For anyone who truly knows PC gaming it's impossible to sit through an FMV speech from Command & Conquer's infamous Kane without smiling like a stupid man's idiot. His over the top theatrics, colourful vocabulary and that famous bald head all work together to create a villain super-unit that's more charming than the royal family covered in erm, Lucky Charms.
It's good news for the long, long awaited Tiberium Wars then that Joe Kucan's character is back on form, along with those other C&C veterans the harvester and clicking money noise.
In a way it's all very much part of a return to focus for Electronic Art's Los Angeles studio, who took a chance veering from the series path with the last instalment Generals, much to the eventual outcry of the community.
In contrast, Tiberium Wars is whole-heartedly C&C. Every aspect of its design chants the series mantra; oozing the simplicity, instant playability and out-right entertainment value that C&C has always been about. How EA LA forgot that when conjuring up the last instalment we may never know.
Welcome Back, Commander
For veterans, the solo experience isn't going to bring too many surprises. Base building, commando raiding and sieges are the name of the game, and pretty much anything else C&C can get away with without rewriting the formula. It just about hits the right mark, providing an enjoyable and compelling experience.
It also gets pretty challenging later on in the campaign, when you're left to defend your base from relentless hordes of enemy attackers. Most of the time the predictable combination of middle-end tanks and infantry are easily dealt with by placing the appropriate base defences.
Mess around with your own invaders on the other side of the map for too long though and you'll soon return to a base half destroyed, because the AI decided to send an Avatar Mech through the entrance that only had puny watchtowers to defend it.
In a way it's the laid-back, entertaining ying to Supreme Commander's epic and demanding yang. Tiberium Wars doesn't have the thousand-unit, multiple-front battles of THQ's effort, but it does provide a more laid-back, immediate RTS experience that doesn't require multiple limbs and a science diploma to perform successfully.
Watching idly as sonic cannons and watchtowers fend off the latest rush of Nod flame tanks, it's apparent that C&C3 is the sort of strategy game you can play whilst half-munching a Burger King (if you're American) or with a cup of tea (if you're English).
As always, the rock-paper-scissors nature of the gamplay (vehicles destroy other vehicles but are rubbish against infantry, who are in turn rubbish against aircraft etc...) brings the strategy right back to it's simplest form. Usually simple flanking and combinations of the right units can win the day, or even more primal tactics like waiting for the nuke countdown to trickle its way to zero.
EA has also done a fantastic job of ironing out the clunkyness of the RTS experience. Every delay, bit of lag and hurdle between clicking on your tanks and telling them to blow crap up has been smoothed out with a slick, minimalist sidebar interface combined with BFME-style context-sensitive elements. Extra brownie points should also been handed out for combatability; C&C3 will happily run on even our arse-slow office PCs, which probably goes without saying seeming as Tiberium Wars is running a near-five-year-old game engine.
Intermixed with the tank-clicking antics as always are the excellently-cheesey live-action cut-scenes that have been sorely missed from PC gaming. This time around the story comes acted out by nerd heroes such as Billy Dee Williams, Michael Ironside and that bloke from Lost, who manages to crack more penis references than your average Games Radar article.
As always the cinematics serve the purpose of bolstering the simple RTS gameplay well and provide a rewarding bit of narrative at the end of each mission. We just hope more live-action crop-up in PC gaming from now on.
Counting the Crystals
Probably the most significant jump since we last harvested the green stuff is EA's fleeting effort to massively flesh-out the C&C universe, taking it as far as getting a proper scientific white paper written up to describe the in-depth molecule workings of Tiberium.
There's also a constantly refreshing database of unit dissections, mission reports and stories from the battlefield, which creates a more atmospheric and comprehensible world than in any C&C game before.
As you can imagine this is also reflected in Tiberium Wars' hi-def and long-missed FMV cut-scenes, which show a world dominated by Tiberium and divided into separate red, yellow and blue zones depending how strongly areas are blanketed in the mysterious substance.
This inevitably leads to the arrival of the long-coming third alien faction, which though fantastically balanced looks far less artistically pleasing than we had hoped (there basically just a load of giant bugs, aren't they?).
The roles of the other two sides have been clearly outlined from day one (GDI are big a powerful, Nod use hit and run tactics etc) and the alien Scrin seems to lie somewhere in the middle.
Starting off with more Nod-ish speedy units in the early game, the Scrin quickly advances to commanding some of the biggest, more GDI-like behemoths in the game such as the hulking, multi-laser tripod or the bleedin' massive Mothership.
After a few multiplayer sessions balancing between the three seems to be pretty solid, though we're not totally satisfied with how the third faction turned out. Rather than a mish-mash two of the most distinctive faces of RTS gaming, we would've preferred a more outside approach similar to C&C General's GLA or Red Alert 2's Yuri, who played and felt unlike any other faction in the series.
It was blatantly obvious that Tiberium Wars wasn't going to shake up the RTS genre in quite the same way its predecessors did all those years ago. But then it doesn't even pretend to offer the same kind of ultra-smart demanding strategy experience as Supreme Commander or Company of Heroes.
It's simple, direct and that's what always made the Command & Conquer series so appealing in the first place. Without stepping on any toes, EA has managed to create an extremely solid and well-polished C&C instalment that wouldn't feel out of place with Westwood Studios plastered across the front of the box, and really that's all any series fan was ever asking for.
It doesn't shake-up the genere, but C&C3 delivers a solid and well-polished RTS experience that also provides the smoothest and most comprehensive game of the series to date.
Uppers
Classic fast and entertaining C&C gameplay The most atmospheric, comprehensible C&C world yet Live-Action cut-scenes are as cheesey as ever Solid faction balance
Comparisons with Supreme Commander are inevitable and I'm glad to see the two games have been scored appropriately.
C+C3 is the fast food equivalent of Supreme Commanders three course meal. What it lacks in variety, tactics and gameplay, it makes up in quick and stylish gameplay that is visually exciting. Both have their place, but I'm positive that the game I'll be playing still in 3 months time will be Supreme Commander.
Comparisons with Supreme Commander are inevitable and I'm glad to see the two games have been scored appropriately.
C+C3 is the fast food equivalent of Supreme Commanders three course meal. What it lacks in variety, tactics and gameplay, it makes up in quick and stylish gameplay that is visually exciting. Both have their place, but I'm positive that the game I'll be playing still in 3 months time will be Supreme Commander.
In terms of strategy, they don't compare.
Good post, what you have said is pretty much why i never bothered with Supereme Commander (well that and reviews) and why im awaiting this game with baited breath ... C&C as it was meant to be, oh how i have missed you!
I downloaded the demo of C&C3 the day it came out. I'm still playing it more than most of my full games. For an EA release, I'm genuinely and pleasantly surprised. It oozes quality and after the disaster of Generals it does, amazingly, feel like a Westwood game. I can't wait till tomorrow. The first thing I do after work at lunchtime will be to walk to my nearest Game store and smack thirty notes down on the counter. Welcome back commander. We missed you.
This game looks fine. I'll wait til it drops to $20 though. And I still don't see what was wrong with Generals. I thought it was a fine game. There's nothing wrong with a little real world diversification. I didn't have any performance problems and I thought it was entertaining enough to play through so I still don't see the big fuss about Generals. Anyone care to explain to me just exactly was so horrible about it because I am genuinely curious...
I enjoyed Generals a lot actually and was a lot more strategically enhanced over the other C&C's... then again I also loved Renegade which a lot of people hated.
The demo of this game is ace - and I've played it a lot - hope there are a few extra things for the GDI to use that I've not already though!!
RTS by the numbers. I always preferred TA over C&C, but SupCom just felt too impersonal; all those cpu crunching polygons were wasted as the zoomed out mode was the best way to play unless individual orders were needed.
Then again, I might get C&C3 as, even though I think DoW and Company of Heroes (CoyoH) are the best RTS on the market, they're very fast paced. I enjoy them a lot, but with CoyoH, there's just no time to sip my tea and dunk a biccie or two
However, I notice the EA is continuing it's practice of releasing patches on launch day and after recent experiences over the last 12 months, it puts me off buying it.
I still think Generals rocks. We play it on our LAN pretty regularly... very well balanced a has enough depth to keep you occupied for countless, wasted hours
Wasn't overly impressed with the C&C3 demo... but still quite looking forward to this. Once my computer has undergone a bit of upgrading anyways.
It seems to have scored reasonably high across the board.. so I'd be tempted to say it's actually a reasonable game, rather than everyone having a soft spot for C&C (although lets be honest... most people do !).
whupeee! I'v bin lookin forward for C&C 3 since last september and am gonna get it ASAP! I played C&C 1 and its awesome, especially the FMV's! I will prob spend a good few days gettin used to it. In the first game i was a NOD but im not sure this time, even if the middle faction is supposed to be rubbish
Disappointed in the review, more about Kane and the FMV and how it is just C&C rehashed as normal and we should love it just for that (the opposite of what the were saying for for previous C&C games over the years since the original!), as opposed to telling us game features and interface, etc, y'know, like say, a review?!
Exactly what I thought. I can see why the game would get a decent score but 8 seems a bit high to me. RTS's have moved on and so should the C&C series.
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Classic fast and entertaining C&C gameplay
... C&C as it was meant to be, oh how i have missed you!
whupeee! I'v bin lookin forward for C&C 3 since last september and am gonna get it ASAP!
