Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars

The Good
First and foremost you are immediately taken aback by the visual feast that is Command and Conquer 3. The dynamic lighting and wonderful explosion and weather effects are absolutely splendid. Going past that you have a solid RTS that makes you feel like you've jumped right back into the CnC chair. It’s worn, it’s battered, but it’s comfortable and has never let you down. The boys over at EA have adopted the squad-acting-as-one-unit format over the single man format. This of course allows for huge armies and huge battles put together in a relatively short amount of time. In addition, infantry are neither useless nor overly effective as opposed to previous CnC titles. Once you complete even one campaign, you really feel like you've accomplished something, which is something a lot of RTSs cannot say. The story is compelling and gives an epic feeling. Overall it's a great new chapter in the Tiberium saga.

The Bad
That being said, EA and Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars really bring nothing new to the table in terms of an RTS game. It’s pretty standard: Three factions, each with fairly standard super weapons, special abilities, infantry, armor and air units. Nothing that hasn't been done before. This isn't necessarily a bad thing; if it ain't broke don't fix it, right? Well... yes and no. Its pretty much impossible to call yourself an RTS fan and not like this game, it uses all the standard proven tactics that have made a classic household name RTS. However, you can lose interest fairly quickly having experienced all this before. Once you've completed the campaigns and played with the variety of units all of the factions have to offer, all that's left over is a bare bones solid RTS with a standard multiplayer feature and skirmish mode. Whether that’s good or bad is up to you.

The Bottom Line
Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars sets the standard for this generation of RTSs. This fan in particular will use it as a measuring stick for all future RTS titles. If you're looking for a good RTS, you cannot go wrong with this one.

The Good
This game certainly took the best elements from the games developed by Westwood such as garrisoning infantry, and doing secondary objectives and the promotion for units. And let's not forget Joseph D. Kucan reprising his role as Kane and showing a lot more emotions and vibes than he did in Tiberian Dawn and Sun. Of course the new cast of characters are well chosen and execute the cutscenes brilliantly. And finally there's the Scrin campaign, which makes for a nice little extra.

The number of different infantry and vehicles alike all have different purposes in battle. It feels kind of good to have wheels rolling again as opposed to the majority of walkers from Tiberian Sun. The most versatile are the GDI's APC and NOD's Avatar. Then there's the superweapons in the arsenal, which absolutely barrages and even devastates your opponent if targeted in the right place.

The Bad
In this game there are features lacking such as Frank Klepacki's awesome soundtracks as well as campaigns shorter by a mission or two. New and bad features were also added to the mix. Unlike previous C&C games, there was never any fog of war, which you might be used to by now, except for one problem. In most strategy games, you can order your units to attack a building shrouded by the fog, but in this game, you can't until it appears in your visual range, which makes commanding different groups twice as hard as it ought to be. As for the minimap, it's unreliable as it doesn't show units very well with such dull colours. Then there's ranking between you and opponents in the campaign. You have to grind your units winnings to get experience, but your opponent can sometimes mass produce promoted units. Talk about an unfair advantage.

The most annoying mechanics that ruin the gameplay are the clunky movement of the units. Sometimes they when you command them to retreat, some will do a U-Turn right into the path of danger, while other will try to improvise dangerous routes that get them by opponents. The Scrin are particularly this clunky, like they've been high on Tiberium. Regarding unit behaviour, Defensive set units seems to behave exactly the same as Aggressive set ones, you end up destroying a harvester or air unit that you meant to capture. It's also hard to select some of the flying units when you need to. All this is pretty much a high-speed train wreck. The earlier C&C games had units moving in perfect rotation and proper routes. To add to annoyance is the computer constantly telling you that your units are under attack including the ones on-camera, which is very redundant. If the word Artificial Stupidity were real in computers, this game would be a fine example.

The Bottom Line
Some fans and players into the old-style C&C may feel alienated by the new game features and mechanics and not by the Scrin themselves. But because the storyline and lore are faithful to the prequels, it's not an intentional disappointment in it's own right. Once you get into the game, whether you've gained experience from the previous games or the tutorial, you're bound to get far, mission by mission. This title does have it's place among the C&C collection like some first cousin once removed to that of Tiberian Sun. Don't hesitate to try and play this one.

The Good
The fact there are now three sides to choose from has increased the level playing field. The graphics are crisp, and great from my point of view. The gameplay is basically the same, but that has never been a downfall for me. Being able to take the fight online is actually a very neat idea, although I have not personally got to experience it yet. Also the fact that C&C 3 has come to 360 instead of PS3 has made it a little sweater.

The Bad
The only problem that have with this game (which is not too great) is that it is not 360 mouse compatible. It is a little hard to get used too using the 360 controller, but after a few missions you should be able to kick butt and take names later.

The Bottom Line
Describing this game to those who "have not" got to play this "type" of game before is a little hard. You feel sort of "high and mighty" with the overhead angle gameplay, but I guess the best way to do it is too cut it down. The graphics is great compared to other games (Starcraft, AvP: Extinction, Warcraft, Civilization), you get to choose from three teams the GDI, NOD, and a new alien force that I was unable to play at the time. The story of the game has always been the same until now with the new force. GDI harvests Tiberium which is used for energy and fights off the evil NOD, NOD want the Tiberium to "rule the world" and destroy the goody, goody NOD, the Aliens on the other hand want to conquer the world, harvest the Tiberium for the own reasons, and move to the next world that has it. In this game you can Command your troops on dozens of playable maps, and Conquer all who oppose you in this new War over Tiberium. (wow that sounded sortta neat, LOL).