Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars

When I first heard that there was a new installment in the Command and Conquer Tiberium Series in the works, I was rather skeptical, since Westwood Studios was off the task this time. The game was being developed by the money-making, studio-gobbling monster they call Electronic Arts. EA is renowned for developing some pretty shitty-assed and extremely commercialized titles for even the greatest franchises after they buy them over; look at Command & Conquer: Generals for instance – on it’s own, the game wasn’t too bad, but it surely didn’t match up to the C&C standards that Westwood had set in any way. After I actually played Tiberium Wars however, I was relieved. Believe it or not (I still can’t), it looks like EA has actually given us a game that has done justice to the legacy of Command & Conquer, and at times, surpassed it.

No game could possible be more true to the C&C franchise, than C&C 3: Tiberium Wars is. In fact, at times it seems like Westwood developed this game themselves, not EA. Everything about this game will make you reminisce of the previous two in the C&C Tiberium Series; if you’ve played them, that is. If you haven’t, Tiberium Wars will still offer you the greatest experience any RTS ever could. This, my friends, is how an RTS should be – Simple, fun, fast and still deep!

Tiberium Wars doesn’t bring anything new to the table – no new mechanics, no new iconic view (like Supreme Crap-mander) … nothing. Instead, it takes what’s already been around for more than a decade of RTS gaming, and perfects it to the extent that you wouldn’t want anything new anyway. So if you’re looking for something new and innovative, look elsewhere! If you’re looking for some good old fashioned RTS fun however, you’ve hit the jackpot…
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You’ve got to hand it to them - the guys at EA have fine tuned each and every one of the game’s elements to perfection, be it the slick design of the interface, or the extremely optimized game engine. Unlike Generals, where the game would stutter in huge battles on even the most powerful systems out there, this game worked flawlessly. Even in battles where hundreds of units fired at each other, using some pretty visually intense weapon animations, the game didn’t slow down one bit. What was even more impressive was that no mission, single or multi player, took more than 10-20 seconds to load! At first I though it was because my system’s a bit more powerful than most others out there, but when a friend of mine (who’s got a PC from the Stone Age) said the same, I was quite surprised. After playing games like Company of Heroes, where you can actually go to work and come back before a mission loads, those 10-20 seconds just flew by even before I knew it. EA has really hit more than just one proverbial nail on its head this time.

One place I was sure that EA would screw-up, was the game’s visuals. When it was revealed that EA would use a modified version of the SAGE engine for Tiberium Wars, I was quite disheartened. The SAGE engine was the one used in Generals – a game that should have never happened. I mean what was EA thinking; they had 2 VERY successful C&C franchises that they could’ve made sequels for – Red Alert and the Tiberium Series, and instead, they decided to make an RTS based on some crappy current world conflicts! The damned game was crap! I’m sure a lot of you liked it though. All of you suck! Now that I’ve vented enough, I can move back to what I was saying …

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As you can see, I pretty much abhor Generals. Everything about it makes me clench my fist and grind my teeth. I hated the way it looked too – it took away the nice sprite based graphics the series used, and replaced them with some half-assed 3D visuals that had no detailing what-so-ever. I was pretty certain that Tiberium Wars would look equally puke-inducing, plus a few special effects. Was I right? Nope, I was so wrong, and I’ve never been this happy about being wrong before!

Tiberium Wars is the sweetest looking RTS thing out there. It’s so good that if you’ve ever got an eye sore, watch/play the game for a while and your eyes will be as good as new! The detail on each and every unit is simply marvelous, thanks to some really well made textures and awesome unit/structure design. That’s not all, the environment is so well crafted that even the most war torn landscape seems scenic as hell. I guess the game owes it to the great lighting effects of its engine, which has been used brilliantly to convey the mood of each of the different campaigns impeccably. All of this can’t just be credited to the tools the guys at EA had of course, it’s more about the amount of time and energy they’ve put into it. They’ve added really subtle touches to enhance the feel of the campaigns; for instance, as you battle your way deeper into the Tiberium scarred lands of the Red Zones in the GDI campaign, the landscape turns grimmer and darker with each passing mission, which works really well in giving you a good feel for the sinister forces you’re up against. When coupled with the extremely well enacted Full Motion Video (FMV) briefings/debriefings, the visual wonders of this game make for a very immersive, believable experience.

Yep, that’s right, FMV sequences are back and this time, they’re bigger than ever. Real-life actors briefing you between missions couldn’t get any better than this – EA’s hired some extremely talented actors such as Joseph D. Kucan, who’s played Kane all through the series, Michael Ironside (Top Gun, Starship Troopers, etc.) who plays the GDI Lieutenant General, Billy Dee Williams (From the Star Wars series and Batman) who plays the GDI director’s role, and finally Josh Holloway (Lost) who plays the role of a Nod intelligence officer who briefs you throughout the Nod missions. With talent like that to back your game up, you couldn’t go wrong. Well most of the time, that is; some of the FMV sequences get a little hammy at times and seem a tad overacted. But it’s all good at the end of the day, since these FMVs keep you entertained and do their job of briefing you, pretty well.
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I could just go on and on about how every little thing in the game is handled so brilliantly; but let’s move on from the trivial stuff, to the things that matter the most – the core mechanics of the game. You’ll be happy to know that in this area, like others, the game does not falter. The unit designed, when it comes to functionality, is spot on in every aspect. Unlike games like Supreme Commander, each and every unit apart from the basic infantry in every faction is vastly different from one another. The Nod units for instance, taking cue from the previous Tiberium games, have been beefed up to become stealthier and hence lay further emphasis on hit and run tactics that before. The GDI units are sturdier and can take far more abuse, but are less mobile; hence they encourage traditional warfare tactics far more than the other factions. The Scrin however, seem like they’re at a very nascent stage in the series, and they haven’t got any characteristics that are really that definitive. However, being the new race on the block, they play out very differently from the other two factions, which does well to add variety into multiplayer bouts.

The way these factions’ warfare style translates into the single player campaign is awesome; the GDI campaign for instance, has missions that focus on a lot of defense and counter attacks, which helps secure their role as the do-gooder traditional warfare practitioners. The Nod campaign on the other hand has a lot of stealth and infiltration missions, and is a bit more fun than the GDI campaign in my opinion. The Scrin Campaign however isn’t as long as the other two (it’s got just 4 missions in it), since it’s meant to be a bonus campaign rather than a complete one. Overall, the single player part of Tiberium Wars gives you a varied plethora of missions, which will provide any RTS gamer with many hours of engaging action.

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If you’re an RTS-a-holic you’ve just got to try out this game, even if you didn’t like the previous C&C games. Tiberium Wars has taken the best from all the games in the series (even Generals) and dumped it all into one humongous, extremely well polished package. If this game isn’t worth the money, then I don’t know what is.