Command & Conquer 3

Review by IanBear

The Plot Thickens

It has been nearly ten years since the last Tiberium themed C&C, too long, but does the series deliver after so long a gap? The answer is that what remains of Westwood Studios still has the magic touch, and that Tiberium Wars is in parts funny, in parts hard, and always extremely fun and satisfying to play.

The reason for the delay is that there has been ten years of peace in the world (pointless considering the game is set in 2047). But Kane is back with another plan to take over the world with a devastating new Tiberium weapon, and it is up to the GDI to stop him! Full-motion videos have returned, and they are a real tour-de-force. They are beautifully presented in high-definition, and what is more, the script and acting is perfectly hammed-up, and over-the-top, both spoofing the originals, whilst sticking to the tradition of "acting" in full-motion video in games of yesteryear. The cast is also fantastic, featuring well-known actors such as Billy Dee Williams (of Star Wars fame), Josh Holloway (Lost), Tricia Helfer and Grace Park (Battlestar Galactica), and Michael Ironside (Splinter Cell, Highlander 2, Starship Troopers). The cast really give the missions a great feel, and tie the plot together well.

Playtime:

Serious aficionados of the series will recognise many of the units and buildings returning from previous iterations of the series, and this familiar feel helps you to be right at home as soon as you start the training. The game also starts with a helpful Boot camp, which is a nice little tutorial that familiarises you with the controls, which have been streamlined since EA’s last RTS offering, Battle For Middle Earth 2. The controls are easy to grasp, but hard to master as there are some subtle nuances that only skilled players will use. The best new feature is the easy way to group units together, which makes tense battles a lot easier if you like to use separate groups. The gameplay in general is great, with a mix of huge, set piece battles, defending missions, stealth missions and more. The campaigns are also huge, with NOD and GDI both having 17 mission long campaigns, which will take a good 10 hours each to complete; then there is the Scrin Campaign, the new, mysterious alien race. This is much shorter, but the fact that the single player has 25 hours playtime is highly commendable in an age when most games take less than ten hours to complete.

Mapping it Out:

Not all is quite perfect though in this world. The graphics have taken a noticeable hit, even in high-def, compared to the beautiful PC version, and it seems that the engine, which is clearly a left-over from BFME2 could have used a lot more work, even if the slowdown that was apparent in the latter game is now gone, even with lots of units on screen. Loading times are also horrific, especially when compared to the PC version, which are super-fast even with just 1GB RAM. Saving also takes forever, and you only have limited save slots, which is annoying. However, these are minor quibbles, and if the PC version did not exist, I wouldn’t be complaining, as the game still looks and sounds fantastic, and is a big step up, especially in terms of special effects from BFME2.

Live C&C!

C&C also has a fleshed out multiplayer mode, which features more modes than the PC version, which is a nice addition. Shame most of them are just variations on standard games, or else just aren’t that great. However, normal deathmatch and team deathmatch are great fun, as you would expect from an RTS, and it is good to come up against human players who of course normally use wildly different strategies. The skill of players, however, varies wildly. I never really played a close game; I normally either dominated, or got crushed myself. However, I’m sure that this was just a bit unlucky, as the game does try to match opponents. The game itself normally performs very well, with little lag. You can also use the vision cam, which is pointless for most of the match (why would you want to see either a reflection of yourself or others, just playing the game???) but at the end is great fun, when the winner’s cameras are made to cover the screen so they can rub their victory in your face. However, I think that vision cameras should have been kept just for these moments; the game seems to prioritise the camera for bandwidth, so if everyone has one, you can often get laggy games once there are enough units about; unplugging the cameras has seemed to fix this problem on every occasion.

Conclusion

EA still hasn’t quite nailed the RTS experience on the 360 yet. The controls and interface are much improved over BFME2, but the inferior graphics, long loading times and save times, and occasionally laggy multiplayer mean this can only be recommended if your PC is not up to running that version. However, the game does have some neat additions, and is still a valiant attempt that deserves a lot of praise and is most definitely worth playing, even if you just watch the amazing full-motion cut scenes. The campaign’s length also makes the game great value for money, so you really can’t go wrong, despite the occasional, minor gripe.