Introduction

Command and Conquer was one of the first few real time strategy games that I played in college. I still remember it now – staying up till wee hours in the morning trying to conquer Nod or GDI. I remember coming home from class only to see my friends in my room playing C&C. Darn it – I wanted my computer back! Ah those were the days. That game plus the first Warcraft from Blizzard laid down the corner stones to this entire genre. Last week, Command and Conquer Generals came out with a decent amount of fanfare and thus I went out to the local computer game store and picked up a copy. After a weekend of playing with this game – let’s take a look and see if C&C can regain some of it’s former glory.

Command and Conquer Generals

First off – this isn’t a rehash of Nod vs GDI or what not – C&C Generals is based around what is conceivably the three major forces in the near future: 1) The United States, 2) The Chinese, and 3) Terrorists in the form of the Global Liberation Army (GLA). C&C Generals single player mode concentrates around these three groups and offers a very simple storyline. Each campaign is limited to seven missions and quite frankly – it’s not that hard at all for RTS veterans.

The game comes on two CDs and you’ll need to enter the serial key located on the back of the CD case to install. Are you curious as to whether you can use this game on multiple machines in a LAN? The answer is NO. EA won’t even let you install multiplayer spawns to let your friends just play multiplayer. What this means is that if you want to have your pals over and playing with you on a LAN battle – every person will need to purchase a copy of this game. I know EA is just trying to make money but come on now. Forcing everyone to get a copy when playing on the Internet makes sense – but when you’re home with a LAN ? I’m not sure so anymore.

The installation process was fairly straightforward and uses both CD’s to install. You’ll need the first CD in the drive to start up the game. Once the game starts up, you’ll notice instant changes to C&C Generals.

The most important aspect to remember to this game is that you may need new graphics hardware if you plan on running this game on high resolutions. The game has a new 3D engine that will remind you of Warcraft III’s engine. All your vehicles, weapons, men and terrain are rendered using this 3D engine. The explosions and various special effects are rendered beautifully. The fire from the explosions and the various vehicles are top notch. Yet I do have a few problems with the 3D that I will discuss later on.

Cut Scenes

Remember the beautiful cut scenes from the other Command and Conquer games? I remember looking forward to watching these cut scenes after finishing up a major section in a campaign. Well, C&C Generals uses the same concept as Warcraft III and renders their cut scenes using their 3D engine. I have the same reaction now as I had with WarIII – it’s nice to see a 3D engine be used to render a cut scene, but personally a well rendered 2D movie is so much better.

Interface

The user interface to C&C Generals is normal. The mouse buttons are reverse to what you may be used to with War3 and Starcraft and other RTS games . The left mouse button will select units and then have the units perform actions. If you want to go to specific spots on the mini-map, you will need to right click the mini map. If you left click the mini-map you may end up sending your unit(s) to that location by accident. I was personally used to the right click action button with other games but it didn’t take too long to get used to this interface. Otherwise, the rest of the interface is fairly standard when compared to games in the RTS genre. You can hide the interface should you want more of your screen real estate dedicated to the game battle. I did have some occasional annoyances when telling units to go to various locations on the map. The map would occasionally shift to the location of the units which may not be where you are looking at this moment. It’s annoying especially in the thick of battle.

Sound

C&C Generals has a good sound system though nothing spectacular. The sounds are dependent upon the group that you are commandeering. Americans have a patriotic musical accompaniment, while the Chinese and GLA have very stereo-typical effects. Now I’m not one to complain about sound effects normally; nor am I one to get offended easily but I did find that some of the sounds effects somewhat too stereotypical – especially the Chinese and the GLA. Though you really shouldn’t take this game seriously, one can’t help but wonder what some people will think when playing the game. I for one was smirking and laughing when I first heard the Chinese voices. However after awhile, I got really annoyed at the voices and grew to dread them while playing. Oh well – again – don’t take the game seriously and you’ll be fine.

The Game Play

As I said before, the game centers around three different groups of people and each group has capabilities that are reminiscent to what you may find today. The Americans have a powerful military and rule the skies. The Chinese have strength in numbers. The GLA uses their deceptive and covert methods to unleash damage on their foes. Unlike other RTS games, there really are not that many vehicles or men that you can create. In fact, you’re actually rather limited in your build trees.

The game itself is even simpler when you consider that you only have to find supplies to get your town going. You don’t have to mine different resources at once like in Starcraft or Warcraft III. There’s no more Tiberium to mine as in the original C&C games. It’s just supplies – how boring. Not all the races gather supplies the same way. The Americans use Choppers to ferry in supplies while the Chinese can either truck it in or use computer hackers to steal money from the internet. The GLA uses civilians to gather supplies (and you will constantly hear their whining whenever you tell them to do things).

What’s the game like once you get going? As with many real time strategy games nowadays – the key is speed. You don’t need to worry about building up too quickly against the computer but you can’t wall yourself in like in the older games. Thus you’ll need to create good defenses if you’re a slower player. However because the enemy may attack you fairly regularly, you really need to go on the offensive quickly and not get bogged down. At the end of the day – it’s about speed and who can build the more powerful and capable army.

All three groups are very different with regards to the types of offensive and defensive capabilities thus power doesn’t necessarily equate to pure raw power since you can take out a group of powerful vehicles with deceptive car bombs. There is always room for some good strategy.

So what’s different in C&C Generals? There is a new Generals system by which you earn experience points that you can then use to research certain capabilities. You earn points as you progress through your campaigns. This isn’t too bad but it’s not all that interesting compared to the Hero notion presented in Warcraft III.

As I said before, the single player game is really easy to play. I finished all three major campaigns in a day. If you are not interested in multiplayer games, then you may not be that interested in purchasing this game. Wait until the price comes down if that’s the case. Most of the action will reside with the multiplayer aspect and here is where speed will be key. Most players online are going to be so fast with their army buildup that if you can’t keep up, then don’t even bother.

You have the option to play skirmishes against the computer but quite frankly – the A.I. sucks. While we’re on the subject of the A.I. – you will soon learn to hate the way your soldiers may react to certain situations. I’ve seen plenty of cases where soldiers would stand there taking fire and not do anything about it. If you’re not paying attention, your entire army group could be gone.

The good and the bad

I’ll say this right up front – I am not at all impressed with Command and Conquer Generals. I know there have been a number of reviews on the net that have rated this game rather high but I just can’t agree. Here are the good parts first:

The Good

The game is in 3D. Pretty cool. All the objects and terrains are rendered in 3D and the various particle effects are definitely very nice. I particularly liked the fire and water effects. Everything about this game uses the 3D engine. Everything from the game play to the cut scenes. In a major battle, the 3D vehicles can look quite amazing with explosions going off left and right and various missiles flying overhead.

The game isn’t too difficult for most individuals to pick up rapidly. You don’t really need to have knowledge of the earlier C&C games to play this version. In fact you don’t need any knowledge at all.

The various vehicles and weapons that you can use are definitely very cool. You can commandeer vehicles like Comanches or launch Nukes against your enemies. You can send a car bomb into a crowd of men or insight a mob into violence. If you’re really pissed off at terrorists right now – go ahead and play the Americans and crush some GLA. It’s nice to see different ways to win with the different groups that are available for to play with.

Overall, the visual effects of the game are fairly nice when looked at from a macro viewpoint with a ton of vehicles on the screen and action all over. The game itself is actually fun during the duration that you’re playing but it’s easy to get bored with it after some time.

The Bad

Though the visual effects are nice – some of various objects are just too poorly rendered if you ask me. My biggest beef is with the soldiers - they're just plain ugly. Yet despite this, the game play can slow to a crawl sometimes even on a fairly capable 3D card such as the NVIDIA ti4200. C&C has always suffered from bouts of slowness and apparently this game keeps up the trend. Of course it should be noted that I was running this game at 1280 x 968 and it would probably run more smoothly at 800 x 600. Yet overall, I don’t see this game as that incredible visually. I was never a fan of bringing 3D to a RTS environment especially since one doesn’t change camera angles a great deal. I personally find a detailed 2D RTS game much more appealing.

The overall game play of C&C Generals is utterly boring to those of you who are veterans of RTS games. There’s really nothing new. Sure you can play around with new weapons but it’s still the same old thing: 1) Build a base and expand and 2) Build an army and conquer. There are some advantages that you can make use of with regards to different terrain heights but it’s nothing you can’t overcome with some Tomahawk missiles. With the single player done, there’s nothing much to C&C Generals except for multiplayer gaming and this can get fairly boring quickly. The game is just not that compelling. It’s not revolutionary but a minor evolutionary step. In fact, the game can be seen as merely catching up to what Blizzard has already set forth with Warcraft III from last year. This game is not worth the $40-$50 dollars that it’s retailing for – wait till the prices come down.

Thinking about the bad aspects of the game, I can’t help but think about the usage of voices and sounds in the game. Again, you really can’t take this game too seriously since it is just a game and it may make you laugh while playing. Yet I can’t help but wonder that some people may take offense to the choice of voices. I think the stereotypical voices could have been toned down a bit personally.

Summary

I really wanted to like Command and Conquer Generals. I had high hopes for this game since the last few C&C games have been so disappointing. After playing with this game for one weekend, it has become clear that this game just doesn’t live up to its’ marketing hype. If you’ve never played RTS games before, then C&C Generals is fun excursion. You’ll enjoy the variety of weapons and the overall gameplay. You’ll also probably enjoy the multiplayer action.

Yet if you’re a veteran of this genre, then C&C Generals is really just your standard military RTS game with 3D added. I really wanted to like this game and after reading some of the various reviews on the net – I thought I might. Yet after 3 days of playing, I think I’ll put this one back on the shelf or on Half.com. I hate to say this but Warcraft III brought more innovations to the RTS genre than C&C Generals. Yes it’s a fun game but the single player is done in no time and the multiplayer becomes old school after awhile. So if you’re new to all of this, check it out but wait until the prices come down. I think it's time to call an end to Command and Conquer.

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