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Posted by  TheArtrix on 04/22/2007, 23:18 CET (@929 BMT) |
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/10
I pretty much grew up playing RTS games, the Command and Conquer series, Z, Total Annihilation, Conquest Earth, Act of War. Spent a considerable amount of time playing them, and the concept never grows old. Now we have the third installment of the world famous Tiberium series.
Command and Conquer 3 takes place in 2047 in the GDI/NOD universe. The planet is undergoing a massive ecological disaster as Tiberium has infested about 80% of the surface. As a result, the planet is now divided into zones, blue zones that are relatively untouched by Tiberium, yellow zones which are basically Tiberium infested war zones, and red zones that look more like an alien planet.
GDI is busy keeping things tidy in the blue zones when all the sudden their super space station, the Philadelphia, gets destroyed by a nuclear missile launched from Earth. Turns out that Kane is alive and kicking. The event leads to the third Tiberium war, and GDI and NOD face each other once more.
The most notable thing about this game is the return of the briefing videos, this time in high definition. EA also decided to open a can of sci-fi celebrities to act in them. My personal favorite would be Michael Ironside, and Kane is still played by good 'ol Joe Kucan. Sure, they're still kind of cheesy, but it delivers the whole deal much better than Command and Conquer Generals.
But how are the graphics, well, they're just fine. Better than that, they're great. It feels like a heavily modified Command and Conquer Generals, which it basically is since they modified the engine. It runs pretty smooth too, I'm sure it runs just fine on relatively old systems.
It's got all kinds of nifty visuals, like image distortion around hot objects and realistic-looking water. Things also reflect light, there's anti-aliasing and everything's just more detailed. Terrains are still not affected by battle, except for the garrisonable buildings, which a lot of RTS fans were hoping for.
The game play has been reverted to it's roots. We're back at MCVs and construction zones, and the classic sidebar is back, although I can't help but think it's annoying when a building or unit is exactly behind it on the upper-right corner of the map.
For those who have been playing Command and Conquer Gererals for some time now, it's going to take a match to get used to this way of playing, but eventually, everything seems quite self-explanatory.
Two of the best new game play features are the troop-preview, which enables you to set up a formation before troops move into position, and directional armor and the option to let tanks move backwards.
They also transferred the "power up" from Generals, except that they now cost money and require certain structures. I think this is much better than the whole get-stars-as-you-kill system. This way, rushing isn't always the best thing to so.
The music is somewhat less awesome that Generals', but the genuine Command and Conquer phrases are back and kicking.
I'll close this review by looking at the third faction, the Scrin, they feel kind of non-Command-and-Conquer-ish. The Scrin are an alien race who descended to Earth to harvest the Tiberium, which was apparently their doing. Their alien units make these alien-y sounds. Their units and structures, it feels kinda rushed, and the whole Scrin campaign is kinda short. I'll also note that playing online hasn't improved a bit, with still requires you to change a lot of settings in your network's security, and that the whole Battlecast thing, a system that's supposed to give RTS the same status as sports, is a tedious system to work with.
Score: 8.4/10.0
Command and Conquer is back, and it's spectacular. If you're a fan of any Command and Conquer game, this needs to be on your shelf. The single player campaigns are fun and sometimes very challenging, with the exception of the GDI campaign.
Online play is still a tedious thing, which is a great disappointment.
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