Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun - Firestorm (2000)

Completed the GDI campaign. I think I’ll skip the NOD campaign, since I’ve already seen most, if not all, of the new NOD units, and there wasn’t a huge amount of new content to begin with.

To the best of my understanding, both the GDI and NOD endings are considered semi-canonical. When the Firestorm campaign begins, GDI mentions losing contact with the Philadelphia space station because NOD shot it down, which happens in the NOD ending. At the same time, they need to recover CABAL, NOD’s AI, from the ruins of the Temple of Nod, which was destroyed in the GDI ending. In any case, CABAL is recovered, quickly betrays everyone, and becomes the main threat you need to eliminate.

It also seems like the rate at which units gain experience has been increased. In the original Tiberian Sun, I rarely managed to get veteran units, but in Firestorm they appear much more frequently.

The new GDI unit, the Juggernaut, is fantastic. It’s essentially an upgraded version of NOD artillery, firing three shells instead of one, although with somewhat lower accuracy. One mission revolves around pairing Juggernauts with the GDI commando, Ghost Stalker. The only frustrating part is Ghost Stalker himself, who is somehow incapable of shooting targets on higher ground.

Only the final GDI mission is genuinely difficult—or perhaps just unnecessarily cruel. You start extremely close to enemy artillery positions and have very few options for dealing with them early on. Fortunately, there’s no time limit, which makes the situation manageable.

The final mission also has a memorable surprise. After capturing three key locations, a massive robot appears. From that point on, it becomes a race to destroy CABAL before the machine reaches your base, as it can obliterate almost any unit with a single shot.