The Brotherhood of NOD, on the other hand, has evolved into a stealthier army. They get subterranean troop carriers that basically tunnel to their destination safe from attack by troops topside. They also have the Devils Tongue, a burrowing tank mounted with a troop searing flamethrower, and the cloaking Stealth Tank. The new unit for the NOD is the Cyborg Commando, a Tiberian-mutated, steel clad warrior with a troop mincing machine gun that can even regenerate damaged parts by standing in Tiberian. Both sides match up to each other pretty well in multiplayer. Although it is still possible to swamp your opponents with troops or tanks early on, once you have mastered building up a quick defence and capitalising on nearby resources fast, you should find that games against similarly skilled opponents are balanced with no single unit winning out too much. We certainly did.

As the saying goes, the devil is in the details and if Tiberian Sun is anything to go by, Westwood sold their soul to the Dark Prince long ago. As in Total Annihilation, terrain counts. Units go faster downhill and slower up and cliffs and mounds of earth can tend to get in the way of shots. While at times this can be frustrating, over all it adds to the whole gameplay experience nicely.

And that isn't all. Units give you feedback crying, "Medic!" or "I'm under heavy fire!". When you move a group of units, a line is drawn from each unit to their destination so you know they are headed where they should be. Vehicles explode sending shrapnel bounding across the battlefield and even landing in water with a visible and audible splash. And to top it all off, the NOD cyborgs can have their legs blown off and yet continue, crawling along the ground and resolutely firing away just like the Arnie in Terminator 2. Lovely. While these details don't exactly make Tiberian Sun a revolutionary game, they are a nice addition and evidence of the long programming time for the game.