"I was watching the new video and around 00:38 - 00:40, there is what looks like an Orca thats crashed infront of a NOD base and the pilot jumps out and gets a pulse rifle and starts blowing away some NOD cyborgs. So this means when one of your orca go down, the pilots can survive. But, earlier or about a year ago, I think Rade said something about the pilots not being able to survive."

The biggest trouble with Tiberian Sun is that much of the hype has died. Twelve months ago it would have been hard to start a conversation with any die hard RTS fan and avoid the topic, now, it is rarely ever mentioned. But now that the wait is almost over, it is time to regain your faith. It is time to reststart the hype. It's time to get out your old copy of Command and Conquer and play it through, because when this next baby comes out, it'll blow you away.

The RTS community has long been living under the miss-conception that FoW some how endows a game with more realism and strategy. Why? Because small-minded fools have said so thats why, and no-one has bothered to doubt them.

Did you know that on real battlefields you can't just build a factory and build extra tanks right there and then? I expect you could work it out if you really wanted to, but apparently even this sort of basic deduction is beyond today's RTS developers like Cavedog, Blizzard and Westwood

• 46 second, 6Mb, bad quality - from TiberianSun.de - Download Here [MPG]
• 6.5 minute, 3Mb, really small and bad quality - from Westwood Surf - Watch it! - Download it!
• full length (6.5 minute), full quality (60Mb) original video - from BG:TS - Download it!

These two RTS gaming giants have dominated the markets for quite a long time, at first Westwood's C&C stunned all of us with its really 'real' looking graphics, and WarCraft II stomped along keeping its comical berserkers and ogres ravaging the market. Later on, Red Alert came out and retrofitted all of the arsenal of C&C. Yet, was that enough? Blizzard announced the release of Diablo, although not a RTS game, was able to nullify Westwood's counter-attack.

Lionel: Are all the latest August dates true? And if so, why does it takes so long? Rade: Just keep in mind that once the game goes 'gold' it will take a while for it to hit the stores. We have a LOT of copies of the game to make.

There's many different reasons for the delays at Westwood. Primarily, the AI (Artificial Intelligence) in the game has yet to be refined. The path finding bugs still occur causing units to shoot at awkward targets. However, it is only bugs that are really left in the development.

Another shot shows some more GDI forces attacking a Nod base, lit up by the firestorm defense and explosion effects. The detail on the units, structures and terrain (trees and such like) looks outstanding and also I noticed that there is a road tunnel, a completely new idea in RTS games!

They have a pretty good description of how secondary objectives work:
"Many of the missions have multiple objectives. Although the secondary tasks aren't compulsory, they will make it easier to complete your primary goals. In one Nod mission, for example, rebel forces are moving against your position. But the secondary objective is to capture a television station and make a propoganda transmission to the rebs. Pull it off and they'll join you in the assault on the primary objective. It's en-route suprises like this one that have been missing from RTS games for too long, and their liberal deployment in Tiberian Sun should ensure it continues to wrong-foot and suprise gamers throughout the 50 single-player missions planned."
50 missions, cool! The multiple objectives should make for a much more interesting and exciting game. I couldn't include the whole article of course, so if you want to read the rest or see the pictures, you'll have to buy the magazine (PC Gamer UK). Which I recommend you do, as it has some great reviews, a good E3 article, lots of scoops and some cool demos. But I'll try and find them on the net for you.

3 - When games are delayed, it's not because the game developers are too lazy or stupid.

High quality games take an incredibly long time to create. Every game is currently expected to contain all the features of previous games, plus newer features to make it enticing for players. Doing this alone takes an incredible amount of time, even given that what is trying to be built is totally understood. However, doing anything that is unknown, such as trying to create a new type of 3D engine, enemy AI or a new type of gameplay is almost completely unplanable Even if you understand what you want to do from the beginning, what it turns out being in practice often does not function the way you though it would, or it doesn't turn out fun, or it isn't easy for everyone to understand.

Trying to create a perfect balance of fun, ease of use and new technology before the product is actually in place is almost impossible. There are so many factors involved that it is basically a requirement that the game must change in the middle because some things wont work, some things will become more desired, and some things will have to be pushed further because games released during development have advanced the technology, and now the game must keep up or surpass the competition.

As per the photo of Kane with the metal on his face. Acccording to the shooting script for CnC2 which I have the original, Kane was badly injured at the end of CnC and has prothetics however Solomon never sees these in their communiques because Kane is using a computer generated actor, fearing that if Solomon saw his real face that it would show the opponents that in fact he is only human.

well the random map generator had a ton of different options, basically everything was customizable. the video they had up was pretty cool, you see nod execute a GDI soldier, and Solomon is damn surprised when he sees Kane is alive (I never saw the whole vidoe at once, kept looking back at whoever was playing). They launch troops from the philly. From the video when banshees shoot it looks kinda like when guardians from starcraft shoot, yellow circles that is. The launch pads work like the airstrips did (don't come with the chopper (you guys already knew that though)). The Devils tounge works wonders against buildings. It shoots a steady stream of flame from the side of the burrowing device. It moves quite fast underground (moves underground automatically when not going a short distance).