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Daily C&C Trivia

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I've decided to make a topic with lesser known tidbits about C&C and its covers, manuals, inside errors or possible Easter eggs... whatever I can think of.

ENTRY 1 - May 16th, 2013

KANE'S WRATH COVER

EovpMom.jpg

When looked at closely, Kane's mask has a reflection with Westwood's original Tiberian Sun render of CABAL, albeit without the logical side flip.

 

ZWkrAYs.jpg

The Croatian-localized cover mistakenly states that the expansion adds up 2,5 GB to hard drive usage instead of 4 GB. It is possible that Algoritam (the book and multimedia selling company that localizes games in Croatia) did not receive the movie files that would complete (and surpass) the correct hard drive usage. Unlike many localizations in Europe, the Croatian ones do not change the movie voiceovers, so EA likely did not consider this neccessary.

 

 

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I did not know about the Cabal thing...

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Huh, well isn't that nifty. :D

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ENTRY 2 - May 17th, 2013
X-O POWERSUIT vs. WOLVERINE
XO_Power_Suit.gif
The walker seen in the first 1995 trailer for Tiberian Sun is often believed to be the first Wolverine. However, it turns out that it barely fits the description of a walker - it is only tall enough to host a pilot, but not a full control cabin like its successors in the Second Tiberium War.

618px-CNCTD_Early_Powersuit_sketch.jpg
The X-O Powersuit is just that - a powersuit. It can be compared with the Third Tiberium War zone troopers and zone raiders, which, surprisingly, have similar armament in terms of firepower. The X-O Powersuit used a laser weapon, which was the first and only known usage of laser technology by GDI, and which was field-tested to demolish a Humvee in a single shot. The zone troopers use a railgun, while the zone raiders use sonic grenades to counter enemy armour. Also, the Wolverine has both "arms" armed with machineguns, while the X-O Powersuit only has one (the left).

618px-CNCTD_XO_Jetpack_concept_art_2.jpg
The X-O Powersuit was also planned to be used in paradrops, meaning that they were used in infantry battalions, while its successors had vehicle status. The Wolverines required a more stable deployment through Orca Carry-alls and V-35 Ox transports.

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ENTRY 3 - May 18th, 2013
TIBERIAN DAWN JANUARY 1995 TRAILER


Idrachod2 from Youtube has uploaded a very rare trailer of Tiberian Dawn from January 1995 - so rare that not even Nyerguds had known of it until a year ago.

What makes this trailer so special is the following:
  • 0:04-0:07 - C&C beta logo
  • Cutscenes without the strange stretching
  • 0:36-0:54 - complete sniper cutscene seen only partially in the game intro, the later German trailer and the 1996 Bravo feature
  • 1:26-1:31 - unmelting of a Longbow??
  • 1:39-2:09 - unused Kane cutscene. This was very likely Kucan's test shot that he mentioned at CommandCom 2009 (recording seen below)


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Damn Kane looks so young in that trailer. :o He looks better there than in future iterations I feel, his costumes start getting, over the top as time goes on.

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ENTRY 4 - May 19th, 2013
DESTRUCTIBLE TIMES


Most of you will likely recognize this song - it is Destructible Times by the band I AM, which, in a shortened remix, appeared in all four Tiberian Dawn Nod credits videos.

Frank Klepacki was the drummer in the band at the time and still supports the band through his website (see his store for the shirt saying I live in destructable times) even though they disbanded in 1995, not long after they released their album There's A Home, from which Destructible Times was extracted. Westwood asked Klepacki for the song because it "reflected the war aspect and bad-ass vibe of Nod's side".

However, according to Law360.com, Greg Greer, the band's vocal, sued EA for using the song in 2010, but lost the lawsuit in 2012, (Klepacki permitted the song's use in 1995!) As it turns out, Westwood did not make a copyright infringing move. Strangely, Klepacki no longer has the band's songs in his Listen page (ex-Jukebox) except for a 51-second sample of Destructible Times as it appeared in Tiberian Dawn.Thanks MrFlibble for correcting me. Edited by Plokite_Wolf
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ENTRY 5 - May 20th, 2013
RED ALERT 2 CENSORSHIP
Believe it or not, this entry will not cover German censorship that much - because RA2 is so far the only C&C game not to be censored by the infamous BPjS. Seen below is the German gameplay of the first Soviet mission where you can see Conscripts firing on civilians (03:02) - something that led the first German release of Generals to be banned.



Who censored RA2 and YR and why? The United States! Red Alert 2 was good for its first year of shelf life, but after September 11th, 2001, Westwood decided to censor the front cover of the game not to reveal the American flag in Volkov's eyepiece or the demolished buildings. This change was introduced in re-releases and the Red Strike pack (the 2002 RA2+YR bundle box).
98jYg0G.jpg

This is best seen in Yuri's Revenge. The game was scheduled to be released in September 2001, but the mentioned 9/11 event got the team to think - they were on the fringe of cancelling the game fully, but in the end, they've released the game with altered art. However, certain boxes with the original art made it to the public, for instance the Russian-localized version.
0Z4BQcO.jpg
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Censorship, perhaps, but not of the usual variety. They weren't told to censor themselves by anybody, they did it by their own choice and it was motivated by marketability, they thought it would hurt sales showing images that brought the WTC attacks to mind so soon after the fact (and they were probably right, some people get offended way too easily).

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However, according to Law360.com, Greg Greer, the band's vocal, sued EA for using the song in 2010 and won the lawsuit in 2012, even though Klepacki permitted the song's use in 1995!

Interesting! I only wonder why the article you linked to says that Greg Gree lost the case?

Law360, New York (February 15, 2012, 9:03 PM ET) -- A California federal judge on Tuesday denied a musician's bid for summary judgment in a copyright infringement suit against Electronic Arts Inc. that accuses the video game maker of illicitly using one of the musician's songs in the real-time strategy game "Command & Conquer."

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Second misread in two days... I'm aging. Fixed.

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I remember I think it was Tiberium wars, they replaced the suicide guys with I think it was an explosive barrel, I can't recall. Funny people those Germans. :P

 

Oh here is a good video of it. :P

 

 

Honestly that game looks better. :P

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Guest Rabbit

Censorship, perhaps, but not of the usual variety. They weren't told to censor themselves by anybody, they did it by their own choice and it was motivated by marketability

 

This exactly. The original Zero Hour cover (with the ship being hit by a laser beam) had the number 73 on it. Right before the artwork got sent off to print, someone recognized it as the USS George Washington, and immediately recalled it (before any "censorship" hit it).

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ENTRY 6 - May 21st, 2013
UNUSED UNITS IN RED ALERT 2 INTRO
You may've seen the beta shots of RA2 (if not, though, click here). You may have also seen concept art for cut units. But did you know that some of the cut units made it to the game's cutscenes?

RA2_Corkscrew_Transport_Render.JPG
This is the Corkscrew Transport. The original concept art suggests it was an Allied unit, but the intro video displays it along with the Soviet arsenal. Only one screenshot reveals this unit, with a crop here:
RA2_Corkscrew_Transport.png

----------------------------------------------------------------------
NYHarbor.jpg
This WIP render hosts Dreadnoughts and Typhoon Subs. Among them is a tiny unit that is logged as the Hydrofoil, which is barely noticable in the final video, as the missile launches do not permit you to take notice of it. You can see two of them in this screenshot, both on the Allied and the Soviet side. However, the unit is believed to be Soviet, as the Sea Scorpion, the unit that overwrote the Hydrofoil, is designated in the INI files as [HYD].
RA2_Hydrofoil.png

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Looks more like pontoons than hydrofoils though...

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The German cenzorship is really confusing... while i can really understand changes of appearence of generals and fighting units, i really don't get why GLA worker became a "cyborg". Work is bad? Muslim worker is offensive?


It must be added, that in Germany is huge amount of people who are immigrants from Turkey and Islamic States, so changes in C&C: Generals were made for exactly one purpose: To not offend those people (more precisely - kids of those people)... but i belive in GB and USA have much more Muslims in their countries and they don't even bother with such things, so why Germans even come up with that? Because they didn't engage in Iraq war, so they managed, that selling such game without "cosmetic changes" in some way escalates the conflict.

 

Cenzorship is really bad idea - for example: in my country Nazi flag is banned in most of World War II games, and replaced with Weimar Republic flag - which leads to misunderstanding who was the "bad guys".

Edited by Traymen

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Another example of German cenzorship in C&C.



This time Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun. Nod brief Mission 4: Execution of Hassan.



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The German cenzorship is really confusing... while i can really understand changes of appearence of generals and fighting units, i really don't get why GLA worker became a "cyborg". Work is bad? Muslim worker is offensive?

The worker is not the issue - it's his quotes like "I'm hungry" and similar ones that state that he's being tortured.

It must be added, that in Germany is huge amount of people who are immigrants from Turkey and Islamic States, so changes in C&C: Generals were made for exactly one purpose: To not offend those people (more precisely - kids of those people)... but i belive in GB and USA have much more Muslims in their countries and they don't even bother with such things, so why Germans even come up with that? Because they didn't engage in Iraq war, so they managed, that selling such game without "cosmetic changes" in some way escalates the conflict.

The Muslim immigrants are, again, not the issue. Germany censors all sorts of graphic violence and the original Generals release was banned because, according to the BPjS idiots, it "promoted warfare".

Cenzorship is really bad idea - for example: in my country Nazi flag is banned in most of World War II games, and replaced with Weimar Republic flag - which leads to misunderstanding who was the "bad guys".

Never knew Poland has censorship of any kind.

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Never knew Poland has censorship of any kind.

Every country has censorship to some degree. In fact, a little censorship is a good thing, but too many countries just go overboard with it.

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Its funny seeing all those early RA2 screenshots again. Funny because Westwood basically released a whole bunch of fake ones when they announced the games. There are a handful of very early screenshots that were "made", not actual gameplay. They were in-game assets simply copied and pasted to make exciting looking screenshots.

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As for the censorship the Germans seem very particular about anything related to war or violence. Besides violence is old hat, nowadays the German war machine conquers countries with its bankers. :P

 

 

They were in-game assets simply copied and pasted to make exciting looking screenshots.

 

Heheh, these days they (developers) make entire videos that look exciting with features which never appear in the end product. :P

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The worker is not the issue - it's his quotes like "I'm hungry" and similar ones that state that he's being tortured.

 

It's even more silly, because if "robot" says: "I'm hungry" it is acceptable nevertheless he still is a slave... not easier just to erase this quote from the game? Of course it is not a question to You, but censorship is always an issue which damage some sort of developed material.

 

Never knew Poland has censorship of any kind.

 

Like Nmenth said, every country has some level of acceptance to published material.

 

Game "Codename: Panzers Phase One" was nearly banned from pollish stores for one scene from game (watch from ~18:50):

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6ZFvWX6yLI&feature=player_detailpage#t=1132s

 

Polish media focused on this scene, because some way they managed, that a guy from basement is a Polish oficer. Moreover, the game bounced so much on public opinion, that even then-president Kaczyński (same who died in Smoleńsk incident) called to boycott the game. As far as i know this is the only game which have been censored in Poland (this scene was erased in premiere version) and game included a short briefieng about World War II.

 

As for the censorship the Germans seem very particular about anything related to war or violence. Besides violence is old hat, nowadays the German war machine conquers countries with its bankers. :P

 

***END OF OFFTOPIC***

Edited by Traymen

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I'm not sure is this been already published... but it's worth to (i think).

 

-1290587812.jpg

As You may suppose, this picture wasn't published on Red Alert 2 box - from known reasons (9/11). EA decided to erase this picture even with the title: "The invasion has began" for prevention. However, this screen looks amazing and reminds me this movie:

 

Edited by Traymen

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Every country has censorship to some degree. In fact, a little censorship is a good thing, but too many countries just go overboard with it.

Luckily, there is no censorship in video games where I live. But then again, +90% of all software is pirated here, so censorship would be a total waste of time and effort...

 

Its funny seeing all those early RA2 screenshots again. Funny because Westwood basically released a whole bunch of fake ones when they announced the games. There are a handful of very early screenshots that were "made", not actual gameplay. They were in-game assets simply copied and pasted to make exciting looking screenshots.

Oh yeah, these screenshots were edited later in some back covers, especially in re-releases and budget releases. Weird.

 

As for the censorship the Germans seem very particular about anything related to war or violence. Besides violence is old hat, nowadays the German war machine conquers countries with its bankers. :P

Strangely, Germany has very liberal laws when it comes to softcore porn (I mean come on, nearly all commercial TV stations there, including sports channels, have porn every midnight!!) but when it comes to games, they tend to believe rigged "research" results that violence in games creates maniacs and whatnot.

 

Heheh, these days they (developers) make entire videos that look exciting with features which never appear in the end product. :P

Features like a playable game, for instance? :D

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Daily C&C trivia input is on hold until Wednesday.

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