point for Renegade, for example, the Minigun has and extremely high-pitched tone which sounds completely wrong. Most weapons, thankfully, have realistic sounds.
The music is also great as usual in with any Command & Conquer game thanks to Frank Klepacki. Most of it is remixed stuff from Tiberian Dawn, which seems appropriate.
The dying sound effects of enemy's sounds very Command & Conquerey, from them calling out for help as you kill them, to the screams as the keel over.

Controls
Unless you've never played an FPS or TPS before you'll have no problems with the controls, although there are a few more keys you will need to learn than in a standard game of the genre.
The controls and character movements are not as fluid as in RtCW and it seems slightly over responsive. But tweaking the sensitivity can probably rectify this.

Lastability
The singleplayer is relatively short - only 11 levels, but each level is huge and can take up to an hour to complete the larger ones.
But really, Renegade is a Multiplayer game, and this is where it excels. C&C Mode is great but I don't need to go over it again.
So after you've finished the singleplayer, you go onto the Multiplayer and stay there for quite some time.

End Bit
Although Renegade lacks graphics wise, it has many other redeeming features that make up for it. It's definitely not a serious shooter; it's a modern Quake. It's more about having fun than worrying about ammo health.
Westwood have tried to bridge the gap between strategy nuts and FPSers and I believe they have produced a relatively good FPS. The main difference between Renegade and other FPSs is the detailed storyline.

 

 

 



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