When comparing Age of Empires II HD vs Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun, the Slant community recommends Age of Empires II HD for most people. In the question“What are the best RTS games for PC?” Age of Empires II HD is ranked 4th while Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun is ranked 20th. The most important reason people chose Age of Empires II HD is:
While the graphics are slightly outdated, they were very well done for their time. And when combined with the history behind the game and its wonderful soundtrack, the game comes across as extremely polished.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Awesome ambiance with a great finish
While the graphics are slightly outdated, they were very well done for their time. And when combined with the history behind the game and its wonderful soundtrack, the game comes across as extremely polished.
Pro Runs on very old computers
As this game is quite old, requiring only a 1.2GHZ processor and 1 Gigabyte of RAM, this title will run on older PC's and laptops alike without issue.
Pro Facilitates the user's preferred pace
This game neither gives the impression of being thrown to the wolves nor that of being left stranded on an island. Whether you want to move slowly and steadily through the game or take things at a more heightened pace, Age of Empires 2 will allow for both (given a little planning).
Pro Tiberian Sun's well-filmed FMV aid in atmosphere and immersion
With other iterations in the Command & Conquer series, the direction and acting in Tiberian Sun is one of the best of the series. Tiberian Suns includes and all-star cast, with Michael Biehn (Aliens, Terminator) and James Earl Jones (Conan the Barbarian, Star Wars) as members of GDI, and Joseph Kucan returning as Kane, NOD's maniacal and religious figurehead.
The filming style and lighting prevalent in each FMV helps paint the perfect picture of a future, post-apocalyptic dystopia. This helps aid the game in conveying the dark atmosphere that is featured in each mission or multiplayer match. With the FMV and gameplay matching each other with such perfection, players can find themselves easily getting immersed in this title.
Pro Forethought of base defense required due to burrowing units
Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun features burrowing units that can wreak havoc upon bases. As these units can only be seen if players have built sensor vehicles, they can unburrow directly inside bases virtually undetected. This allows players to sneak infantry transports and flame tanks into compounds, completely decimating undefended buildings. Due to this, players must think ahead of these threats and act accordingly; building defensive structures inside their bases, or leave a token force to protect the area.
Pro It's free
Tiberian Sun was licensed as freeware by Eletronic Arts in 2010.
Cons
Con A lack of proper User Interface scaling makes a clunky UI worse
While this is a remastered edition of a classic Real-Time Strategy title, the UI was left largely unchanged. Selecting workers still prompts you to click buttons to bring up both economic and military buildings, then choosing whichever building you wish to construct. This is uninteresting design and makes the UI difficult to navigate.
On top of this, the game does not feature UI scaling. Since the game is bound to your current desktop display settings, the UI will adjust itself to match that resolution. This means if you play at 4K resolution the User Interface will be absurdly small, making it near impossible to see what buildings you wish to construct or what units you want to train. This is counter-intuitive design, for this era of modern gaming, and makes properly playing the game more of a hassle than it should ever be.
Con Age of Empires II HD is an unsuccessful remaster due to its outdated graphics
With the only notable upgrade being high resolution options, Age of Empires II HD fails at being a proper remaster. While higher resolutions give the game a slight face lift, the rest of the engine is left largely unchanged. This means the graphics we see in this remaster are nearly the same in its original 1999 release. Due to this, the game is grating to the eye and does not deliver on its high definition promise.
Con Slow-paced construction and gathering times add unnecessary length to matches
Unfortunately for Tiberian Sun, the game suffers from a massive slowdown when it comes to building and amassing an army. With Barracks and War Factories only training one unit at a time, players must build more of those facilities in order to train those units faster. This makes it imperative to spend resources on multiple builds just to make an army faster.
Resource gathering is also a slow endeavor that impedes player progress. Tiberium Harvesters, your resource gathering unit, have both slow movement and gather speeds. These units can take over a minute to bring back additional resources, which usually give players only a few hundred tiberium. This slows down the pace of the game even further, as players will need to build more Tiberium Refineries in order to gain money faster. Thus, this requires players give a large focus on economy over army to start each match.