Event: Westwood Studio's Be-A-Renegade Tour Event Date: 02/23/02 Written By: Warhawk Date Written: 02/23/02

Today I had the opportunity to play the full version of the upcoming game Renegade by Westwood Studio's, and it was AWESOME! Not only was the game extra cool, but the event itself was a lot of fun. The event took place to the local Rivalution game center and lasted from 11 to 6. The doors opened about an hour later than everyone expected, but it gave the players a chance to talk and get acquainted before attempting to kill one another in the game. Once inside I received a free Renegade T shirt and poster and was entered into the drawing for a free Geforce 3 and Alienware computer. I was able to meet Westwood representatives including Joe Kucan, Westwood's director of dramatic assets and the guy who played Kane in the Command & Conquer games. The actual game playing was really fun and it was nice to be able to play on maps besides the one in the demo. I even got to kill Kane!

Despite what you may think of him from the C&C games, Kane is not the ruthless cold blooded terrorist that he appears to be in the games. He is actually a really nice guy. I had him sign some of my C&C CD covers and talked to him for a little while with one of the other guys that I met there. The other guy happened to be a chef so that got them into talking about food. Kane told us all about some of the crazy things hes cooked up in the kitchen by experimenting with different ingredients. According to Kane, he f***ing "loves vinegar." I wont go into too much detail about the odd culinary treats he cooks up, but I will say it sounded pretty... creative. Other Westwood people that I met were the Renegade project leader, the PR person, and some community coordinator that went by Devinoch who happened to be quite a good Renegade player. There were also some guys showing off the 3D editor that will allow players to create their own maps, vehicles and a variety of other things. Its a lot like 3D Studio Maxx and it should be a cool tool for anyone who takes the time to learn it.

Not only were there games and prizes, but there were also mountains of free pizza and sodas and lots of free junk to be had.

They had a small tournament in which the top three scores from each team won a prize. Kane played in this map and the first person to kill him won a free copy of the game. I happened to be on Kane's team so unfortunately for me I was out of the running for that. They held another similar tournament later in the day only this time the free game went to whoever could kill Devinoch. The first game no one was able to kill him at all! So they had to run a second match. This time someone was able to run him down with an APC, which was pretty funny to watch.

In the middle of the day the local rock station, Live 105, showed up and set up a booth outside, complete with loud music blaring over their PA system. The radio DJ (it was Jered, or DJ with no name, I'm not sure which) was there harassing just about everyone that walked by. The Westwood PR lady was shaking her head and looked pretty embarrassed. She kept commenting that someone was probably going to call the cops. It was great! The DJ kept shouting "Be a RENEGADE!!" to just about everyone that walked by, and "this is the last day of the tour. The grocery store will be there tomorrow, this wont!!!" to anyone who went in or out of the nearby grocery store. He was giving away movie tickets and copies of the C&C games and making people do crazy antics to get them. He made one guy stick 16 temporary tattoos on his face and run into the middle the the parking lot and yell "Renegade!" and bunch of times. He had a couple people (grown adults) do a tug-of-war over one of the game boxes. They ended up thrashing around on the ground trying to pry it out of eachothers hands. The DJ yelled "stop the violence!!" and made them stop. It was funny. Even the DJ was shocked they got that into it. He told another guy to run into the Mc Donald's across the street and bring back with him three people to try out the game. The guy took off running and sure enough he was able to round up three total strangers. It was amazing. Another guy climbed to the top of a tree and screamed "I'm a renegade!" So, yeah, there was a lot of people yelling "Renegade" out there today.

It was quite a party. I had a great time playing games, meeting new people and watching the general craziness going on.

ADDENDUM - 01/24/2026 By Warhawk

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