PLAYING THE GENERALS CAMPAIGN IN 24 HOURS

Completing Command & Conquer General’s 21-mission campaign in 24 hours? On brutal mode? Sounds pretty nutty, huh?

Well, the idea got stuck in my brain and I thought I would give it a go. I gave the significant other in my life advance notice of my crazy intention to try to beat this game in a physical 24-hour timespan – not one hour today, one hour tomorrow. Nope, that wouldn’t count.

Let’s see – 21 missions, many are introductory in nature, one per hour, seems feasible.

Working diligently on these guides, the play time kept getting shorter and shorter. I have continued to update these guides to make them even more efficient than the previous ones written. With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, the guides herein will help you avoid lots of pitfalls!

Using my guide as a reference, I sat down at 8:00 p.m. one night and decided to give it a go -- finish all 21 missions in 24 hours.

It actually went quite well – with plenty of time to spare. I played until 5:30 a.m., took a 5.5-hour sleep break, then finished between 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m.

Actual play time: 12.5 hours *

Break time: 5.5 hours

Total time elapsed:18.0 hours

* including 8-minute and 19-minute breaks

Okay. The following is a recap. I hope it inspires you to maybe give it a go.

USA Mission 1 – 8 minutes 8:00 to 8:08 p.m.

USA Mission 2 – 17 minutes 8:08 to 8:23 p.m.

USA Mission 3 – 15 minutes 8:23 to 8:38 p.m.

USA Mission 4 – 38 minutes 8:38 to 9:16 p.m.

USA Mission 5 – 27 minutes 9:24 to 10:01 p.m.

USA Mission 6 – 36 minutes 10:01 to 10:37 p.m.

China Mission 1 – 10 minutes 10:40 – 10:50 p.m.

China Mission 2 – 15 minutes 10:50 – 11:05 p.m.

China Mission 3 – 30 minutes 11:05 – 11:35 p.m.

China Mission 4 – 21 minutes 11:35 – 11:56 p.m.

China Mission 5 – 47 minutes 11:56 – 12:43 a.m.

China Mission 6 – 50 minutes 12:43 – 1:33 a.m.

GLA Mission 1 – 7 minutes 1:36 – 1:43 a.m.

GLA Mission 2 – 14 minutes 1:43 – 1:57 a.m.

GLA Mission 3 – 9 minutes 1:57 – 2:06 a.m.

GLA Mission 4 – 45 minutes 2:06 – 2:51 a.m.

GLA Mission 5 – 54 minutes 2:51 – 3:45 a.m.

GLA Mission 6 – 5 minutes 3:45 – 3:50 a.m.

GLA Mission 7 – 78 minutes 4:09 – 5:27 a.m. (restarted mission 15 minutes in)

5.5-hour break to 10:52 a.m.

China Mission 7 – 76 minutes 10:52 – 12:08 p.m.

USA Mission 7 – 44 minutes 12:10 – 12:54 p.m.

Some of these guides have been slightly improved since this last go-round.