Part 24: Commentary Corner - Mission 4

Update 4 Bonus Binge

Level 4 is really where the game is hitting its stride, I feel, after giving you a taste of vehicles in level 3. It shows off a lot of behavior in a pretty atmospheric setting that manages to feel a bit more dense than the previous one, and has some good alternate paths, too. Would make a good demo level. Not sure how close any tropical volcano islands are to the Andes, though.

A few people already remarked about "ha-HA;" that and "what a day" are both two sound clips that get re-used a lot without real explanation, I guess somebody thought they were really funny. Maybe Havoc's thinking them? Along with "UNGH" they're pretty much the worst.

The whole level's very scenic and very C&C, with a beachfront assault supported by a gunboat reminescent of the first GDI level. You need to defend Captain So And So -- I mean, Soanso -- and he'll vaguely cover you as well. There's even a ridiculously large gun turret, which used to crash the editor if you tried to place it on a level in the editor. Can't remember if that got fixed.

Anyhow, when Havoc fires up at his hunch of an Officer, he also kills one of Renegade's many interactive objects. Like Goldeneye, there are a ton of props you can shoot for effect in this game. Some you can poke with "E" to do different things. There's a radio full of choppy emergency chatter up there, that's why it explodes so violently.

That yellow box that comes down is one of the models for a multiplay powerup, the ammo-refill one.

I think we already mentioned the shooting gallery tailgun sequence that was cut. If you recall from prior missions, realistic, exposed mounted guns shown in pre-release content were replaced with those fully-enclosed machinegun, cannon, and rocket emplacements. Perhaps to avoid frustration as you're being shot and dying at while using them, or confusion while people shoot you while your body is set to take little damage?

By the way, a lot of the defenses you destroy are actually vehicles, even if it says the enemy structure is destroyed. The Obelisk is a real structure gamewise, with an invisible laser ceiling gun on top. It was possible for that to get a final shot off even after the Obelisk died, possible for the charge animation to get stuck in a loop, and possible (via cheating methods) to kill that invisible gun. You could also confuse it by jumping backwards, known as "Ob walking." Most of this got fixed.

Anyhow, take a look at those nice water effects. Only used on water, as I've mentioned, while the same sort of effects would've made great ice, or used to contrast between wet or rough pavement. Game also supported some reflection mapping using pre-rendered stuff, but you don't really see it anywhere. Needless to say, water in this game is not "real" water, you can breathe under it, can't swim, it won't put out fires, it's just a layer.

Havoc blows up a flamethrower, setting an officer on fire! The chaingun continues to make its spinning noies. In an odd nice touch, the chaingun plays its spinning sound for as long as you'd like to shoot, even if you can't actually shoot (applies to NPCs as well). You can experience this by jamming your gun in first person against a wall, blocking it, but keeping it "spun up."

Once in the Nod base, we see a harvester harvesting again. I didn't mention this the first time, but in multiplay, the harvesters don't animate. They just sorta park for awhile. Harvesters had another lovely glitch where they could spawn invisible if the power plant was killed, and if you killed the refinery at the right time, you could even get an invisible, stationary, worthless harvester sitting on your vehicle deployment zone. The game also had weird discrepencies between LAN and dedicated server matches. The Harvester's health in the quick match overview wouldn't appear unless you were playing in LAN.

It's worth seeing what the interior of a refinery was shown to be in the old C&C cutscenes. Just for fun.

Sakura's boss fight, if I remember right, was going to let you blow up its missile launchers. Also you could glitch her out so she'd stay shooting the same spot, not sure if that got fixed.