Completed GDI campaign. I think I’ll skip NOD campaign, as I’ve seen most if not all of the new NOD units already, and there wasn’t much new to begin with.
To the best of my understanding, both the GDI and NOD endings are somewhat canon, because when you start the expansion campaign for GDI, they say they lost contact with Philadelphia space station (because NOD shot it down), but they need to recover Cabal, NODs AI, from the ruins of the temple, which you destroyed at the end of GDI campaign. Cabal then quickly betrays you, and you have to put it down.
It seems that the pace of units getting experience has been increased, as in the Tiberian Sun, I rarely had a veteran unit,
The new GDI unit, Juggernaut, is awesome. It’s a better version of NOD artillery, firing three shells instead of one, albeit less accurately. There’s a mission where you need to pair it with GDI commando, Ghost Stalker. The only issue in that mission is the commando himself, as he’s unable to shoot up slopes 🤦♂️
Only the final GDI mission is really difficult, or unnecessarily evil, as you start extremely close to enemy artillery positions without many options to tackle them. Luckily there’s no time limit in this one.
One final surprise is that once you capture three key points, a huge robot appears, and you need to destroy Cabal before that robot reaches your base, as it destroys almost any unit in a single shot.
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Tag: Tiberian Sun
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Tiberian Sun Firestorm
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Tiberian Sun
Completed the NOD campaign.
Once NOD gets artillery, it’s game over for GDI. The most overpowered artillery since Ground Control. It is even smart enough to deploy automatically once in range.
Story is still rough. You complete a mission, and the next thing you know, Slavic is captured by GDI, then rescued by Cyborg Commando. What is Cyborg Commando? It’s actually never explained.
The final mission is a bit underwhelming. It also has a timer, and I thought that after placing the 3 ICBMs it will just stop, and I would still need to deal with GDI forces, but no, it’s the end of the campaign. And I didn’t even get to try the UFO-like Banshees. -
Tiberian Sun
On one hand, it feels like I should have started with the NOD campaign, because Kain first introduced in it, and it has tutorial tips, which I didn’t notice in the GDI campaign. On the other hand, it still feels like I’ve started watching from the middle of the show. Who’s Hassan and why is he taking order from GDI? In general, it feels like the cutscenes for NOD were done by another person. Who loved to use the fisheye effect.
Generally, the campaign feels easier. I still hate the ion storm missions, though, because you don’t have a minimap, and playing RTS without a minimap is a pain. Then both “Salvage Operation” and “Capture Umagon” missions made me scratch my head, a lot. They both can be completed in a couple of minutes. I’m just not entirely sure how. In Salvage Operation, you’re given a meager force to capture the downed UFO and intercept a train, which is almost impossible, unless you know where the train stops, and then you don’t even need to capture the UFO.
And in Capture Umagon, you have about a minute to intercept her, which is incredibly hard. Unless you just know where the train appears, and then you can just bomb that place preemtively 🤡 -
Tiberian Sun
Completed GDI campaign.
Out of all the GDI missions, “Weather the Storm” is the worst one. You aren’t allowed any flying units due to ion storm, which means you have no way to counter NOD artillery. You also have no map.
And the last mission is though. The real problem is the time limit of 1 hour, otherwise, if would be as any other mission. The idea is that you reset the time limit by hunting the ICBM sites, but this isn’t explained at all. Once I did, though, it was bomber-time. In the final mission it’s quite pointless to destroy enemy buildings, as it’s able to rebuild them almost instantly, so you need to hunt the construction yards. And in fact there are 3 AIs and 3 separate construction yards, but you wouldn’t know that, because they are all the same red color.
As a kid I thought I don’t understand what characters are saying, because my English is not good enough. Turns out, the audio isn’t good enough: you often can’t hear the actors due to music and background noises.
Overall, I enjoyed Tibrian Sun much more than the first time, despite somewhat akward controls and terrible unit aiming: my Mammoth MK2 was firing at a target few steps ahead, and not hitting it, because there was some bump, while missiles would hit cliffs instead of SAM sites above.
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Tiberian Sun
The game works well on modern PCs, but since it’s not a remake, the control scheme isn’t modernized. You issue orders with LMB, you cannot select units of the same type with double-click, and the waypoints work weirdly.
As a kid, I completed this game, but didn’t like it. First C&C was straightforward, especially with GDI that had Mammoth tanks. In Tiberian Sun, everything was weird: you could build just one Mammoth, and it was this AT AT with a gauss cannon. NOD artillery couldn’t fire until deployed. Tanks could transform into turrets. And so on.
Now, though, I appreaciate it much more. Missions are like puzzles, and actually encourage exploration: you can find bonuses or alternative paths.
The way campaign is structured is interesting as well. You can do side-missions, that make the main missions easier. Although sometimes it’s hard to figure out which is the side mission and which advances the plot.
One aspect I don’t appreciate is the need to hunt down every SAM site and even destroy fences or complete a mission.
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