The third tiberium war is over. After a week of fighting, there was no definite winner.
I got the Kane Edition of C&C3 last Saturday, and I completed the whole game in a week with normal difficulty for most missions. As usual, GDI and NOD are fighting it out, but then an invader comes by, who call themselves the Scrin. I did a review on the demo about a month ago, but that wasn’t really a review, its more like a summary of the demo.
The game comes with 3 campaigns, where you will lead the 3 factions. The GDI and NOD campaigns have to be completed first before the Scrin campaign is unlocked. There are only 4 missions in the Scrin campaign, but they’re pretty hard and might take some time.
The gameplay for C&C3 hasn’t changed very much. You can still build unlimited units, you need a Mobile Construction Yard (MCV) to set up your base, you need power plants, you need to harvest tiberium, and so on. And of course, movies and cut scenes which are all acted out by real people, unlike most games, which use 3D animation. Kane, the leader of the brotherhood of NOD, has been acting for all the 3 C&C games. I’m pretty sure everyone loves his acting and villainous figure. Pretty obviously, you can’t act out the Scrin because they’re alien. I have to say the movie quality is superb, as good or even better than DVDs.
The storyline isn’t continuous, meaning that the game progresses with events of the GDI first, then NOD then Scrin like in Warcraft 3. The storyline is pretty much the same for all three factions. Things that happened in the GDI campaign will most likely happen in the NOD and Scrin campaign, and vice versa. The endings for all three campaigns are all different though, all suited for you to win.
There’s going to be some spoilers here, so skip the next three paragraphs if you don’t want any.
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The GDI campaign has alternate endings, making you a person who wins righteously or wins with pretty disastrous consequences. Basically, you manage to “kill” (we all know he never dies, right?) Kane, and you manage to drive out the Scrin. You either do this by destroying them normally with an assault with your units, or with the Tiberium missile, which will result in a chain reaction and resulting in tens of millions of deaths.
For the NOD campaign, Kane manages to defend himself from many setbacks. Attacks from the GDI, traitors of NOD committing treason, and the Scrin. However he has this master plan where he wants to work with the Scrin so that he can gain control over the universe.
For the Scrin campaign, its pretty short because they invade when you are already three quarters into the GDI and NOD campaigns. You invade Earth, and then you have to distract the humans by attacking the civilians, while The Tower is being built. It fails, and then you have to gather all your resources and repel the attacks on the only Tower left. Once accomplished, destruction of Earth can begin.
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Some bugs from the demo are gone, like the one where vehicles could go through each other. This bug isn’t solved with the harvester yet though. I’ve also seen the harvester depositing resources into the refinery without even being docked before. The problems and bugs of this game are small and wouldn’t harm or benefit anyone greatly.
Some issues I have is that when transmissions come in and show you your targets, the units you have selected would be unselected and if its a big army, its going to be a problem getting them back, especially if you didn’t group your units.
Also, when things are built on the furthest left of the map, the building bar on the left really blocks everything and it kind of pisses me off. Once I also built an air tower on the edge and one of the Vertigo Bombers was out of the screen, and I had to rotate my view in order to select it. We should be able to scroll a little further out of the map, such that the black border on the edge of the map can be seen.
Once the strongest units like mammoth tanks are obtained, the other units become relatively useless. RTS games should be such that majority of the units are useful. Spamming of units also seem to win the game easily. I think RTS games should move in the Company of Heroes direction, where tactics is more important than number.
In terms of balance of power, I think the GDI and NOD are pretty well balanced. Scrin is a little overpowered due to the fact that most of their units can fly, and it poses quite a big problem as the other 2 races don’t have very effective anti-air units which can actually go head to head with a Scrin aircraft.
C&C3 brings back the series to life, but if you are looking for something new, you might be a little disappointed. I still believe all C&C and Red Alert fans would love this game anyway. Someone looking for a new game to play would also be satisfied.
Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars Trailer (1:12)
Graphics: 9
Sound: 9
Gameplay: 8.5
Lasting Appeal: 8.5
Overall: 8.7
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