Westwood vs Blizzard "You Either Die A Hero, Or You Live Long Enough To See Yourself Become The Villain"

The Westwood vs Blizzard saga is a perfect example of the 'you either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain' trope. But hey, at least the remaster of C&C was good... unlike that cacophony of horror that was the WC3 one.

i remember waiting till midnight to play Red Alert against my cousin cuz we both had to make sure the phone lines weren’t going to be used lol.

You do good work, I look forward to seeing more of your history videos, I love documentaries like this. Getting started on KZread is hard these days, I wish you the best of luck!

@computergamingyesterday

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks Jeff, appreciate it!

Command & Conquer, Warcraft, Starcraft and Age of Empires, holy quadrilogy of RTS back in the day :)

Funny enough, Starcraft 2 actually pays homage to the original Command and Conquer series by naming one of it's master achievements for completing all other Melee Combat achievements, "Welcome Back, Commander". The name of the achievement is a nod to the famous line where EVA greets the player in the C&C series. It's always nice to see how games who became incredibly popular still respect the ones that came before them. Somehow akin to the double barreled shotgun secret reload from Battlefield 1, an obvious nod to the legendary FPS game, Doom. Respect!

These two game companies were huge part of my childhood. Thank you for the nostalgia

Just wanted to say thanks for your great content, love these history of videos.

@computergamingyesterday

3 жыл бұрын

Thank you, it's appreciated!

"Can I have some shoes?" - GLA "worker"

C&C was somewhat more entertaining imo. Soviet Intel Officer: Agent Tanya's C4 explosives will be very useful. Even though she's not quite as skilled as Boris. Tanya: What? Yeah right. Boris is skilled. Oh, look at me! I can call in an air strike! Soviet Intel Officer: Sorry commander. I thought this channel was secure.

Tiberian Sun and especially its expansion Firestorm had incredibly ambitious map design with destructible environments and hostile fauna and weather that could wipe out entire armies and even bases. Also they did achieve dynamic lighting and a day/night cycle. Unfortunately, that didn't change the fact that the core RTS gameplay was outdated and lacking. It felt like a reimagining of C&C1 instead of brand leaps forward like StarCraft and WC3 did.

It really surprise me that both C&C and Starcraft are my favorite childhood.

Hey keep up your videos please. There isn’t much content on Retro PC gaming that goes into this much detail. Thanks for these videos. I’ve been waiting way too long for this.

@computergamingyesterday

3 жыл бұрын

It's good you enjoyed it... I'll keep it up! It's fun to dig into the details.

@Stereozentrum

2 жыл бұрын

True!

Star Craft didn’t beat Command & Conquer. E.A. Killed Command & Conquer. This from someone who has played both and prefers SC\BW since they first came out. Also obviously no where as big as Star Craft’s tournaments, C&C:KW competitive scene is small but persistent. Considering what is happening with Activision Blizzard and its toxicity, C&C:KW competitive scene is a refreshing and wholesome departure.

@myconpodship

Ай бұрын

Starcraft: Broodwar has had less than nothing to do with Blizzard ever since KeSPA was conceived.

Love the video, love all of this history. Great job

@computergamingyesterday

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it Arty!

A lot of work went into this very thorough analysis. Thanks! :)

That makes you wonder: Would Tiberian Sun relased in August 1998 - just as they planned would be able to diminish Starcraft success...

I definitely enjoyed this nostalgia overload, and look forward to watching many more.. I played command and conquer red alert online competitively and my best friend reached the number 5 spot.. Prior to that I had played warcraft 1 and 2, both my dad and I enjoyed those two games.. Also got to play starcraft on a local network with my art teacher and a couple career center students, I sucked, but it was so much fun.. Then after playing red alert, I was invited to an after school local network gaming session on the original Command & Conquer, and that was too much fun.. Thank you for taking the time to share your best information, and digging up new info on an awesome past rivalry between two snowballing companies.. North Blizzard, haha..

Still remember playing on Westwood online. Great times. Also M-Player :(

@computergamingyesterday

2 жыл бұрын

M-PLAYER was the most 90s thing.

Really interesting video mate, thanks!

Tiberian sun was such an ambitious game. From the destructible terrain, foliage and buildings aswell as it's A-life factor from Civilian and Mutant NPCs was almost game changing. There were some multiplayer maps where your enemy could be wiped out by native map AI before you ever even see them. While blizzard lives on as a corpse, westwood died a legend.

Kirov reporting!

@KarelusMaximus

2 жыл бұрын

Battle cruiser operational!

As far as I know, the term "real-time strategy" was invented by Westwood to promote Dune II (December 1992), which came out 7 months before Jurassic Park (June 1993).

@computergamingyesterday

Жыл бұрын

I'd love to confirm this. Magazines don't seem to use it reliably until around 94-95.

@Nyerguds

Жыл бұрын

​@@computergamingyesterday Actually, I got curious after making this comment and started digging around the magazines on the Internet Archive, and found the term used as far back as 1990, for games like Populous.

@computergamingyesterday

Жыл бұрын

@@Nyerguds Do you remember which magazine?

@Nyerguds

Жыл бұрын

1990-07: Computer Gaming World, issue 73: "Powermonger is a real-time strategy/wargame using the familiar three-dimensional perspective of Populous." 1990-09: Computer Gaming World, issue 74: "Real-time strategy is becoming extremely popular. Accolade’s Star Control, Electronic Arts’ Powermonger and Virgin Mastertronic’s new space game (the working title was Quasar), as well as some of the wargames mentioned in the next section, are all good examples." Curiously, Computer Gaming World issue 101, of 1992, had a preview of Dune II in it, and it never called it "real-time strategy". But I think from the limited demo they saw they might've had the wrong idea about how the game was supposed to play in general; they thought the spice quota thing of the two tutorial missions was a general theme throughout the whole game.

@computergamingyesterday

Жыл бұрын

@@Nyerguds Cool, thanks for the reference - that's good to know. I'm going to go look up those issues and make sure to save them in my notes for future videos.

keep t up guy really enjoying your series

Very cool dive into rts history. I hope you do more like this since I've been looking for an rts from my childhood. It's one where you could enter 1st person mode with your units. Only ever played a demo version.

@WillG88

3 жыл бұрын

Battlezone? 10six?

@jasonmighty3328

3 жыл бұрын

@@WillG88 No i actually found it after years of searching, its called Machines: Wired for War

Very nice video CGY ! How about Ensemble Studios ? Wasn't it a very serious competitor ? Their game AoE 2 is still alive and well today, competitive scene included :).

you forgot to mention that Blizzard did try a modern RTS with Warcraft 3 Reforged and it bombed lol. I always loved Command and Conquer over Blizzards RTS games cept for Warcraft 3.

There is only Nod.

The Blizzard that made Starcraft is working on it new RTS. They call themselves Frost Giant Games now tho

"If we are going have to act, if we want to live in a different world." "He who controls the past, he who controls the future. He who controls the future, he who controls the past." - Kane.

Get your facts straight wtf, EA forced Westwood into making a FPS game in the CnC universe also they kept pushing them to release it sooner and not giving Westwood time to make it as they wanted it to be, you can't imagine how hard it was for them to orientate from RTS genre to a FPS, development hell

Both games are my childhood.

i played rts since "Dune2" and from what ive seen/played over the years, these two cant really be compared, other then "its both RTS". (and ive always been a c&c fan, not a stracraft player) C&C was about building stable bases (wich really made a difference), collect rescources from the map & have massive armies, only limited by rescources! in Starcraft/Warcraft you have your fixed piles of rescources with "optimized" base placement positions & it feels more like the base is only important to get your amy out, but doesnt feel as as important/part of your game (its hard to describe) Those (food)limited Armies also always felt more like controlling a "Heroe's Party" then an army, wich never felt that much fun. my guess on why starcraft got so famous, is mainly the fact that it has these limited armies & basebuilding going on, wich is easier to have balanced/e-sport-able matches with, wich is fine, if you like these things. but for slugging it out with friends over LAN/internet?! nothing beats C&C in that regard....building good bases & armies & let em have it 😎 .....and ofc Screw EA for kiling C&C, like they have soooo many other great franchises&games😢

Wonder why they wont make no more wc or sc

Warcraft, darkregin, dune2, starcraft

the reason why EA lost to BLIZZARD EA's GREED FOR MONEY WITH THEIR MICROTRANSACTIONS ETC

@computergamingyesterday

2 жыл бұрын

I mean, the be fair, micro transactions weren’t really a thing at the time.

I wish I could play Dune 2 today

Back in my teens, the situation was... strange, to say the least. I loved Starcraft, while took time to warm up to c&c since, well, it was not as available where I lived. When I finally got a hold of some c&c action myself, i found myself in a world where everyone either loved SC or C&C, and it was anomalous to like both equally. Tho most people I spoke to favored C&C and loathed Blizz for causing WestWood's downfall, which I found bollocks. As succesful and popular SC seemed to be, many accused blizz, then a good company, far from today's evil Activision Blizzard abomination, of pretty much stealing everything from Warhammer 40k. Another bollocks I say. So it was either "It's popular, so it sucks/I refuse to be interested" and they concluded it is right to blame Blizz for Westwood's downfall, or some scam conspiracy like the "Lion King copied Kimba" thing or the Pixar Theory. I found, and still find it stupid.

Hmm, this video showed up in my feed, I never searched for it, so if ur lucky you won the algo lottery.

I was a little disappointed in TS at the time but it does play rather nicely with various minor improvements over C&C:RA. Still don't care for the story and most of the OST as much however.

@computergamingyesterday

2 жыл бұрын

I agree TS seems to have aged well. I think expectations were just too high at the time in some regards. It was hyped as a genre-changing title but turned out to just be pretty good.

I mean, what can be better than Starcraft 2 in terms of RTS? Even if u make SC3, what would be the improvement? Graphics a bit - at the cost of ppl forced to spend thousands of dollars on modern rig. Gameplay wise I do not think you can get any better than Starcraft, 1, broodwar and 2. 1 was missing UI and QoL, which was added in 2. And that's it, modrn graphics,huge storyline, huge competitive scene, millions of mods, maps. Like this game has it all.

i still blame EA

There two reasons Starcraft beat C&C... And their called 4 - Tiberian Twilight and EA. Although Activision blizzard is doing their damnedest to become even more EA than EA is.

@gerardotejada2531

2 жыл бұрын

Westwood was bought by EA. Blizzard fusioned with Activison. Westwood died first but Blizzard also died.

@ducedevlstear2471

3 ай бұрын

One single dreadful game doesn't decide the outcome. For most of us that game never even existed.

Blizzard and Westwood feel similar today, Blizzard is a subsidiary of an ass company, while Westwood was also a subsidiary and got dissolved by the worst game company ever.

I'm going to say something unpopular. Starcraft is overrated trash.

@Antimanele104

2 ай бұрын

It's not the game's fault, it's the community that makes it so toxic. There are way too many self entitled SC fanboys out there. The game itself is a jack of all trades, mastef of none RTS and it's quite good, but is nowhere near as fast as C&C RA2, nor as hard as Company of Heroes or even Age of Empires.