It's loud, it's raucous, it's colorful, and it's full of stuff just gleefully blowing up. It's Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars, the latest in real time strategy games and a return to the C&C universe that's been out of fashion since Tiberium Sun in 1999 (despite the C&C moniker, the Generals with its Chinese, Americans, and Arabs is something else entirely). Based on a look at a near final version, it's a return to form that's clearly the polar opposite of cerebral studied games like Supreme Commander or Age of Empires III. Are you ready for some fast frantic fluid sci-fi action?
How about a star-studded movie to go along with all that stuff blowing up? C&C3 will include live action footage interspersed among the three campaigns. Over the course of 38 missions divided into three campaigns, you'll follow the story of the Scrin, a faction of alien party crashers arriving from just outside the orbit of Neptune to come between the Global Defense Initiative and their rivals, the Brotherhood of Nod.
The cast includes luminaries from Battlestar Galactica, Lost, and Star Wars. Plus Michael "Sam Fisher" Ironsides. These folks should give you a good idea of the target audience. We were shown a montage of scenes that closed with a tight shot on Billy Dee Williams' face as he gives an impassioned speech that ends with the erstwhile Lando Calrissian looking into the camera and imploring you to "do the right thing, commander". No nodding, no winking, no cheese. It's all in earnest, as befits a C&C.
\"What do you think?\" asks producer Amer Ajami. Live action footage has been out of vogue since, well, Tiberium Sun boasted Michael (\"He was in The Terminator!\") Biehn and James (\"He's freakin' Darth Vader!\") Earl Jones. Is this big production a risk, or a slam dunk? Ajami feels the live action storytelling \"definitely captures that C&C feel\". And no self-respecting C&C fan can see Joe Kucan sneering into the camera as Kane without recalling the good ol' days before Generals and Red Alert.
Each faction has its own campaign with its own perspective on events. After you play the GDI or Nod campaign, you'll unlock the Scrin campaign. \"There's a deep mythology around the story,\" says executive producer Mike Verdu, pointing out that the aliens were referenced by name in Tiberium Sun. \"We'll address a lot of the mysteries. We'll answer a lot of questions, but we'll also create some new ones.\"
There are a lot of touches that will be familiar to C&C fans, but that might be a bit disconcerting to other RTS players. For instance, placing your structures is an odd two-step procedure with some down time between the steps. You order a building, and then go about your business. After a time, the building will be available to be plopped down on the map. No muss, no fuss, no peasants or builders. Just the delay between ordering it and placing it. These discrete steps are a C&C convention from way back that you won't find in other RTSs.
Also completely new is an Xbox 360 version a few months after the release of the PC version. This isn't so surprising when you consider that it's being done by the same folks at EA who translated Battle for Middle Earth II to the 360. Even in an early build of the 360 version, it's clear that Command & Conquer 3 has benefited from the lessons they've learned the hard way. After seeing a few busy C&C3 missions, there's no sign of the slowdown that often dragged down Battle for Middle Earth II's larger battles. \"We've spent a lot of time working with the underlying technology to really make it sing,\" says senior producer Michael Glosecki.
Glosecki notes the faster reaction time after button presses, which makes it easier to keep up with the pacing. A new \"magnetic\" cursor makes it easier to pick up a unit while you're driving the cursor around with the controller's analog sticks. The interface is still a handful with a bit of learning curve, but there are some helpful new additions, such as an easier way to designate groups so you can quickly return to them. Your superpowers will be displayed on the main screen now instead of tucked under a menu. There are a few specific improvements, like your menu selection being remembered after you let up on a button, and support for ingame voice communication with your team members as opposed to everything you say being broadcast to friends and enemies alike.
There are a number of multiplayer modes that will be exclusive to the 360 version. Siege lets players build up behind barriers for a set amount of time, enforcing what is often an informal agreement to not rush each other. A Capture the Flag mode sends both players after a flag that spawns in the middle of the map. Bring the flag back to your base to score. Capture-and-Hold awards points for controlling key areas on the map, and King of the Hill has everyone fighting over a single location.
The console version will also offer support for the Xbox 360's Vision camera. You can superimpose a player's image on the screen as you play. Along with the live voice connection, this adds an entirely new dynamic to a multiplayer game. \"It's a pretty interesting sociological experiment,\" says associate producer Raj Joshi. \"You're aware they see you and it totally changes the way you react.\" He jokes about how everyone has his 'game face', but you're not used to your game face being on display. \"You definitely feel like you're playing against the people you're playing against,\" he says, which makes sense considering how impersonal multiplayer gaming can be.
Glosecki and Joshi are really pleased with the commercial success of Battle for Middle Earth II on the 360, and they're looking forward to duplicating that with a 360 version of Command & Conquer 3. \"You invest in a huge sound system and big screen for your living room, but then you're sitting at some desk in the corner to play games like this. But now you can get this at your living room couch,\" says Glosecki.
Executive producer Verdu sums it up best when he explains how they're trying to make the game welcoming to new players by building up a gentle learning curve throughout the campaign, as well as to C&C fans by revisiting the familiar universe. \"We hope when you play you feel like you're coming home,\" he says.
Also a convention is the easy-to-use integrated building tab. You don't have to go scurrying about the map to find your barracks, for instance. There's none of that 'Now where did I put that airfield?' You have a separate tab for structures, defenses, infantry, and vehicles. Each tab has sub-tabs in case you can simultaneously build multiple instances. For instance, if you have three barracks, you'll click the infantry tab, and then be able to queue up infantry on each of the three sub-tabs corresponding to your various barracks. Selecting a sub-tab highlights the corresponding barracks on the minimap, which makes it easy to relate to what you've built and where you've built it.
There are also some new touches. Each faction has a powerful walker unit, like the Annihilator Tripod with its force field and EMP blast, or the Avatar Warmech that can smash and grab powers from other units. These powerful vehicles can never be completely destroyed. Instead, a defeated walker remains on the map as a ruined hull. If you bring in an engineer, you can reclaim it for yourself, whether it was yours or your opponents. Ajami says the inspiration for this was the One True Ring from Battle for Middle Earth II, which was an awesome weapon, but was always at risk of being lost to your opponent if you weren't careful.
Also new is the way your superpowers are tied to individual buildings rather than one single building. It used to be that if you lost your headquarters, all your superpowers were gone. No more nukes, no more air strikes, no more fancy fireworks and game tweaking powers. But in C&C3, as you build your base, icons for each building's associated superpower stack up on the left side of the screen, each available if you pay its price. But since they're distributed among the different buildings, a player's superpowers can never be shut down with a single strike.
Also new is the concept of directional armor for vehicles, which can be moved in reverse. Attacks from behind will do more damage, adding a level of tactical detail to the C&C series, which has traditionally played fast, cheap, and out of control. Now the interface will make it easier to arrange and move units in formation, which is a welcome addition considering how much the earlier games were like herding cats.
The interface, brimming with dynamic tooltips, is a lot more helpful now. When you select an army, a display clearly show what and how many units you've selected. You can use this to "drill down" to any single unit. A panel clearly shows a big button for any unit's special ability, and boxes that display what upgrades the unit has received. Many infantry and vehicles can call in personal transports, so you won't have to manage separate units to utilize air transport.
But for all this tactical nuance, the premium is clearly on fast and fluid gameplay. Buildings and units come into play fast, and blow up even faster. This is an RTS leaning towards action, made to be played a couple of time in a lunch hour, with plenty of gratifying destruction in the minimum amount of time. But like Battle for Middle Earth II, which was the team's last project, this doesn't necessarily mean it's sloppy. This is a development team that clearly knows how to combine action and tactics. |
