Summary
The Covert Operations expansion pack brings additional complexity and challenge to the Command & Conquer series, offering new missions that test players’ strategic abilities to their limits.
- Release Year: 1996
- Genres: Real Time Strategy (RTS), Strategy
- Platforms: DOS, PC (Microsoft Windows)
- Developers: Westwood Studios
- Publishers: Virgin Interactive Entertainment (Europe) Ltd.
Introduction
Command & Conquer: The Covert Operations is an expansion to the iconic real-time strategy game, providing players with new levels of challenge and strategic depth.
Synopsis
The expansion pack includes fifteen new single-player missions (7 for GDI and 8 for Nod), ten new multiplayer maps, and seven new high-quality CD audio tracks1. Unlike the original game, the new expansion missions could be played at any time, in any order, and are not accompanied by briefing cutscenes. Instead, they are selectable from a list.
The gameplay involves the use of some previously multiplayer-only units, such as the Chem trooper SSM launcher in its missions. The game allows the building of a base with which the player will conduct military and economic activities to prepare for victory in a scenario.
The expansion pack also contains an update of the dinosaur missions. The missions can be accessed by starting the game in ‘funpark’ mode, starting a new game, and selecting a faction to play as. While most of the missions start with mixed tech units, and the simply has a prebuilt GDI-tech base, this choice determines which faction’s aircraft you get, and what you can build in the fourth mission, the only one where a is available.
The secret mode has several problems, though. In some cases, missions finished from loaded savegames go on to their GDI equivalent, despite starting the game in ‘funpark’ mode, and the game also becomes prone to forgetting the user’s starting faction choice, giving a full 2-faction combined tech tree in the aforementioned fourth mission.
Characters
The game continues with the series’ factions, the Global Defense Initiative (GDI) and the Brotherhood of Nod, along with their distinctive arsenals and units.
Gameplay
Covert Operations maintains the core gameplay of Command & Conquer, enriching it with new missions that demand higher strategic finesse. The missions are described as more puzzle-like, requiring precise tactics to overcome.
Conclusion
Command & Conquer: The Covert Operations offers a solid, if not groundbreaking, extension of the original game’s experience, appealing mainly to hardcore fans of the series.
Review Score
8/10
Art
Cover Art
Screenshots
Fan Art
Fan Art Style: Normal
Fan Art Style: Retro
Fan Art Style: Modern
