Command & Conquer: Renegade

Command & Conquer: Renegade is developed by Westwood Studios and is part of the Command & Conquer series. It was released on February 26, 2002.

Its story takes place during the final days of the First Tiberium War originally depicted in Command & Conquer where the player assumes the role of commando Nick 'Havoc' Parker carrying out various missions assigned to him by his superiors. These missions take him all over the world in various countries and climates, both indoor and outdoor, and his actions greatly affect the current state of the war.

As the player roams through terrains, a variety of objectives appear on the top right hand corner of the screen. This indicates that your general has sent missions to EVA, which stands for Electronic Video Assistance. EVA carries all your objectives and the status they are currently in. You are able to access EVA by simpling hitting the ESC button while in gameplay. There are three types of missions you are able to receive: primary, secondary and tertiary. If you receive a primary objective, the mission must be completed otherwise the game is over. If you receive a secondary mission, you don't have to complete it, but it might assist you in gameplay. A tertiary mission does not make many changes in the game when completed.

Story
Renegade's storyline deals with the abduction of GDI's top three Tiberium research specialists by the Brotherhood of Nod. The player takes on the role of GDI commando Nick "Havoc" Parker, who is assigned to rescue these experts. As the game progresses it is revealed that they have been forced into biochemistry research for the Brotherhood's top secret "Project Re-Genesis," an attempt to create genetically enhanced super-soldiers.

Gameplay
Command & Conquer: Renegade follows the standard FPS formula, giving the player weapons and a set of objectives for each level that must be met before continuing to the next. This is the only C&C game that has the first person view, this also gives the feeling to the player that he/she is the main character.

Multiplayer
The multiplayer element of this game takes the form of 'Command and Conquer Mode', in which players are divided into the two teams: GDI and Nod. Each team starts with a base and must purchase vehicles and advanced character classes in order to destroy the enemy base and defend their own base. The game is won when one team destroys the other's base or the time limit expires and the team with the highest score is declared the winner. Damaging and destroying enemy units and structures earns points. Some servers allow the 'endgame beacon' that causes the game to be instantly won by the team that successfully detonates a superweapon beacon on the opposing team’s pedestal located in their Barracks or Hand of Nod. Gameplay is a combination of FPS and RTS elements, since team members receive money from tiberium harvesting and must purchase their own individual equipment.

Development
The game engine, called the "Renegade engine" or "Westwood 3D", was developed in-house by Westwood, although it was based on the SurRender 3D engine, which was licensed from Finnish middleware company Hybrid Graphics. It is designed to support real world physics and allow seamless movement from indoor to outdoor environments. The "Westwood 3D" engine was re-used as the base of the Strategy Action Game Engine used in Command & Conquer: Generals, Battle for Middle Earth, Battle for Middle Earth 2, and Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars.

When the game missed its shipping date, Westwood made a humorous video titled Havoc Takes on Westwood in which Havoc, the game's main character and hero, goes to Westwood Studios to make sure the game doesn't miss its shipping date again. The video can be downloaded here.

Ironically, even after the video was made, they missed the shipping date once again.

The game originally featured a different commando (Logan Shephard), looking much more akin to the original Command & Conquer unit and was much less action-oriented than its final incarnation. Also, Nod troopers looked more like their Tiberian Dawn equivalent, donning professional urban camouflage uniforms rather than red jumpsuits easily distinguishable on the battlefield.

After the closure of Westwood Studios in February, 2003, the responsibility for maintaining the official forums for Renegade was passed on to Christine "Crimson" Korza of Blackhand Studios, a non-profit organization whose mission statement includes keeping the game's community active, enhancing and patching the game, and keeping multiplayer games cheat-free through their RenGuard software.

Renegade was re-released in at least two EA Classics boxes (one including Comanche 4 as a bonus, and the other including Freedom Force) sometime after its initial release and was included in two Command & Conquer compilations: The Command & Conquer Collection, and Command & Conquer Collected.

On February, 2006, Renegade was shipped in the compilation, Command & Conquer: The First Decade along with 11 other Command & Conquer titles on a two DVD set. The bonus DVD contains slightly less than an hour's worth of content involving all the games included. The game DVD of Command & Conquer: The First Decade, Renegade included its latest patch (1.037) by default, has a sanctioned No-CD application on it, plus the CD components such as the movie files are now installed into its folder. Renegade, along with a few other titles had problems with its registry entry in the compilation's initial release, which has been since fixed in The First Decade's 1.02 patch.

While Westwood originally intended to make a sequel to Renegade set in the late Red Alert universe (known only as Renegade 2), the project was cancelled before any official announcements were made. Concept art depicting Red Alert styled structures and vehicles can be found online, as well as a test level depicting a Soviet refinery. Red Alert: A Path Beyond, an active fan project boasting 6000+ players monthly (February 2008), has now implemented Red Alert styled gameplay and content using the Renegade engine, also becoming the first of three fan projects to receive permission to release in a stand-alone fashion and the only one to have be promoted in an official capacity by EA. No record exists of another fan project being promoted and directly linked for download by Electronic Arts in a similar fashion.

No official expansion packs were ever released for the game. However, a software development kit (SDK) was released by Westwood Studios so that users could add their own content to the game. The studio also released a number of high-resolution models to the mod-making community, including some from the Command & Conquer: Red Alert games, particularly the second. Many fan sites have been established to celebrate the game and allow players to download new maps and custom expansion packs.

In July, 2006, EA Games released a software development kit (SDK) that catered for 3DS Max software for Command & Conquer: Generals and The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth games. Although Renegade used the same basic game engine as these other two games series, it was not made compatible to this new SDK. However, members from the Red Alert: A Path Beyond community modified and re-released it to be compatible with Renegade after informing EA. An updated version was officially released, but lacked the ability to properly enable collision settings on the 3d meshes used by the game.

Series links
Nearly every unit and most of the structures featured in the original Command & Conquer has been re-created in the game, although with aesthetic changes. New characters include various mutants, GDI elite commandos known as the "Dead Six" and Nod elites such as the Black hand, Sakura, and Mendoza.

Some of the game's missions seem to be based on some GDI missions in Tiberian Dawn, such as the one in which Dr. Mobius is abducted by Nod and the player is charged with rescuing him, and the final mission in Renegade inspired by the assault on Kane's Sarajevo headquarters, though the mission itself takes place in Cairo. In the final Renegade mission, set in the Temple of Nod, certain rooms are recognizable as those from Tiberian Dawn's Nod mission briefings.

Awards
Gamespy PC Game Of the Year Awards - 2002 "Wish it had been a hit"

3DActionPlanet Editorial Awards 2002 "Best Multiplayer Shooter"

AIAS Interactive Achievement Awards - 2003 Finalist for "Best Online Gameplay of the Year"

Modifications
C&C Renegade has been the launch pad for several C&C-based FPS mods. The three most popular mods, Red Alert: A Path Beyond, C&C Reborn, and C&C Apocalypse Rising, have all become standalone games through permission of EA Los Angeles. Other popular mods related to this game include Roleplay 2, and Renegade 2007, a remake of the game based on Unreal Engine 3.