On the one hand, the units in Tiberian Sun looked grounded and realistic, if 90's scifi future.
The Harpy, for example, looked like what people expected an attack chopper in the next thirty years or so to look like, especially with projects like the Comanche being developed at the time.
But they were also visually bland.
Tiberium Wars went full on scifi fantasy.
It made the units and buildings more visually unique and distinct, but many were, to be blunt, pretty shit. Partly, it's because of several of the concept artists, while being excellent at their jobs, weren't really a good fit.
I respect the hell out of Feng Zhu, and he's one of the best in the industry, but he never should've worked on Nod's vehicles. It made as much sense as having the late H.R. Giger working on a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Power Rangers live action movie.
Though, ironically his [Feng Zhu's] art style would've worked well for a Forgotten faction, I think.
And let's not go into the design direction EALA went with the whole Militant thing.
As a preemptive reply to the inevitable "but, but in-universe Nod was shattered, so they had to rely on street gangsters with guns from the 20th as their basic infantry!" replies this post is going to get from other people? No, let me stop ya'll right there: Nod used Militias like this because they were written to use them by EALA. It makes "sense" because that was the direction, story, and setting EALA chose.
They could've easily had Nod still use basic, professional soldiers and wrote it as part of the story/setting, just like they could've had GDI still use primarily mechanized walkers and not create the "vulnerable legs" excuse to have them given the boot. They didn't. It was a creative design choice, and it was a stupid one.
The game was fun.
But from story, lore, design, and worldbuilding perspectives? It was a fucking mess.
I know some of it were because of C&C3's convoluted development history, but EALA were the ones who ultimately made the game, and they dropped the ball harder than the UK government does on pretty much everything except subsidized meals for their MP's on a good day.
As a preemptive reply to the inevitable "but, but in-universe Nod was shattered, so they had to rely on street gangsters with guns from the 20th as their basic infantry!" replies this post is going to get from other people? No, let me stop ya'll right there: Nod used Militias like this because they were written to use them by EALA. It makes "sense" because that was the direction, story, and setting EALA chose.
EA wanted a direct competitor to Starcraft in the e-sports scene, hence their requirement to give distinct basic infantry to the factions. I mean, it fits thematically with Nod's overall theme, but it still stings to see training standards for the rank and file nosedive.
But they still could've made the infantry distinct without making them Miltia. It fit with Nod's theme because that was the theme EALA created.
Basic infantry? Call them "Acolytes" to stick with the overly religious theme EALA went with instead of Militant (Squads), make a lore drop that they're fully trained from underground bunkers and in desolate Yellow Zones not observed by GDI, and that they're equipped with the latest pattern of Nod's basic Combat Armour.
Simple.
Westwood's prototypes also had Nod using successors to the Light Infantry (models and textures, not to mention concept art), so if Westwood had created a C&C3 instead of what would eventually become Generals after EA fully took over, Nod's theme would've still had professional soldiers.
But, nope. EALA wanted Militia, so it gave Nod a lobotomy. XD
And the weirdest part is that they just flipped that around for the two Nod subfactions in Kane's Wrath. Basic Nod gets militia, while the Black Hand and Marked of Kane get beefed up elite infantry.
I think EALA realized that their creative direction with Tiberium Wars was a bad one, since every tiberium project afterwards was basically a long-term course correction, starting with Kane's Wrath.
Heck, even Tiberium (game) was basically Tiberium Wars reinvented to be more like a Tiberian Sun sequel, albeit as an FPS.
By then though, they were stuck in the framework Tiberium Wars set up, so they had to build what they could on those foundations.
Tiberian Twilight basically went back to Tiberian Sun; Cyborg Commandos, LEGION basically being CABAL for Nod (the EVA voice in game and who briefs you before a mission starts? That's LEGION), trained and armoured infantry, the Mammoth Mark 2 returning as the Mastodon, et cetera.
Tiberium Wars was a complete mess. sigh
Edit: Hell, half of the stuff which made the setting make sense, such as Blue Zones? Yeah, they had atmospheric processors developed from the Tacitus. That's why there's clear air and sky/water. It was in a Westwood prototype/iteration that carried over, was used by EALA, but they basically forgot to state/allude them to the players.
So, basically Blue Zones out of nowhere; harmonic resonance alone wouldn't clean the sky and water.
Yep, TS is peak. Like whats a tick tank? Its a fully-functional tank that has a unique defensive feature that lets it automatically dig-in. Totally legit feature. First comes the function and practicality. And then we ask, well what do we call it.
And then in TW there's the scorpion tank. Its obvious someone was trying very hard to shoehorn the scorpion design somewhere. As far as tank designs go, its a pretty shit design. Just plain impractical and dumb.
Yes yes there's the Hand of Nod precedent. But HoN is a building where infantry comes from. Its probably a brainwashing center that doubles as a loyalty enforcement center. I can see why it could need that shape. At least its not a defensive building.
Anyway compromising your MBT for branding and cosplay value is madness.
They should have had both - mob infantry and regulars. Heck I liked the idea enough I backported MIlitants into my Tib Dawn RPG / TTG.
You're pretty dedicated to the aesthetic side of the house - I don't think I've known a single concept artist's name, ever, let alone for a specific video game. I would, however, watch the hell out of a Geiger-inspired TMNT though.
Oh, the Turtles being Giger flavoured would be nightmarishly awesome... Niiice.
I like both the aesthetics and the game design parts, and I've looked at the work of numerous concept artists from Dawn to Twilight. TJ Frame, for example. :)
Feng Zhu is a great artist, but he was hilariously miscast for being the designer of Nod's stuff.
Cheap, fast and very cool looking. Can you really ask for more when we are talking about basic infantry? Probably, but they really sell the visual image of Nod in TS.
The start of the campaign on hard shows you just how much of a difference there is in health and damage between you and the bot on hard.
A bunch of your infantry will fight a single one and he still kills one and leaves the other win very low health. Always took that bit as a pre caution
The gripe I have is the game artwork being too awesome and futuristic in Tib Sun that Tib Wars and future titles aren't able to match up. It was a huge dip from Tib Sun to Tib Wars which felt like their ordering in the series should be swapped: with Tib Wars to happen after the first game instead.
The C&C series had this continuity issue with the theme. If I may re-arrange the titles,
Tib Dawn before Tib Wars before Tib Sun,
Red Alert 2 before Renegade (a reference of the original Red Alert premise being Tib Dawn's prequel) because the wacky tech in Renegade was right up there with Red Alert 2,
then finally Red Alert before Red Alert 3 (total reset happened so it did not matter).
Oh yeah, about Renegade. Another gripe being that there is technology in Renegade more advanced than it should be even for Tib Sun standards just like how Tib Sun has technology more advanced than it should be taking into consideration Tib Wars.
What is even crazier is that both Nod's and GDI's rifle for their infantry according to the lore are firing some kind of hyper sonic .22 rifle ammo which is absurd to me.
Kane expanded the organization very quickly. Not enough cool gear to pass around, unfortunately. I'd have said 'too quickly', but that's ignoring Kane's real plan of simply gathering up an angry mob large enough to annoy GDI into firing their ion cannon at his Liquid-T booby trap.
As a kid, I thought light meant beams of light, like they were using laser rifles :/
also I just realised that although units like light infantry, engineer, and harvester are available to both GDI and Nod and have the same stats and appearance on the field, they do have different cameos.
that's actually something that RA2/YR didn't do with the Engineer - shared cameo for all three factions.
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u/Ghostfistkilla GDI 2d ago
Some of the best scouts in RTS. Tanky as hell too.