Amazon.com
The
Return of Tiberium, The Return of Kane, The Return of
C&C.
The
year is 2047. A massive nuclear fireball explodes high in the night
sky, marking the dramatic beginning of the Third Tiberium War and the
long-awaited return of the most groundbreaking Real-Time Strategy
franchise of all time.
Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars
unveils the future of RTS gaming by bringing you back to where it all
began: the Tiberium Universe. With the corrupt substance Tiberium
blanketing most of the Earth, the infamous Kane is back to lead his
Brotherhood of Nod in a massive global assault on the Global Defense
Initiative (GDI) and the few remaining livable Blue Zones left on the
planet. Only you can stop him. Featuring state-of-the-art
next-generation graphics, an epic story, and truly innovative features
such as the ability to transform online battles into a spectator sport,
Command
& Conquer is about to reinvent RTS gaming … again. Welcome
back, Commander.
FEATURES
- Fast, Fluid, Fun—The
ultra-responsive, smooth-as-silk gameplay C&C invented is now
better than ever, intuitively placing your entire arsenal at your
fingertips.
- 35+ Single Player Missions—In a vast open-world
theater of war where each decision you make matters, you’ll experience
one cohesive, epic story told from the unique perspective of all three
warring factions.
- RTS as a Sport—Play an RTS game as a sport
for the first time! Observe, broadcast, and compete in thrilling online
battles with innovations including all-new interactive spectator modes,
VoIP communication, player commentary, and more.
- Story Like
You’ve Never Seen—High-definition, live action video sequences that
seamlessly tie the game’s epic story together feature an unparalleled,
diverse Hollywood cast, including talent from Star Wars, Starship
Troopers, Battlestar Galactica, LOST, and House and the return of Joe
Kucan as Kane.
- AI with Distinct Styles of Play—The game AI
matches your style of play—choose from play styles such as ‘rushing’,
‘turtling’, and more, or level the battlefield and let the AI use its
own tactics to give you the highest level of challenge.
- New
Ways to Attack—Keep your opponent guessing by building flying
battleships, wielding the power of terrifying Ion Storms, and combining
units to form powerful, never-before-seen super-units.
- Technology
Makes the World Come Alive—Lose yourself in reflected sunlight and
scream in sheer joy as you blow chunks off of enemy tanks, structures,
and anything else you can launch a rocket at. The game world gains a new
dimension and the battlefield comes to life as the atmosphere fills
with smoke, fire, haze, tracers, explosions, and state-of-the-art
weather effects.
- Intuitive and Evolved Interface—A fully
evolved side-bar interface allows you to completely manage your base
operations while never leaving the action.
Customer Reviews
Respectable Single Player and Flawed Multiplayer
The Command and Conquer
series is one of the most developed, longest-lived in strategy game
history. What we get with Tiberium Wars is a continuation of that
tradition, streamlined and with a few new features. The problem is, the
"new features" (mainly in the form of multiplayer) tend to be painfully
flawed, leaving us with a playable but not entirely complete game.
First,
the single player campaign. Single player starts with the option of two
different campaigns - GDI (the "good guys") and NOD (the insane rebels
that some players will find slightly cooler). Supported by video footage
that includes many known faces (Michael Ironsides, Billy Dee Williams,
Grace Park, and Joe Kucan among others), you'll battle your way across
the Earth in numerous missions. These missions are often short, but they
tend to be both interesting (often with unique situations) and numerous
enough where you won't feel you were short-changed by the developers.
If you've played C&C before, everything will feel similar. In fact,
not a lot has changed besides a slight update to the graphics.
Multiplayer,
however, is where a lot of new features are added - and everything
falls apart. A number of new features appear in an attempt to make this
RTS game a viable "sport" with fans. These features include broadcasting
games as a sort of internet TV channel ("battlecast"), various
challenge systems, and clans. The problem is, at the time of this
writing, multiplayer is painfully broken. Patch updates can cripple
players and force them to re-install the entire game if they want to
compete online; the interface makes it hard to select games; the network
itself appears unstable at peak times. Actual play, if you can get to
it, is OK (there are three different races/groups you can be) - but it
can be extremely frustrating getting to that point. Hopefully, in the
future, the online play will also be streamlined - and I can give the
game a much higher rating.
In summation: For those that enjoy
single player RTS (real time strategy), this game would rank four or
five stars - the story arc is interesting, well-supported by video
footage, and diverse enough to keep player interest. For those that want
multiplayer action, you may be sorely disappointed until that aspectis
fixed/overhauled - buy with caution.
Some
new polish on some old gameplay (fun nonetheless)
I am new to the Command and
Conquer series, so I bought C&C3 with no particular expectations. I
thought that the demo--which I recommend you play before buying--was
merely decent, but decided to give the game a shot. If you are into
real-time strategy (RTS) games, this one is worth a try. It is fairly
easy to pick up and play, has lengthy campaigns, and it looks great.
However, this is, at best, second-tier gaming in my book. When compared
to the likes of Dawn of War or Battle for Middle Earth 2, C&C3
doesn't fair well. However, it does have its moments and can provide
some good entertainment.
Gameplay: This game has a late 1990s
feel to it. It's an RTS game where back-and-forth resource collecting,
tank rushing, and unit spamming still rule the day. But to its credit,
these throwback features are put together fairly well. The game does
allow for some strategic decision-making, despite itself. For example,
you can tech fast to big tanks and the super-weapon and hope that the
enemy does not show up in the meantime. Or, you can depend on air power
to take out strategic targets and take a chance on the enemy not having
good air defenses. Or, you can raid the enemy base with an expensive
commando early on. Or, you can take a chance and construct turrets all
over the place and play a defensive game, at least for a while.
Sometimes, tank spam will win the day, but not always. A mixed force is
usually best if you don't know what your enemy is up to.
The
campaigns are somewhat interesting overall. Each of the three races
(GDI, NOD, and Skrin) have their own story lines, which will allow you
to become familiar with each side. There are a good 35 missions in all
which should keep you preoccupied for a while. The missions are uneven
in quality and difficulty. Some are fairly easy and straightforward and
can be completed in 10 minutes. A few will require repeated, frustrating
efforts and are based on questionable design decisions. The stories are
tied together by cutscenes that are generally decent, especially for
NOD.
The AI holds its own pretty well in skirmishes. It switches
up its strategies, flanks your base, and fights aggressively. You can
set the AI to behave in various ways based on your gameplay style and
skill level. Unfortunately, the game ships with only about 20 skirmish
maps, with the typical over-abundance of 2-player maps. However, a map
editor has been released by the developer, and a few decent player-made
maps have appeared. I assume that the inevitable expansion pack will
include more maps, missions, and units.
C&C3 flaws are
largely tolerable and relate primarily to it being a re-make of an older
game. Its familiarity as a traditional RTS is both its greatest
strength and weakness. The resource model is straight out of classic RTS
games like the Age of Empires series, Warcraft games, and other C&C
games. Some will find this enjoyable. However, it leads to the ugly
base sprawl and pathfinding problems that are the bane of such games, as
well as games that degenerate into who can destroy the other player's
harvesters and refineries the fastest. Very few of the newer gameplay
mechanics that are found in recent RTS games are found here, such as
hero units, RPG-style leveling (well, units do gain experience, but you
hardly notice), or alternative win conditions (you must annihilate the
enemy in every game to win). Since you can climb the tech tree so fast
and spam units so ridiculously, you never feel any attachment to any of
them. And gameplay is fast and furious. I hope that an expansion
introduces some sort of hero units or roleplaying elements to the game,
along with some caps on the number of super units that can be made (at
least things like Mammoth tanks should be more expensive). Anyhow, as I
said before, some people are going to like this traditional style of
gameplay. At least the game has modern amenities like hotkeys, save/load
options, and easily adjustable difficulty levels.
Visuals: The
game looks great, especially on high settings. Explosions, heat exhaust
effects, unit animations, and map features are very well done. Each side
looks distinctive. The interface is a lot like that of Battle for
Middle Earth 2; necessary information is easy to get to without being in
the way. The cutscenes, while a bit to melodramatic at times, do tell
the story well, and the actors are all usually convincing, besides the
fact that they are talking to the camera most of the time.
Sound:
Units make appropriate sounds and have decent voice acting. They don't
have the personality of a game such as Dawn of War or even Warcraft 3,
but they're good enough. The game's music is also decent, but not
memorable.
Technical issues: The game comes with a good manual
that explains the basics. The tutorial mission is only for GDI; there
should have been a tutorial mission for all three races. The game has
run nearly flawlessly on my computer, with only one crash in about 50
hours of gameplay. I suppose it should run well on most mid-range and
better computers.
Replayabiity/Value: Since RTS games probably
offer the best replay value for the dollar of any gaming genre, anyone
who likes RTS games should get good value from C&C3. There is an
online community, and the AI poses a good challenge. I would not be
interested in replaying the campaigns any time soon, but could see
running through them again at some point. If you are a fan of the
C&C series, I imagine this is a no-brainer buy. For those (like me)
with no previous experience with C&C, play the demo first. I overall
recommend this game.
Pros:
--Great graphics, scalable to
various computer set-ups.
--Good AI, entertaining campaigns, decent
skirmish mode
--Easy to pick up and learn
--Some strategic depth,
despite itself
--Fast and furious gameplay
Cons:
--Fast and
furious gameplay
--Spamalicious; badly needs either caps on super
units, more balance, and/or increased costs
--Old-fashion gameplay,
with unsightly base sprawl and tired resource collection model
--Only
20 skirmish maps, with too many 2-player maps
--A few very
frustrating campaign missions
WELCOME
BACK COMMANDERS!
Let me make it clear from the
beginning: GREAT GRAPHICS! Physics and details are AMAZING! I
particularly liked the exhaust distortions, the dust of the passing
mammoth tanks and the burning debris falling from destroyed flying
units!
And for graphics like that it does not require the moon an the
stars hardware-wise! Even my office 3year old system, sporting a 3.2MHz
P4, 2GB RAM and an nVidia 7600GT can manage the highest settings.
Why
is this important? I have STALKER gathering dust waiting for my next PC
- only, when it will eventually be playable, it will also
be...obsolete!
The story moves along, new units get unlocked, you
gather, you built, you defend, you read the terrain, you amass your
forces and you push forward hoping for the best. No try it again with
the Bad guys.
Where it misses the 5th star: one cannot hold a
battle formation while moving as most major units move at different
paces and (although the AI has improved) they keep bumping on each
other. May be the next C&C could have some TOTAL WAR infused into
it, with battle formations options.
- Is it balanced? Mostly YES.
-
Does it require tactics? As much as one might expect from a COMMAND
& CONQUER Game.
- Can you still hog resources until you tank-rush
the opposition? YES (sometimes the only solution)
- Is it GENERALS
2.5? Definitely NOT. It has a clear C&C character!
True, I
could do without the wooden acting of Michael Ironside! (Gone are the
days of Kari Wuhrer...Lock'n'Load!)
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