C&C First Decade Ships To Stores (February 7, 2006)

Electronic Arts announced this morning that they have shipped Command & Conquer: The First Decade. This new pack represents one of EA's most complete series anthlogies ever. Beginning with 1995's original C&C title, the set includes twelve titles released during the franchise's first ten years. As the FMV concept proved to be mainly a fad, both Wing Commander and Command & Conquer were two of the few that were able to pull it off with a lot of success. Although the development team behind Generals & Zero Hour has been working on the Lord of the Rings based RTS games lately, First Decade's title implies there is more yet to come.

For $39.99, buyers also get a bonus DVD with concept art, developer interviews and contributions from the world's biggest C&C fans. EA has also set up a Screenshot Hall of Fame to record players' biggest moments. For fans of both Wing Commander and Command & Conquer, picking up this special set might tell EA how interested gamers are in their classic game catalog from the 1990s.


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Original update published on February 7, 2006

You're the guy who gets angry because the giant bucket of free gold he's given isn't diamond studded, aren't you?

Funny thing is that EA hasn't entirely abandond live-action FMV. Need for speed: Most wanted is a fun arcade racer yet they actualy have a whole bunch of acted cutscenes (I beleive the backgrounds are CG). As far as I can tell, its pretty linear though so nothing like multiple versions in a wc game. however, it kinda puts the nail in the coffin of the idea that EA is afraid of filming cutscenes.

There is a downside to this (or a plus dependind on how you want to look at it), NFS:Most Wanted is cross platform and a currently established franchise, not a series that hasn't seen action in years. I do feel that EA wouldn't consider a new WC game though without it being cross-platform. At least, I dont think you would see the quality we expect if it isn't.

Yeah, I'm always saying fan support is the most important thing. Everyone who's involved with Wing Commander community stuff today is doing their part to bring the next game closer to reality.

Those C&C boxes are from my own collection. I'm only missing Red Alert: Aftermath and C&C Sole Survivor (not counting a million console ports and special releases in the series).

High resolution video for WC3 and P2 might be a little difficult, since there's no such thing for those two games...

Privateer 2 was shot on film -- it may exist somewhere (though I doubt it would be available today).

The point is that we're already doing much more than that. The people on the fan DVD are people who got together in real life to celebrate the series, created fan projects, fan art, hosted tournaments and so on. These C&C fans were recognized because they live and breath their series every day. EA doesn't care if a dozen or two people write letters. Thousands of people showing their daily devotion for many years is far more effective.

Fry's has it on sale for $30 this weekend.

Games that run in 98 at all are getting pretty rare, and the C&C First Decade pack *requires* XP. There's going to be a very tiny number of new games shipped to retail in 2006 that don't run automatically in XP, and definitely none from major publishers such as Electronic Arts.