SpawnPoint

The Command and Conquer series of RTS Games has been a long one. There have been several different C&C games over the years, I’ll admit, I’ve only played a couple, and wasn’t too impressed by them. I am a veteran of StarCraft; no other RTS has managed to impress me since good ol’ SC. About a week ago I was convinced to download the Demo of Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars. I downloaded the 1.17GB file from, where else, SPAWNPOINT.COM… at 800KB/s sustained I might add...

The demo installation went without any errors, so far so good. I watched the Intro Video, and as with other C&C games saw the Real Life acting instead of CGI. As always it was a little cheesy to me, but entertaining none the less. After the actors came a glimpse of the real action, in game footage. I was very impressed. I played through the demo several times, before deciding to buy the game. And I did, the day it released.

The game came on one single DVD disk. After the game installed I loaded it up, and noticed the video in the demo was no longer there. I was greeted instead by the main Menu screen, which had a nice layout and an animated background. Simple and informative, always a plus.

Artificial Intelligence

The first thing I wanted to do was load up a quick skirmish against a couple computers, see how much I had learned from the demo. The computer players have four different levels of difficulty. Easy, Medium, Hard, and Brutal. 1v1 against a Hard computer is just that, hard. “Comp Stomps” with this game may prove to be quite a challenge, a welcome change from other RTS games. Along with the Difficulty level, there are six different AI settings to choose from. These will define the computer players style of play during the game. Random, Balanced, Rusher, Turtle, Guerilla, and Steamroller. I played against 4 Brutal Rushers, and well, they had over thirty tanks in my base before I had three. The possibilities and combinations of computer levels are extensive.

The computer opponents use tactics against you, instead of blindly rushing. They will coordinate their attack well, and hit you where it will hurt the most. Picking off harvesters and power plants, for example.

The Unit AI (how units move) is not bad, but could be a better. Your units may ‘take the long way around’ or not stick together when moving from A to B. There are however a couple of different settings to choose from for your units. This is Guard Stance (below), which is the Default for units produced. Also, units will automatically make way for other units, which is a nice feature...
Graphics

Ah yes, no game is complete without pretty effects, right? C&C 3 has some very nice graphics, and runs very smoothly considering.

Unit Models are clean and smooth, and everything in-game operates smooth and fluidly. There are several different terrain types, everything from clean urban areas, to uninhabitable wastelands overrun by the Tiberium fields and radiation (above).

The camera angle and zoom level can be adjusted with the Scroll Wheel on your mouse, allowing you to get up-close and personal with the action.

Heat rises from heat sources, distorting the air above, and HDR style lighting causes things like Tiberium Crystals and Fire to stand out, giving the player a more realistic impression of the harsh conditions below.

This is one of the few games where the visual effects themselves almost make the game. The beauty of the terrain and units, and the detail put into every aspect of the game is amazing.

Balance

The Balance between units and Factions in C&C 3 is OK, but not the best. An army of Mammoth Tanks or Juggernauts will destroy any building in seconds, and are rather hard to kill. It is somewhat hard to determine which units are good for a given situation because there is no indicator of how much damage a unit can do, except watching them shoot something.

Personally I have become quite fond of the GDI Pitbull (screenshot). Speedy and cheap, it packs one hell of a punch in large numbers (left).

It seems impossibly difficult to destroy a large army of anything (except basic Infantry, easy kills).

As this is a very fast paced game, I am thinking this balance was intentional. If you allow the enemy too much time to build, you’re dead.

Gameplay

Overall the game runs very smooth. Once the map is loaded and running, there seems to be no lag at all. Load times are quite fast considering; it takes only a couple seconds to load up a map.

Resources on the map tend to dry up pretty quick. They do regenerate, but not very fast. In a normal skirmish or multiplayer game, it is very important to expand your base, for Resources we well as strategy. Map control is key, as with almost any RTS game.

Unlike some other RTS games, the ‘Turtle’ tactic is not a wise one in Tiberium Wars. For example, you cannot win by controlling a corner of a map, and filling it with as many defenses as you can afford. Units become extremely powerful later in the game, and any defenses you may have are almost useless at that point.

Action

Command and Conquer 3 is one of the most intense games I have played in a long time. The action is non-stop, never a dull moment. The battles are fought with such grace it is hard to not just sit back and watch the fireworks. The sounds and visuals of the battles are intense, to say the least. Your screen shakes, you see rockets and lasers flashing past all over the place, everything’s exploding, and the minimap pings and flashes all over.

The pace of the game is very fast, most buildings are built in under 30 seconds, most multiple buildings can be made at once, units can be build from multiple structures at once. Most games won’t last longer than 15-30 minutes.

There is no “supply limit” for your army, which can make for some pretty epic battles.

Single Player

There are two campaigns in Tiberium Wars, plus a bonus 4 Mission Scrin campaign after GDI and NOD are completed. The storyline in the game was nothing too special in my opinion, though as I said before, I never was too big of a C&C fan. The story seemed a little predictable, but had a couple surprises. I won’t go into detail and spoil the story, you will just have to play it and see for yourself ?

The campaigns start off easy, and progress in difficulty very fast (Faster than my skill level was going up to be honest). The game gets very hard as you get into it, and demands a lot of improvisation and multi-tasking, no time for rest. This is a good thing though; any game that is easy is not worth the money. Tiberium Wars can provide a real challenge for any gamer.

Multi-Player

Multiplayer games can be player over a LAN network, or online as with most other RTS games. Any one game can have up to 8 players, depending on the map.

Unfortunately it appears EA has missed a couple bugs in development, resulting in my inability to get online with the game. Many users are having a similar problem, where the whole game will crash if a connection attempt is made. The boys at EA are working on a fix, and managed to push out two patches within the first 48 hours of the games release, but some are still experiencing problems, myself included.

What I do know about Tiberium Wars is you can broadcast your matches with other players, which can be found at the C&C Website. There is a ten-minute delay in the ‘video’ to discourage ghosting, but it is a cool feature nonetheless. You can choose to Free-view the game, or watch from a player’s perspective, which will show you exactly what a particular player sees in the game. There can also be commentators for a recorded game to explain what is going on.

There is a ladder on the official website for the game, which is updated real time, showing the top players and their records.

VoIP is another nice feature in Tiberium Wars, which allows you to use voice communication with your team to coordinate attacks, execute strategies, or just chat with your friends.

The map selection is pretty limited, with only 20 or so maps to choose from, but a World Editor is currently in the works and rumored to be released within the next month. From this release, there is no doubt a huge mapping community will emerge, and many awesome maps will be produced.

Conclusions

Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars is a very fast paced RTS, with great visual appeal, as well as it being a damn fun game to play. Tiberium Wars shows great potential in being one of the most popular online RTS games of this time, as soon as everyone can play it online.

I give Command and Conquer 3 an 8.7/10