'Acting' In a Command & Conquer Cutscene Is my Dream Job

And I Miss This Franchise Too

I love strategy games.

Total War, Hearts of Iron IV, Europa Universalis IV, Crusader Kings 2 & 3, Imperator: Rome, Superpower 2, Civilisation, Steel Division 2, Company of Heroes. You get the idea.

But one of the greats: one of the heads on the Mount Rushmore of strategy icons has gone AWOL: Command & Conquer.

Years ago, from about the late-90’s to the mid-2000’s this Real Time Strategy dynasty was everywhere; with 3 million copies sold, the original game (retroactively renamed to Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn) even wound up on the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 but I don’t own those versions, you’ll have to tell me in the comments if you’ve played them because the idea of controlling a game like that with a controller of that era gives me nightmares.

There are many reasons why the Command & Conquer games were so great. The trilogy’s insane lore and storyline with links to the Old Testament of the Bible was absolutely ridiculous and had no right to be as compelling as it was. Frank Klepacki’s synth-y, heavy metal soundtracks added greatly to the atmosphere and amped you up for combat; I knew I’d love the first game when it opened with a D-Day-esque beach landing with Act on Instinct blaring in the background. The gameplay in those first few C&C games is quite primitive by today’s standards, and the clunky controls and claustrophobic field of view make the game harder than it needs to be but it can still be fun today, especially if you play the remaster.

But I don’t care about any of that right now. because my favourite part of Command & Conquer are the cutscenes, they are hammy, low-budget, overacted masterpieces.

The earlier games had members of the development team taking up roles in the cutscenes and doing their best to keep a serious face and to deliver lines; the standard of acting wasn’t exactly A-List but it was enough to make the games immersive and the character of Kane: the series’ antagonist played by Joseph D. Kucan who was the voice talent director for the first game, became a beloved fan-favourite and helped the man discover his love for acting and he now owns a theatre company.

The scene above was deliciously hammy yes but Kucan’s charisma and obvious enjoyment just make the whole thing a treat to watch.

Command & Conquer’s cutscenes were yet to peak, however and we would truly see the full extent of their greatness with the arrival of the Command & Conquer Red Alert trilogy where from the second entry, Westwood Studios began to hire known actors to play parts in the game like Ray Wise. The plot of the trilogy revolves around the Cold War powers going back in time to affect the events of World War Two to their favour with their efforts frequently going hilariously wrong… so all pretence of needing serious performances or good acting was already off the table.

Take this cutscene for instance, where Red Alert 2’s villain… is devoured by a T-Rex at the end of the Yuri’s Revenge expansion.

Whoever came up with this ending needs a lifetime achievement award from Geoff Keighley.

Somehow, they managed to make it even better as now we arrive at the absolute summit: Tim Curry, George Takei, J.K Simmons and Jonathan Pryce as the faction heads in Red Alert 3. Yes, we have Star Trek’s Sulu and Elliot Carver from Tomorrow Never Dies sharing the screen with James Jonah Jameson and Frank-N-Furter as the premier of the Soviet Union. It’s every bit as beautiful as you can imagine.

This is the single greatest cutscene ever created.

It’s perfect. The inexplicably squashed CRT screen, the random machine noises despite it being filmed in an office, Tim Curry visibly holding back laughter. Its no wonder this cutscene, and the whole game, have been memed to death.

Admittedly, Red Alert 3 is the weakest of the trilogy and it’s quite sad to see Tim Curry back then given the actor’s extremely poor health these days.

Another highlight is George Takei: the Emperor of Japan giving the player a dressing down like you are his naughty grandchild.

I’ll leave it there as I don’t want to spoil every single gem that’s in this game (or the rest of the franchise) but I’ll sign off by saying… damn, I miss the days when games didn’t take themselves so seriously. I miss goofballs like Sergeant Cortez in Timesplitters, I miss characters like Crash Bandicoot winking at the camera before mounting a boar for the rest of the level but most of all? I miss Command & Conquer.

I have theatre experience, if any indie developers out there want to create cutscenes in this style, I’d be the first to audition.

Hungry for more? Want to chat about the article? Get in touch with me in the comments, like the article, subscribe for more like this and please consider donating to my Patreon for access to member exclusive benefits.