Ceci est une ancienne révision du document !
There were many games developed during the late ’80s and early ’90s that became cultural icons in their own right. They became the yardsticks by which future games in that genre would be measured. Super Mario Bro’s for Platformers. Doom for FPS games. Ultima for RPG’s. Myst for adventure games.
In 1993, a developer called ‘Westwood Studios’ released one of the most ambitious game titles in history up to that point. A game set in an alternate Earth but modern times, telling a story from both sides of a fictional war. They used all the tricks they could to tell a compelling story from both sides of a war, complete with hammy acting in the video cut-scenes that would play before each mission.
I am talking about Command & Conquer. After it found very quick success, Westwood pushed out an expansion pack the following year, ‘The Covert Operations’ in 1996. In 1996, they released the first spin-off game (which was planned as another add-on to the original game) called ‘Red Alert’. This game took what worked in the original and improved on it. Better art, sound, everything.
The following year, they released not one but two expansion packs, ‘Counterstrike’ and ‘The Aftermath’, adding all this goodness to an already great game.
Then, in 1998, Westwood Studios went back to one of their original successful games and remade it. Dune 2000 was released, and although it used the same engine as Red Alert, it did not fare very well critically – with IGN and Gamespot giving it 5/10 each.
All these games are among my favourites of all time, and I have bought every edition of these games that I could find. But, during the past few years (since I made the switch to Linux), I could not enjoy them as much in an emulated environment (Dosbox or Virtualbox). However, I was surprised when I found out about OpenRA whilst browsing around Google. When I had heard that Command & Conquer and Red Alert, including the addon packs, became freeware, I was looking for a way to get these games running in Linux.
I was surprised when I not only managed to find this program, but also saw that it was open-source, updated to use the hardware acceleration of modern video cards using OpenGL and cross-platform positional sound built upon OpenAL. The people behind this not only managed to recreate the engine powering up these games, they also allow you to download the assets that would be needed to play the game from a server (if you do not have the CD or the freely available ISO files previously downloaded).
Gameplay
While I (and possibly you) love the classic RTS gameplay, multiplayer game design has evolved significantly since the early 1990s. The OpenRA mods include new features and gameplay improvements that bring them into the modern era: • A choice between “right click” and classic “left click” control schemes. • Overhauled sidebar interfaces for managing production. • Support for game replays (during single and multiplayer) with an observer mode designed for online streaming. • The ‘fog of war’ that obscures the battlefield outside of the line-of-sight of your controlled units/buildings. • Civilian buildings that can be captured and used for strategic purposes. • Units gain experience as they fight, improving with each rank.
Therefore these are classic games with modern standards that work in each ‘mod’.
Plot/Story
With the game being focused more on the multiplayer, there is a large single-player component with many of the original missions being recreated in this engine.
But each of the 3 mods have separate stories:
Dune 2000
• Three great houses fight for the precious spice melange. • He who controls the spice controls the universe! • Establish a foothold on the desert planet Arrakis, where your biggest threat is the environment.
Command & Conquer – Tiberian Dawn
An alliance of nations fights to protect Europe and northern Africa from a mysterious terrorist organization and the valuable but toxic alien mineral, Tiberium, that is slowly spreading over the world.
Command & Conquer – Red Alert
In a world where the Third Reich never existed, the Soviet Union seeks power over all of Europe. Allied against this Evil Empire, the free world faces a Cold War turned hot.
How to Install the engine and games
You can either get the latest stable version, or testing version, of the engine from their website located at www.openra.net/downloads. You can choose either the more stable but less feature-rich version, or the more feature-rich and possible very buggy and unstable testing version. Once the small file (about 20 MB) has been downloaded, either by double-clicking the file (thereby opening up the default .deb installer), or by opening up a terminal and typing in the following:
sudo dpkg -i ~/Downloads/openra-(rest_of_file_name).deb
Assuming that is where you’re downloading the file from.
Now to get the game data.
Automatic installation (recommended)
OpenRA will prompt you to install the original game content the first time that you launch a mod. This process occurs automatically from inside the game: the game client can download a minimal set of game files from the internet, or copy the full game content (including music and movies) from an original install cd.
Manual installation
If you would like to install the game files manually, then you may copy the *.MIX files to: • Windows: %USERPROFILE%\My Documents\OpenRA\Content\$MOD or%ProgramFiles%\OpenRA\Support (portable installation) • Mac OSX: ~/Library/Application Support/OpenRA/Content/$MOD • Linux: ~/.openra/Content/$MOD (Note: Linux is case-sensitive, so you have to change .MIX to .mix)
where $MOD is the mod ID: • ra for Red Alert • cnc for Tiberian Dawn • d2k for Dune 2000
On the first run, the game will ask whether you want to download a stripped-down version automatically (as both the full motion video and music soundtrack are optional). For a wholesome multimedia experience, you should copy the complete *.MIX content from the original game CD.
Installing the full-motion videos
The FMVs take up most of the space on the original game media (~500MB each), so they are not included in the downloaded game assets. They can easily be added if you have the original media, though.
Tiberian Dawn
The installation of the movie files is quite straightforward here. You need both the GDI and Nod disc for the installation, as each contains a different set of movies. • Insert the GDI disc. • Copy the MOVIES.MIX file from the CD to the cnc game content directory and rename it to movies-gdi.mix. • Insert the Nod disc. • Copy the MOVIES.MIX file from the CD to the cnc game content directory and rename it to movies-nod.mix.
Red Alert
The steps here are a bit more involved, as the .MIX files we are interested in are actually contained in yet other .MIX files, so we have to extract them first. Here, too, you need both the Soviet and Allied disc. • Insert the Allied disc. • Copy the MAIN.MIX file from the CD to your ra game content directory. • Open a terminal/console window, change to the directory where you installed OpenRA. • Run the following command: “./OpenRA.Utility.exe ra –extract movies1.mix” • Move movies1.mix from the OpenRA installation directory to your ra game content directory. • Insert the Soviet disc. • Copy the MAIN.MIX file from the CD to your ra game content directory (you can overwrite the existing one). • Open a terminal/console window, change to the directory where you installed OpenRA. • Run the following command: “./OpenRA.Utility.exe ra –extract movies2.mix” • Move movies2.mix from the OpenRA installation directory to your ra game content directory.
Dune 2000
This one is easier again. In fact, the Copy from CD option in-game during the asset installation will already copy the movies, in contrast to the other two mods.
If you have the need to install them manually, it's still easy since it just involves copying files from the CD to your hard drive. This will work correctly only for the assets from the English version of the game, as the files are named differently for other languages. • Insert the Dune 2000 disc. • Move the contents of the movies directory on the CD into the Movies (note: upper-case!) subdirectory of the d2k game content directory. • Optionally: if you have a non-English version of the game, you have to rename the movie files to match their English counterparts, so, for example, from a_br01_g.vqa ('g' for German) toa_br01_e.vqa ('e' for English).
Conclusion
While this is an amazing piece of work that is slowly improving all the time, I cannot wait until they implement their next feature into the game: support for Command & Conquer 2 – Tiberian Sun!
I will happily rate this ‘game’ an extremely well-deserved 4/5 stars.
System requirements: • Shader Model 2.0 capable GPU (Radeon 9500+ / GeForce FX5200+ / GMA X3100+) • 1GB Free Hard Drive Space • 512MB RAM (the game itself uses ~100MB) • Sound • 3 Button Mouse • Network Card (desirable) • Display capable of at least 1024×768
So… basically any pc made in the last 10 years.