Command and Still Commanding
It's been since the air raid drills in the days of Command and Conquer: Red Alert since I've played a game “over the Internet” with a friend. Oh, how times have changed.
Back then, I played with Scott Waite. I had borrowed Red Alert from my cousin, Anthony, and used to play it early in the morning before school. Sometimes Scott and I would chat about the game at school, so we decided to play a game together. But, there was no possibility of Internet-play back then. We had to connect via modem. Preparation for the game was meticulous: first, we planned a time at school, then I would return home and ask my mom if I could keep this appointment to garner my tank armies in an attempt to overpower a tesla coil-entrenched base. Reminding me to make sure that I kept a few attack dogs in my base to ward off enemy spies that might try and infiltrate my ranks, she would approve, and the hour appointed for war would draw nigh. We would again call one another and one of us would agree to call the other through the game over the modem. When I would receive the call, I would first need to warn everyone in the household not to answer the phone when it rang, because the bell would be tolling for me – to engage in animated combat. These requests were generally met with wonderings about this strange technology and what in the world a young babbling boy on the computer in the basement might be up to suggesting such a thing.
This strange technology of the modem wasn’t the most reliable. Often, multiple calls were required, and then, inevitably, a warning call against answering the subsequent calls over the modem was not given and the phone was picked up, and war was averted. Blast! But, eventually, the phones were quarantined and the game coxed enough to let the wargames begin. As I remember, I used to do fairly well against Scott. Those are fun, nostalgic times.
Enter yesterday. My friend, Jacob Christensen, with whom I regularly chat since we moved to Utah asked me if I wanted to play Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars. “Over the Internet?” I ask. Yes, he was clearly ready to play and didn’t make a big deal out of it. Dude, but things like this have always been a big deal. He told me about a VPN client/personal firewall of sorts call Hamachi which our friend Bean had told him about. After glancing at the Wikipedia article describing such, I followed the download link Jacob sent me, downloaded it and went through a 2 minute tutorial on its use. Jacob gave me a network name and password to connect to, I typed it in, and we were off. Ok, start up this genre-chasing remake of all things we used to play yesteryear… We verified we were both on the latest version of the game and started it up. Because of the use of Hamachi, we could play a game as if we were both on the same LAN. We chatted a bit in-game, which is a now-standard feature which the old games wanted so badly, and then started ‘er up.
Before we knew it, we were thrust into an alternate universe – one in which the mysterious mineral Tiberium had infested the Earth and over which we were know warring. C&C3 is rendered in full, beautiful 3D. The ambient light and smooth motion of the models makes this game a pleasure to view, even if rendering a barren earthscape. Within 12 minutes, I had wiped out Jacob (sorry, man) and claimed rule of that map.
Chatting in the green room after the dust had settled, we commented on how easy it was to get a quick skirmish started as we did. We were both surprised. Games have come a long way – a long way. But, I’m still not quite sure which era was more fun. Years ago, little boys could find hours of fixated enjoyment with such simple toys as a Tonka truck. Now, a Transformer, morphing into many shapes exhibiting many blinking, flailing functions cannot captivate. Perhaps it was the same with yesterday’s game. It was fun, to be sure. The mutual annihilation of friends was even exhilarating at times. I was glad I won. But, with so many other attractions in this world brimming with sensory-overloading entertainment options, I’m not sure a quaint little world war over the Internet will hold my attention for long.