ADSDAQ - The Banners That Pay! Tiberian Sun For over three years, we have been waiting patiently, only to be disappointed by setbacks again and again. Now, finally it's arrived. You will find that it brings back the atmosphere of the original and the playability of Red Alert. Instead of starting with a construction yard and a few units, mission after mission, you will start in the middle of a desperate battle or witnessing civilians being slaughtered. You don't have control of your units while you watch, but when you do, you have a taste of personnel revenge still fresh in your mouth. Although Westwood have not completely overhauled the entire C&C idea much at all - it still uses the familiar interface, but it quickly becomes clear why Westwood have had so many delays and what they did with their time. They have created an excellent game with about 20 different units on each side, all perfectly balanced, each one with a distinct purpose, leading to a much greater variety of tactics. These tactics come in useful because you can no longer simply make a tank rush, the maps are too well thought out for that. You always have a frightening choice of what to do like ‘should I attack with all my units or should I stay and defend my base?' You never feel perfectly safe and this gives you a thrilling, trembling feeling, especially on the timed missions where you are almost bouncing up and down in your seat with terrified, excitement. The excellent graphics allow lovely little touches like infantry men running for cover while the unfortunate ones catch on fire if standing to close to an exploding vehicle, cyborgs bravely crawling on when one of their legs have been blown off and searchlights scanning the terrain for hiding enemy soldiers. Deformable terrain also gives a wider variety of tactics as well as giving a more real feel to the game. Rivers can freeze over letting you cross them and then can collapse if put under too much pressure. Cliff sides can be destroyed giving way to a nice slope which your units can move up and down but can also give a false sense of security if they surround your base. The voxels (3D pixels) make the terrain look brilliant and truly 3 dimensional and will allow the game to run smoothly on a low spec computer. However they make the units a little blocky and look as if some vehicles hover a small distance from the ground. In the multi-player aspect things have changed a lot. Rumors are that Westwood will only allow the game to be played on their Westwood Chat servers. If you have ever played multi-player Red Alert you will notice that the preferred tactic of many people is to simply make a tank rush very quickly. This may have died out in Tiberian Sun because you are only allowed one Commando or Mammoth MK II at a time and building multiple weapons factories will only increase your productivity once - no matter how many you build. If you are not connected to the internet (unlikely if you are reading this) or if you just cant be bothered setting it all up then you will be happy to hear that the AI has been greatly improved upon. In skirmish mode enemy units have actually learnt not to continue to send units to a place where they have no chance of winning. It will still rarely do a well coordinated attack, hitting you at your weakest point, but if you play with several computer opponents you will get the fight you are looking for. Score: 93% Publisher: EA Developer: Westwood Specifications: P166 (P266 Recommended) 32MB RAM - Mick Campbell and Luke Harris The DimeClicks.com Network Sign-Up Today Read our Disclaimer for copyright details and credits. For assistance contact Luke Harris.