Post by SPN on May 20, 2009 15:32:48 GMT -5
It's no secret that in the last two years I have done less gaming all together than I did in one day when I was in highschool. Needless to say games don't really appeal to me anymore as they lack any creative juice... and my computer is not good enough to run them... However, having stumbled upon that I still have a $15 EB Games giftcard I decided to take a trip down to my once favourite, but now forgotten stores to dig through the used PC games section. What I found was pure gold... only a few hours of pure gold, but pure gold nonetheless.
Command and Conquer and I have a brief but addictive relationship history. Back in the simple days of the original Play Station I used to play Command and Conquer: Red Alert, and when I say "play" I mean constantly got my ass kicked because RTS has never, nor will it ever belong on a console.
Anyways I stumbled over this game from 2003 in a slightly tattered box for $10, which I'm glad I only payed $10, because it means I only payed about $2 per hour of game play... Which is a bit of a pain because it was supposed to hold me off at least until SC II had an idea of when it was ready to hit stores.
Here's the break down:
You play as 3 forces, the USA who's technology is so advanced it makes the real USA army look like a bunch of children. China... who for whatever reason is still stuck in 1942, possibly as a homage to Bill Murray. And the GLA which is, in short, if every middle east country spoke perfect english with a slight accent.
The "Generals" part of the game is based around you being a general of the army of your choice (rank 1-5 stars) and you gain experience by killing bad guys to improve your rank and gain new geneal skills that can turn an even match into a one sided slap to the face... more on that later.
Here come some spoilers if you give a hoot.
USA: I'm torn between the USA and China as my favourite army. These guys have the overpowering advantage to know what their enemy is up to at any given moment, via satalite and spies. Their units arn't the strongest in the world (I know right!), infact I'd rank them dead last in terms of power. A few acception include their air force, although lacking in the health department they have the power to be invincible before they attack, which happens to be powerful, so all you have to do is fork over 2500 everytime you do so because their sorry ass gets shot down with one rocket after they have attacked. That seems like a lot but all you really have to do is build 10-15 dropzones, and the UN will pretty much do all the work for you in terms of getting funding. After which you just build partical cannons up the ass and fire them faster than Donald Trump one of his employees, ok they take like 4 minutes to charge, but once you have 5 or 6 it's not a problem.
Their general ablilities are by far the best, although you have to wait until you're rank 4 before it really matters, and rank 5 before you can start stomping people. Just launch off your fighter fly by attack and bomber plane, followed by your own personal airforce you build, as well as your 6-7 partical cannons, and you're golden... Mind you, you have to survive up to that point... which as I mentioned with the units, can be a struggle.
The best part of the USA army is that they are the only ones who have a VO job that doesn't make you want to claw your eyes out... I mean yeah, they all remind you "Made in the US of FUCKIN-A!" and they all sound like the Wraiths from Starcraft, but still not too bad. Their biggest advantage is also their biggest weakness, being their supply unit. They used a helicopter that also acts as a transport unit, so not only can they fly anywhere to gather material, but they can drop off units places no one else can go... if of course this game actually had a map design that let you do that. However although they gather 600 (I think) at a time, it takes FOREVER, for them to gather it, which can leave you hovering over a unit icon saying "COME ON!" more than you like.
China: As I mentioned before these guys seem to be suck in 1942, Their units are bad ass, but their building designs are laughable. They do have the most unstopable force ever though, I'll give them that. On a scale of 1-10 I'd rank their unit power about a 15... thousand. The general abilities are lacking, their rank 5 being an EMP wave that shuts down units and buildings for a few seconds... which would work better if it DIDN'T affect your units. Now, this attack would work very well had they the power to spy on their enemies like the USA do, but they don't so too bad for you if you haven't already explored their base or and sense an attacking coming and can predict where they will be by the time the slow ass WW2 play hulls it's fat ass there to do it's shit. Once again, getting money with these guys is a joke, don't even bother finding resorces, just build hackers hide them where they enemy won't find them, and steal funds via the internet. They only steal 5-10 a second or so, depending on their rank, but get 30-50 and it's big time business.
As a big twist they USA isn't the one using nukes, it's all about the Chinese nuke power, even their powerplants are nuclear, they even have units that carry mini nukes! They also have the power to heal with words... yeah... you can use the power of "propaganda" to cause your units to suck up bullets and tanks self repair... Having said that your plan is simple, build overlord tanks, at least 20. They have the ability for addons, put miniguns on about 15 of them and speaker towers on the other 5, add some minigun tanks and nuke tanks, oh and maybe a black lotus spy to steal extra money and buildings because the only thing worse than destorying an enemy building is getting them to do it You can't lose... it's impossible unless you fall asleep at the keyboard or you were stupid enough to let your opponent partical cannon your troops. Having said that, if they do have a partical cannon find a way to discover where it is, and use nukes... which is option B, you can always just nuke the shit out of guys... but they can always destory your buildings easy so it's not the best bet.
My biggest beef is the VO work for these guys... the mission lady sounds Russian and I don't even know what the troops sound like, but it's not any form of Asian accent I've ever run into... And I live near Vancouver, so I hear a lot of them.
GLA: I bet this is how Bush sees the Middle East, full of biological weapons and the urge to steal shit. These guys have one advantage over the others, they don't need any power... other than that they're pretty bad. They are, by far, the most creative and interesting force I have ever come across in an RTS sofar. They can use their surroundings as their own personal army... by that I mean you can steal shit. You can use a sniper to kill the driver of an enemy tank and hijack it, or use a explosive truck to disguise itself like any other vehical and blow shit up (how they have that technology I'll never know), you can use human bombs to steal an idle car just sitting around and blow shit up, or have him do it without a car, and when you destory an enemy tank you can steal parts for your own use... although what that actuall does I'll never know. From what I remember they don't have an airforce, which means all your attacks are ground based, which means you can either be partical cannon raped, or Overlord tank fucked before you can make it to the attack. Unless I forgot... I don't know.
Like the last two the getting money is easy, but not quite as easy. You can build multiple black markets to get yourself money at a rapid pace and also through General ablilities you can gain money from units you kill, as well as some units drop money... that being a part of the whole blow shit up then steal shit plan of these guys. I'm having a hard time remembering some of the lower rank abilities, but I know the 5th rank is an anthrax bomb that, if I recall leaves buildings unharmed (because they're not people) but the bomb is so big it can easily whipe out an entire base full of units, tanks included.
As I said these guys are a biological weapon's based team, which means they can whipe group walking troops in seconds... but anyone who uses them is just asking for an asskicking because tanks can just run them over. This biological power is great... in theory. If you plan to use a tank + walking unit based attack you're own walking units will be killed by your tanks. I mean, you have the ability to transform a huge truck into a small car, is immunity to your own biological weapons too much to ask? Mind you, China also suffers from this due to their over-use of nukes.
Your big attack is a SCUD missle storm, which is actually one of the more affective ones, it's like the anthrax bomb, only it does damage to buildings... for some reason, so using them together will not only destory the base but prevent any life form from occupying that space for at least a minute or so... maybe a little less.
One great thing about them is you can transport troops though tunnels so you can build one outside your enemie's base and keep the flow of attackers coming without worrying about spending too much money on new buildings.
The VO is... forgettable, I understand they are tying to make sure you can understand them and still maintain the "I'm a poor middle eastern slave" feel, but it just doesn't work for me because...well they make you feel like an asshole by saying stuff like "I'm hungry" and "Don't we have better tools?" whenever you click on a worker... brining back the nightmares I though I left behind with Black & White in terms of beggers. I mean mid-way though each mission I have so much money I'm using it to patch up our wounds, and yet they imply I'm not feeding them or giving them good tools? Fuck that.
Overall:
Now, this game is from 2003 so I'll forgive them for only having 3 playable teams and skip right over the drop of replay value
While I hold RTS up there as my favourite style of game, because it makes me feel like I COULD take over the world if I really tried I also have a bit of beef with it. To me mission modes in RTS always seem a little... counter productive. Something seems wrong to me about fighting for one cause, and then in the next campaign you have to undo everything you JUST DID. I mean a good RTS (Starcraft, and dare I say... Warcraft III) will always cover that up with a good story line that gives you a reason to play as the next army, some dude stabs you in the back, a prince become an Emo undead asshole, you know, stuff like that. Command and Conquer: Generals undstands that idea and promptly takes a shit all over it.
Let me break down the "story" for you.
You start as the Chinese taking out the evil GLA because they are assholes. After you do that you play as the GLA and fight the Chinese and USA because now THEY are the assholes for thinking they are better than you. Finally as they did in WWII the USA show up late to prove that the GLA are infact the assholes, and you are infact better than them... Insert "America Fuck Yeah!" song end game... seriously, no real story is developed... it's actually... kinda realistic, you don't really know what you're fighting for, they just say fight so you do...
You can also do a good old style skirmish, but they provide only a few maps, none of which will change your life with how intuitive and fun they are... each one is moreorless a carbon copy of the next and each one is so small I often found my games only lasting between 15 minutes to an hours. I like to sit down and play for 3-4 hours at a time, and with this game it's just not doable with the level design and general abilities. I mean I still play Labyrinth and BGH in starcraft, so it's proof you can make someone replay the same maps over and over and still provide hours of fun.
The good:
- I really like how quick this game is to start, the speed of each match makes Starcraft and Warcraft look like slow motion, unless you're playing a Korean.
- I like that when you choose to build something it spends the money and raises the construction site right away, I won't start building until you get there, but it's much better than waiting for your worker to get there for the money to be used.
- Selling your buildings is a great feature, you rarely need to worry about building in the wrong spot or building the wrong building. Also once you are done with a resorce spot, you can sell your buildings away.
- For the most part each team is pretty even, all have huge flaws but make up for it for extreme strengths.
- There really are no team that over powers the other, unlike in Starcraft where you can just get your ghosts to lock down every Protoss unit, everyone is pretty even.
- When using ultimate weapons, nukes, SCUDs, and Cannon they have a neat little timer to the side that gives you a little heads up how long you have to scramble some sort of plan together to destory it before they blow you to shit.
- Units can hide in idle city buildings to use it for battle and you can use units to capture buildings such as oil rigs and hospitals that can help along the way.
- General abilities add an intresting extra punch to the game.
- No unit build limit means this is actually a war, not just a afterschool fight by the flagpole... Sorry Warcraft.
The bad:
- While the matches are fast they are also short lived.
- It was in the good as well, but the timer on the side can kind of leave your super attack helpless as the whole point of an attack like that is the "bet you didn't see this coming fuckers!" rather than the "please don't do anything to me for another 5 minutes, then reap the worldwind!"Although it did add a sense of hopelessness when I couldn't manage to do anything about it that added as an extra "IN YOUR FACE" factor when I was dropping the business... especially when they see like 6 or 7 timers.
- The AI is... confused towards it's identity. They have three levels Normal, Hard, Brutal... and yet every one can range from legally brain dead to angry German kid. At times they just sit there picking their nose and other times I'm being tank rapped before I can even establish myself... I guess you can praise the game for being consistantly inconsistant...
- The mission mode is criminaly short, and horribly unsatisfying, if I had paid anymore than $10 for it I'd go out of my way to prank call every employee of EA Games if only to feel the sense of accomplishment this mission mode didn't give me.
- If you plan on using the World Builder you may want to sign up for classes before you buy the game...
- The general abilities, while helpful, can also turn a one sided war into murder and cause some thrown keyboard related damage to your house. Mind you, with proper base defence some of them can be avoided.
- In my playing experience the spacebar key seems to be broken... call me a Blizzard RTS fag, but the spacebar key is supposed to take you to the last thing that happened (unit under attack, upgrade complete) I often found this game took me to the middle of nowhere and left me there.
- Resorces are useless, each team has their own way of getting embarrassing amounts of money without ever expanding themselves.
- Online Multiplayer is dead... I logged on and there were 4 other people on... mind you it happens to most RTS, they either die or you can't beat the natural skill of the Korean kids who devote their life to this crap.
Rating:
8/10 While I pretty much did nothing but bash it for the whole review, RTS always ranks high for me because after a few days I have the urge to play it again... with the exception of Warcraft... And for me replay value is the most important part of a game... I mean F.E.A.R and DOOM 3 were great while they lasted, but there are no more surprises unless I hit my head enough times or wait like 4 years.
Command and Conquer and I have a brief but addictive relationship history. Back in the simple days of the original Play Station I used to play Command and Conquer: Red Alert, and when I say "play" I mean constantly got my ass kicked because RTS has never, nor will it ever belong on a console.
Anyways I stumbled over this game from 2003 in a slightly tattered box for $10, which I'm glad I only payed $10, because it means I only payed about $2 per hour of game play... Which is a bit of a pain because it was supposed to hold me off at least until SC II had an idea of when it was ready to hit stores.
Here's the break down:
You play as 3 forces, the USA who's technology is so advanced it makes the real USA army look like a bunch of children. China... who for whatever reason is still stuck in 1942, possibly as a homage to Bill Murray. And the GLA which is, in short, if every middle east country spoke perfect english with a slight accent.
The "Generals" part of the game is based around you being a general of the army of your choice (rank 1-5 stars) and you gain experience by killing bad guys to improve your rank and gain new geneal skills that can turn an even match into a one sided slap to the face... more on that later.
Here come some spoilers if you give a hoot.
USA: I'm torn between the USA and China as my favourite army. These guys have the overpowering advantage to know what their enemy is up to at any given moment, via satalite and spies. Their units arn't the strongest in the world (I know right!), infact I'd rank them dead last in terms of power. A few acception include their air force, although lacking in the health department they have the power to be invincible before they attack, which happens to be powerful, so all you have to do is fork over 2500 everytime you do so because their sorry ass gets shot down with one rocket after they have attacked. That seems like a lot but all you really have to do is build 10-15 dropzones, and the UN will pretty much do all the work for you in terms of getting funding. After which you just build partical cannons up the ass and fire them faster than Donald Trump one of his employees, ok they take like 4 minutes to charge, but once you have 5 or 6 it's not a problem.
Their general ablilities are by far the best, although you have to wait until you're rank 4 before it really matters, and rank 5 before you can start stomping people. Just launch off your fighter fly by attack and bomber plane, followed by your own personal airforce you build, as well as your 6-7 partical cannons, and you're golden... Mind you, you have to survive up to that point... which as I mentioned with the units, can be a struggle.
The best part of the USA army is that they are the only ones who have a VO job that doesn't make you want to claw your eyes out... I mean yeah, they all remind you "Made in the US of FUCKIN-A!" and they all sound like the Wraiths from Starcraft, but still not too bad. Their biggest advantage is also their biggest weakness, being their supply unit. They used a helicopter that also acts as a transport unit, so not only can they fly anywhere to gather material, but they can drop off units places no one else can go... if of course this game actually had a map design that let you do that. However although they gather 600 (I think) at a time, it takes FOREVER, for them to gather it, which can leave you hovering over a unit icon saying "COME ON!" more than you like.
China: As I mentioned before these guys seem to be suck in 1942, Their units are bad ass, but their building designs are laughable. They do have the most unstopable force ever though, I'll give them that. On a scale of 1-10 I'd rank their unit power about a 15... thousand. The general abilities are lacking, their rank 5 being an EMP wave that shuts down units and buildings for a few seconds... which would work better if it DIDN'T affect your units. Now, this attack would work very well had they the power to spy on their enemies like the USA do, but they don't so too bad for you if you haven't already explored their base or and sense an attacking coming and can predict where they will be by the time the slow ass WW2 play hulls it's fat ass there to do it's shit. Once again, getting money with these guys is a joke, don't even bother finding resorces, just build hackers hide them where they enemy won't find them, and steal funds via the internet. They only steal 5-10 a second or so, depending on their rank, but get 30-50 and it's big time business.
As a big twist they USA isn't the one using nukes, it's all about the Chinese nuke power, even their powerplants are nuclear, they even have units that carry mini nukes! They also have the power to heal with words... yeah... you can use the power of "propaganda" to cause your units to suck up bullets and tanks self repair... Having said that your plan is simple, build overlord tanks, at least 20. They have the ability for addons, put miniguns on about 15 of them and speaker towers on the other 5, add some minigun tanks and nuke tanks, oh and maybe a black lotus spy to steal extra money and buildings because the only thing worse than destorying an enemy building is getting them to do it You can't lose... it's impossible unless you fall asleep at the keyboard or you were stupid enough to let your opponent partical cannon your troops. Having said that, if they do have a partical cannon find a way to discover where it is, and use nukes... which is option B, you can always just nuke the shit out of guys... but they can always destory your buildings easy so it's not the best bet.
My biggest beef is the VO work for these guys... the mission lady sounds Russian and I don't even know what the troops sound like, but it's not any form of Asian accent I've ever run into... And I live near Vancouver, so I hear a lot of them.
GLA: I bet this is how Bush sees the Middle East, full of biological weapons and the urge to steal shit. These guys have one advantage over the others, they don't need any power... other than that they're pretty bad. They are, by far, the most creative and interesting force I have ever come across in an RTS sofar. They can use their surroundings as their own personal army... by that I mean you can steal shit. You can use a sniper to kill the driver of an enemy tank and hijack it, or use a explosive truck to disguise itself like any other vehical and blow shit up (how they have that technology I'll never know), you can use human bombs to steal an idle car just sitting around and blow shit up, or have him do it without a car, and when you destory an enemy tank you can steal parts for your own use... although what that actuall does I'll never know. From what I remember they don't have an airforce, which means all your attacks are ground based, which means you can either be partical cannon raped, or Overlord tank fucked before you can make it to the attack. Unless I forgot... I don't know.
Like the last two the getting money is easy, but not quite as easy. You can build multiple black markets to get yourself money at a rapid pace and also through General ablilities you can gain money from units you kill, as well as some units drop money... that being a part of the whole blow shit up then steal shit plan of these guys. I'm having a hard time remembering some of the lower rank abilities, but I know the 5th rank is an anthrax bomb that, if I recall leaves buildings unharmed (because they're not people) but the bomb is so big it can easily whipe out an entire base full of units, tanks included.
As I said these guys are a biological weapon's based team, which means they can whipe group walking troops in seconds... but anyone who uses them is just asking for an asskicking because tanks can just run them over. This biological power is great... in theory. If you plan to use a tank + walking unit based attack you're own walking units will be killed by your tanks. I mean, you have the ability to transform a huge truck into a small car, is immunity to your own biological weapons too much to ask? Mind you, China also suffers from this due to their over-use of nukes.
Your big attack is a SCUD missle storm, which is actually one of the more affective ones, it's like the anthrax bomb, only it does damage to buildings... for some reason, so using them together will not only destory the base but prevent any life form from occupying that space for at least a minute or so... maybe a little less.
One great thing about them is you can transport troops though tunnels so you can build one outside your enemie's base and keep the flow of attackers coming without worrying about spending too much money on new buildings.
The VO is... forgettable, I understand they are tying to make sure you can understand them and still maintain the "I'm a poor middle eastern slave" feel, but it just doesn't work for me because...well they make you feel like an asshole by saying stuff like "I'm hungry" and "Don't we have better tools?" whenever you click on a worker... brining back the nightmares I though I left behind with Black & White in terms of beggers. I mean mid-way though each mission I have so much money I'm using it to patch up our wounds, and yet they imply I'm not feeding them or giving them good tools? Fuck that.
Overall:
Now, this game is from 2003 so I'll forgive them for only having 3 playable teams and skip right over the drop of replay value
While I hold RTS up there as my favourite style of game, because it makes me feel like I COULD take over the world if I really tried I also have a bit of beef with it. To me mission modes in RTS always seem a little... counter productive. Something seems wrong to me about fighting for one cause, and then in the next campaign you have to undo everything you JUST DID. I mean a good RTS (Starcraft, and dare I say... Warcraft III) will always cover that up with a good story line that gives you a reason to play as the next army, some dude stabs you in the back, a prince become an Emo undead asshole, you know, stuff like that. Command and Conquer: Generals undstands that idea and promptly takes a shit all over it.
Let me break down the "story" for you.
You start as the Chinese taking out the evil GLA because they are assholes. After you do that you play as the GLA and fight the Chinese and USA because now THEY are the assholes for thinking they are better than you. Finally as they did in WWII the USA show up late to prove that the GLA are infact the assholes, and you are infact better than them... Insert "America Fuck Yeah!" song end game... seriously, no real story is developed... it's actually... kinda realistic, you don't really know what you're fighting for, they just say fight so you do...
You can also do a good old style skirmish, but they provide only a few maps, none of which will change your life with how intuitive and fun they are... each one is moreorless a carbon copy of the next and each one is so small I often found my games only lasting between 15 minutes to an hours. I like to sit down and play for 3-4 hours at a time, and with this game it's just not doable with the level design and general abilities. I mean I still play Labyrinth and BGH in starcraft, so it's proof you can make someone replay the same maps over and over and still provide hours of fun.
The good:
- I really like how quick this game is to start, the speed of each match makes Starcraft and Warcraft look like slow motion, unless you're playing a Korean.
- I like that when you choose to build something it spends the money and raises the construction site right away, I won't start building until you get there, but it's much better than waiting for your worker to get there for the money to be used.
- Selling your buildings is a great feature, you rarely need to worry about building in the wrong spot or building the wrong building. Also once you are done with a resorce spot, you can sell your buildings away.
- For the most part each team is pretty even, all have huge flaws but make up for it for extreme strengths.
- There really are no team that over powers the other, unlike in Starcraft where you can just get your ghosts to lock down every Protoss unit, everyone is pretty even.
- When using ultimate weapons, nukes, SCUDs, and Cannon they have a neat little timer to the side that gives you a little heads up how long you have to scramble some sort of plan together to destory it before they blow you to shit.
- Units can hide in idle city buildings to use it for battle and you can use units to capture buildings such as oil rigs and hospitals that can help along the way.
- General abilities add an intresting extra punch to the game.
- No unit build limit means this is actually a war, not just a afterschool fight by the flagpole... Sorry Warcraft.
The bad:
- While the matches are fast they are also short lived.
- It was in the good as well, but the timer on the side can kind of leave your super attack helpless as the whole point of an attack like that is the "bet you didn't see this coming fuckers!" rather than the "please don't do anything to me for another 5 minutes, then reap the worldwind!"Although it did add a sense of hopelessness when I couldn't manage to do anything about it that added as an extra "IN YOUR FACE" factor when I was dropping the business... especially when they see like 6 or 7 timers.
- The AI is... confused towards it's identity. They have three levels Normal, Hard, Brutal... and yet every one can range from legally brain dead to angry German kid. At times they just sit there picking their nose and other times I'm being tank rapped before I can even establish myself... I guess you can praise the game for being consistantly inconsistant...
- The mission mode is criminaly short, and horribly unsatisfying, if I had paid anymore than $10 for it I'd go out of my way to prank call every employee of EA Games if only to feel the sense of accomplishment this mission mode didn't give me.
- If you plan on using the World Builder you may want to sign up for classes before you buy the game...
- The general abilities, while helpful, can also turn a one sided war into murder and cause some thrown keyboard related damage to your house. Mind you, with proper base defence some of them can be avoided.
- In my playing experience the spacebar key seems to be broken... call me a Blizzard RTS fag, but the spacebar key is supposed to take you to the last thing that happened (unit under attack, upgrade complete) I often found this game took me to the middle of nowhere and left me there.
- Resorces are useless, each team has their own way of getting embarrassing amounts of money without ever expanding themselves.
- Online Multiplayer is dead... I logged on and there were 4 other people on... mind you it happens to most RTS, they either die or you can't beat the natural skill of the Korean kids who devote their life to this crap.
Rating:
8/10 While I pretty much did nothing but bash it for the whole review, RTS always ranks high for me because after a few days I have the urge to play it again... with the exception of Warcraft... And for me replay value is the most important part of a game... I mean F.E.A.R and DOOM 3 were great while they lasted, but there are no more surprises unless I hit my head enough times or wait like 4 years.