Command and Conquer: The Ultimate Collection- What I Think

What is up people of the internet, it's Josh and I'm back with another game review, or rather, a collection of games! The game is Command and Conquer: The Ultimate Collection, which came out in late 2012. Command and Conquer is one of the oldest games in history, and the granddaddy of strategy game franchises. Alright, enough with the history. Cue the review!

Games Included

Command and Conquer: The Ultimate Collection includes 17 games (an expansion counting as a game). The following is a list of games included in the package: 

• Command and Conquer (Tiberian Dawn)
• Command and Conquer: The Covert Operations
• Command and Conquer: Red Alert
• Command and conquer: Red Alert Counterstrike
• Red Alert The Aftermath
• Red Alert 2 
• Red Alert 2 Yuri's Revenge
• Red Alert 3 
• Red Alert 3 Uprising 
• C&C 2: Tiberian Sun
• Tiberian Sun: Firestorm
• Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars
• Command and Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath
• Command and Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight
• Command and Conquer: Renegade
• Command and Conquer: Generals
• Command and Conquer: Generals Zero Hour

Once you install the additional content that shows up in your origin library along with the other games, you can open it up and find that the collection includes the best songs in the games (mentioned below), some really awesome-looking wallpapers, and the trailers and a beta key for the new free to play Command and Conquer (Generals 2).

The guys over at EA have been nice enough to combine the best songs from the franchise into one 20 song album. It includes the main menu theme from Tiberium Wars, Hell March from Red Alert, the Generals theme, and much more. 

As you can imagine, this collection is an incredible value in terms of content. However, there are a few drawbacks: 

Problems With C&C Ultimate Collection: 

• There has not been any graphical upgrade for the older games. For players like me, this is a huge downside. However, if you play the old ones for nostalgic value, this is a good thing.
• The games that are older than Generals haven't really been optimized for the latest computers, such as my windows 8 laptop. I have experienced frequent crashes while playing Tiberian Sun and Tiberian Dawn.
• Older games also use the gamespy servers, and they have proceeded to withdraw support. Don't expect to play any multiplayer on anything older than C&C 3. 
• The music might not show up right away. You'll probably have to re-install it multiple times to get it to show up. 
• After playing C&C 3 Kane's Wrath for a little while, when you try to open it, it will say "you must have C&C 3 Tiberium Wars installed to play Kane's Wrath", even though it IS installed. I still haven't found a way to fix this problem.
• If you buy the physical copy and were hoping to get all of the game discs, then sorry. The case just comes with a bunch of codes to download them online. I got the digital edition and can't play discs on my laptop anyway, so not a big deal for me, but this might just be a deal breaker for hardcore collectors.

So, should you buy it?

Yes, despite all the problems with it, this is still an amazing collection of what could be the most praised video game franchises of all time. If you haven't got it already go check it out: