Command & Conquer: The First Decade

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Command & Conquer: The First Decade
The First Decade cover
Developer(s) EA Los Angeles, Barking Lizards Technologies, Base Camp Films, Gametap Entertainment, Westwood Studios
Publisher(s) Electronic Arts
Engine Various engines
Version 1.02 (2006-04-18)
Platform(s) Microsoft Windows XP
Release date February 7 2006
Genre(s) 11 RTS games, 1 FPS game
Mode(s) Single player, Multiplayer
Rating(s) ESRB: Teen (T)
PEGI: 12+
Media 1 Game DVD, 1 Bonus "Community" DVD
System requirements 9.8 GB diskspace, Windows XP, 933 MHz Processor, 256MB RAM, 64MB 3D Video Card
Input methods Keyboard, Mouse

Command & Conquer: The First Decade is a compilation of the Command & Conquer series' games published from 1995 to 2003, all bundled into one DVD and updated to run optimally on Windows XP. It was released on February 7, 2006 and sold for the price of one retail game. Also included in the compilation was a bonus DVD which took a look behind the scenes of the successful franchise, including interviews with producers, old concept art, various soundbites, as well as a montage of the winning fan videos of the "Are You The Biggest C&C Fan?" competition held prior to the compilation's release.

Other items included in the compilation included an A3 poster with high-quality C&C renders on both sides, one of which has been confirmed to be a teaser image for EA's new Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, as well as a 65-page manual that only includes unit descriptions and hotkeys for each of the included games.

Contents

[edit] Included games and expansions

Note the omission of Command & Conquer: Sole Survivor, which EA Games appears to have disowned. However, because the compilation's said intention was to allow players to relive the story of Command & Conquer from the past ten years, the omission of Sole Survivor does seem somewhat plausible as it was just a multiplayer game and the servers have all been taken down.

[edit] Game DVD

[edit] New game content

The First Decade menu screenshot.
The First Decade menu screenshot.

The first DVD delivers each of the games with their most recent patches applied (except Command & Conquer: Red Alert which wasn't delivered at the latest version due to the latest patch being a beta version), all of which are bundled into a single installer. Many fans were disappointed that the original installers for the games, which were known to be very immersive and graphically pleasing, were not included. They were replaced by a single standard InstallShield wizard installer. The installer does enable the player to pick and choose what to install and what not to install, but assuming that all the games are selected, a total of 7 separate serial keys need to be entered.

The compilation does come as its own program, with a launcher which allows to choose between the installed games. To avoid the hassle of loading up this program only to launch the other games, a third-party shortcut installer has been made to create shortcuts for each of the individual games.

[edit] Internet multiplayer

"The First Decade" outer DVD box containing the DVD case.
"The First Decade" outer DVD box containing the DVD case.

Many fans have been disappointed by the fact that, in the first two games, Internet multiplayer does not work because the separate "Westwood Chat" program which they relied on has not been updated. There is in fact a noticeable sticker to this effect on the box, but it was not made at all clear in the pre-release publicity and as a result many people bought the compilation believing that every necessary component of the games had been updated.

While a third-party patch can prove successful at providing a two player C&C Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert internet game, it is not especially reliable. An official solution is currently in production by EA, (see "Official Patches and updates" below).

[edit] Bugs

Many bugs have been reported to be present in The First Decade, including some that didn't affect the original games.

  • Internet and LAN play for the older games, including Command & Conquer, Command & Conquer: Red Alert, as well as their expansion packs, were not provided.
  • In Command & Conquer, the game crashed if some units went to the top of the screen. (Can be worked around by turning off advanced text services) (Windows XP Bug)
  • Command & Conquer: Red Alert was not updated to the latest 3.03 version. EA has explained that 3.03 was only a beta patch and for this reason it wasn't included in The First Decade, although it would possibly be implemented through future patches to the compilation. However, there is an unofficial fix available (See external links)
  • In Command & Conquer: Red Alert, the full motion videos were not shown when playing the Soviet campaign, though this issue has been corrected with the latest patch.
  • The soundtracks for the older games' expansion packs, Command & Conquer: Red Alert The Aftermath, Command & Conquer: Red Alert Counterstrike and Command & Conquer: The Covert Operations, were incomplete (this has been fixed in a patch).
  • The installpath registry entries for Command & Conquer, Command & Conquer: Red Alert, Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun and Command & Conquer: Renegade had errors (this has been fixed in a patch).
  • The map editor for Command & Conquer: Red Alert failed to detect The First Decade disc as being a valid Red Alert disc, hence it couldn't be used. However, this issue can be worked around by creating a shortcut to the map editor and appending "-cd." (without quotes) to the command line string.
  • The graphics quality is different, and on some monitors, the screen actually 'splits' with the top 3 quarters occupying the top with the last quarter at the bottom.

[edit] Official patches, updates and workarounds

"The First Decade" DVD case contents.
"The First Decade" DVD case contents.

Since The First Decade's release, EA has released two patches, namely 1.01 and 1.02. Because The First Decade doesn't come with an Autoupdate program, the patches must manually be downloaded and applied. The patches can be found here at EA's official "The First Decade" site, and must both be downloaded and applied separately as they touch different components of the compilation. The full changelist and bugfix list is also available there. Many of the bugs listed above have already been fixed in the first two patches.

EA Games has also confirmed a 1.03 patch to be in production to enable online play for the older C&C games as well as fix additional bugs. However, two years after the 1.02 patch the release of 1.03 remains to be seen. In an interview with EA Forums Moderator Apoc he states that EA is focusing completely on patching the recently released Command and Conquer 3 and that once the development team feels that they have addressed the issues with Command and Conquer 3, they may go back and deliver the now legendary v1.03 patch for Command and Conquer: The First Decade. Interview with Apoc

A number of third party fixes by the community have been released to enhance the quality of the compilation (see external links), although it is not known if they will be compatible with The First Decade 1.03 when it is released. Most of them are made by Nyerguds (one of the admins of the CnC Tech Center and a C&C modding enthusiast).

[edit] Bonus DVD

The Bonus DVD included in the compilation pack includes the following video items:

  • The First Decade
  • Louis Castle Interview
  • 10 Years of Command & Conquer(TM)
  • The Future
  • The Community
  • A Tribute to Command & Conquer(TM)
  • Bonus Features
    • The First Decade Trailer
    • Concept Artwork
    • The First Decade Credits

A good aspect of the discs in the compilation being DVDs, is that the Bonus DVD can also be used on TV.

[edit] "A Tribute To Command & Conquer" controversy

The "Tribute to Command & Conquer" item, a 5 minute montage of all the winning fan submitted videos was the most hyped feature to be included in the Bonus DVD, but many found it disappointing. Instead of being a whole section of its own, comprised of each of the 6 fan videos, only short extracts of each of the videos were put into the one montage video that is included.

EA has said that the reason the videos were not included in their entirety is because of infractions to copyright laws concerning the audio the fans used in their videos. The short movie extracts in the montage video do still have their original audio, but extremely vague and overpowered by a Russian-accented voiceover that's supposed to sound like Joseph Stalin from Command & Conquer: Red Alert. The video also makes the mistake of crediting the Number 6 winning video, known as "Slaughter" to "Slaughter-music video", rather than its real creator, Mattias "Tesla7zap" Lundin. It even miscredits the Number 4 video to Tim "HeXetic Gokcen", rather than Tim "HeXetic" Gokcen.

A side note to this movie is that right before Hexetic's video (#4), at 1 minute and 56 seconds, you can clearly see zerglings getting attacked by siege tanks from the game StarCraft.

The full versions of the videos are available for free download at CNCSaga.

[edit] "Louis Castle Interview" insight on C&C 3

The Louis Castle Interview item was a key factor in finding insight on a possible sequel to the acclaimed Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun, where Louis Castle vaguely revealed the possibilities of one by quote, "Well we are calling it The First Decade, not The Decade. So I guess that implies there are always possibilities for more, and I can assure people that we have not abandoned Command & Conquer by any stretch of the imagination. There's lots and lots of stories to tell and we're looking forward to telling them". Soon after, the official announcement of Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars was made.

The absence of other huge C&C figures such as Brett Sperry or Joseph D. Kucan were noticed by many fans (although Joseph Kucan was recently revealed to be involved with Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars), although that wasn't to say Louis Castle himself wasn't a good interviewee in terms of revealing information of the future of the Command & Conquer franchise, and also discussing how it was first made.

Louis Castle was also featured in pretty much every other video item just giving his insight here and there about each of the games in the compilation and also about the Command & Conquer franchise in general.

[edit] Bonus poster

Also included in the compilation, is a single A4 double-sided poster showing high-resolution renders of Command & Conquer on either side. The units shown in the renders not being familiar to fans as such, they were confirmed to be teasers for content in the upcoming Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars game.

[edit] Ion cannon

One of the renders is the new GDI Ion Cannon, appearing in Tiberium Wars. It is a highly upgraded version of the cannon from previous games and as such differs drastically. Upon activation, the satellite cannon fires 9 lasers in a circular pattern that deal small amounts of damage and is climaxed by a central laser which is seen in the previous games

[edit] Predator Tank

The other render on the other side of the poster is an image of the GDI's Predator tank, upgradable with a railgun at the Tech Center.

[edit] Compilation manual

The manual in the compilation unfortunately does not contain any backstory of information on the Command & Conquer series. Instead, the 70 page booklet only contains unit and structure descriptions for each of the games, as well as the standard pages such as warnings for epilepsy and the obligatory 'notes' section. Only Command & Conquer has its original manual provided which is in PDF form in its installed folder.

[edit] External links

v • d • e
Command & Conquer franchise
Video games
Playable factions
Generals games:
Characters
Tiberium games:
Red Alert games:
Modifications
 
Miscellaneous
 
Companies
Westwood Studios (1992–2002) · EA Pacific (2002–2003) · EA Los Angeles (2003—)
Virgin Interactive (1992–1998) · EA Games (1998–2005) · Electronic Arts (2005—)