Command and Conquer Generals

Kevin Tomaya writes: "GameSpot has posted a really in-depth story about a brand new Command and Conquer game that is in all 3D. It's called C&C Generals and has the US and China fighting against a terrorist organization. The article is like that Metal Gear Solid 2 story they did last year. It takes you through the whole genesis of the project and introduces the development team."

Comments

Re:Inspiration

[scientology]

China has always been recognized as a world power, just not politically. Remember, we recognize Taiwan as being the legitimate government of China, not the PRC.

In Depth?

[nzhavok]

Well that certainly was a very in-depth article, at least it didn't leave me wondering if the powerpoint presentations had bullet points or not.

The prospect of a new and better C&C frightens me, I remember how addicted I was to C&C and RA. The addiction was only partially staved of by a little bit of StarCraft and Total Annihilation. I'd just come to terms with the fact I was probably going to lose 6 months of my life from Warcraft III they tell me there's another C&C coming along. Well I suppose the only hope for me is that it'll follow in the footsteps of Tiberian Sun.

Credit to game programmers

[QuantumG]

I used to think it was terrible the way games programmers never got any credit. You'd play a game and about the only indication there was that Activision didn't write it was one little spash screen at the start. Movies start with credits and nifty spash screens that make a big deal out of the actors, the director, even the people who write the music but games are generally considered to be a product of the distributor by most. Then an article like this comes along and you really can see why that is. Those head shots of the programmers should be reason enough to lock them in a basement and feed them caffine up and until the game is on the shelves and then get them another project, quick!

Re:Credit to game programmers

[Enry]

C&C has some of the best installers and opening scenes ever, with C&C Renegade being no exception. It's really good at getting you in the mood of the game.

GTA and GTA2 (GTA3 hasn't been ported to the PC yet..) also has good openings.

Re:Credit to game programmers

[erasmus_]

I like their installers as well, except what's the point? Everything animates and takes forever - I'd rather pick a directory, minimize it, and browse the web anyway while it installs. Although nice, it just seems silly - a normal InstallShield or new MSI-style installer would work just as well.

Re:Credit to game programmers

[Geoff Keighley]

As the author of the article I wanted to briefly comment on this post. I certainly try to give credit where credit is due -- In the case of the C&C Generals article, I ended up interviewing about 12 people on the team of 40. Not 100% of the team, but keep in mind that 40 is a pretty large team. On a smaller project like Black & White (team of about 12 key people) it's easier to speak with everyone.

Most of the key people were interviewed and shown in photos, even if they weren't the main focus of the story. (i.e. the terrain was created by Todd Williams, who is quoted in the story and his picture is shown). Keep in mind that I'm not always given access to everyone on a game development team. When I was in Tokyo for Metal Gear Solid 2, I was only allowed to speak with the most senior people on the team, all programmers/designers/artists who had worked with Mr. Kojima for over a decade. Companies aren't always willing to put every employee in front of the press.

However, I would like to say that I've failed with the article if you feel I've reduced the "efforts of an entire team...to one person's efforts." Yes, Skaggs and Bonin are quoted frequently, but that is to maintain some consistency throughout the piece. As a narrative endeavor I have to have some common themes running through the story, and after all, Skaggs and Bonin are the heads of the project. Yet I also tried very hard to at least recognize the efforts of the other key individuals on the team, such as Alhquist (game editor) and all the designers, key artists, etc.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

china/us working together

[perdida]

It's nice to see China and the US working together against terrorism in this game. It's a more realistic scenario than the ones that pit US and Chinese forces (including the wargames on this scenario conducted by the US armed forces).

Actually, China is claiming to be fighting the war against terror in its repression of the Uighur ethnic Turk Muslim people in its Xinjiang province, on the basis that a few dozen people from there may have trained in Afghan Al Qaeda terrorist camps.

Re:china/us working together

[Bongo]

Actually, China is claiming to be fighting the war against terror in its repression of the Uighur ethnic Turk Muslim people in its Xinjiang province, on the basis that a few dozen people from there may have trained in Afghan Al Qaeda terrorist camps.

Tibet, anyone? Maybe they should have a game where Chinese Su-27's get chased and harassed by flying lotus-postured monks.

Re:china/us working together

[Lars T.]

It's a more realistic scenario than the ones that pit US and Chinese forces (including the wargames on this scenario conducted by the US armed forces).

Is It?

The secret report, which was provided to Congress on Jan. 8, says the Pentagon needs to be prepared to use nuclear weapons against China, Russia, Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Libya and Syria. It says the weapons could be used in three types of situations: against targets able to withstand nonnuclear attack; in retaliation for attack with nuclear, biological or chemical weapons; or "in the event of surprising military developments.

Sounds interesting

[Rackemup]

Sounds like an interesting game, I just hope it's better than C&C Renegade... all the reviews for Renegade have been mediochre at best. good try, just poor execution.

C&C Generals uses the same basic engine but it's cool to see them trying to reflect current events in a video game. Maybe the media will portray the people playing it as "training for the fight against terrorism".. well ok, not likely. =)

Excellent game.

[Steven_Wostoen]

I was invited over for a sneak-preview earlier this year by Mark Skaggs, and I'll tell you one thing: the rotation potential (of the 3D) graphics on this game, especially the scenery, is two generations of anything currently available on the market.

A lot of thought has also been put into the units and plot of the game, it hasn't been an ad-hoc composition of cliched parts as many games in the last few years have been in terms of storyline/plot.

The C&C Generals team are really friendly guys, and work in a relaxed atmosphere, which is important in any game production unit. I'll have to give a thumbs up to this game, and highly recommend it. The guys have worked hard on it and deserve success with it. Unfortuantely I have a feeling that the User interface won't go down extremely well with most consumers, but I understand them trying to break away from the traditional style of UI driving.

Anyway, it should be a cracker of a game.

Re:Excellent game.

[rtaylor]

It'll take alot for me to believe it's a couple of generations ahead of Machines due to 3d graphics.

Even TA did a rather good job in its time, it's just too bad they didn't have a better AI.

Re:Excellent game.

[erasmus_]

Sure, let's mention a game with incredible graphics, fun weapons, and cool bullet-time effects. Most cliched last year would have to be maybe .. hmm .. Return to Castle Wolfenstein, perhaps? Besides having a synonym of "retread" and "rehash" right there in the title, the models just look incredibly blocky. Compare something simple, like Max Payne furniture and RtCW's - Payne's looks real, while the latter looks like slapped together rectangular shapes. Oh, I'm also happy that RtCW finally got the idea of having multiple weapons assigned to the same key/category - that was innovative when Half-Life did that in 1998. Out of all the games last year, you can find much better targets to pick on than Max Payne.

Re:Excellent game.

[HydroCarbon10]

I was invited over for a sneak-preview earlier this year by Mark Skaggs, and I'll tell you one thing: the rotation potential (of the 3D) graphics on this game, especially the scenery, is two generations of anything currently available on the market.

I'd hope it was at least two generations ahead, as that's probably how long it'll take before we see the game ;-).

Westwood and Gamespot fake screenshots

[SMN]

I hate to break it to you, but Westwood has a history of faking development screenshots and lying about what features have already been implemented. They did it for Tiberian Sun and they did it for Renegade, and all of the gaming magazines and websites (including Gamespot) will happily fall for it when they get a chance to have "exclusive" news. And the poor saps reading this probably won't realize they've been duped until it takes 4 years for the game to come out (Renegade) or the final version of the game has inferior graphics and fewer features than the article says WW has _already_ developed (Tiberian Sun). I'll believe this when I see it.

Re:Westwood and Gamespot fake screenshots

[SMN]

As much as I'd like to believe you -- you appear to be the article's author, although there's always the chance that you're a troll imposter =) -- we've heard that same exact line about Westwood games too many times before. The first articles about Tiberian Sun and Renegade both swore that the magazines/websites had seen the game running and that they were actual screenshots -- and those were all lies. The later excuse was that the screenshots were created to "match the features we expected to be in the final product," but that goes against everything the early previews said.

And do I trust GameSpot? While I don't know offhand how often GameSpot has written articles using doctored screenshots, I do know that GameSpot acquired GameCenter. GameCenter was the first site to have a preview of SimCity 3000 (must have been a long time ago now), and they were proudly showing off a whole bunch of screenshots of a full-3d SimCity and writing about how beautiful it truly was. A few weeks later, Maxis backpedaled and announced that SC3k would only be 2d -- they admitted that a fully 3d simcity was beyond the capabilities of current hardware, even the top-of-the-line dual Pentium Pro 200s (I ran a very popular fan site - may it RIP - and received a copy of that official announcement from Aimee Howe at Maxis, back in February 98). So if Maxis says it won't run on their hardware, how could GameCenter claim that Maxis came to their office and ran it on their computers? In fact, the article had a whole page on whatever tech Maxis supposedly developed to make the 3d possible by scaling the amount of detail to the hardware capability. The answer is simple -- GameCenter, like so many other game-hype-publications, outright lied to its readers. So while the reasons I'm doubtful here are purely circumstantial, I've seen this total lack of integrity among simial publications too often to fall for it again.

Another one in a good series..

[NeoCode]

If anyone remembers, and if I can recall correctly, this started with a story they did on Black and White. I loved the piece they did on B&W. It not only told a lot about the game but also about what exactly goes on behind the scenes. The 3D model, the music, the graphics, artwork, debugging and so on.

I think that was by far the most entertaining of all. So much so that after I read the article, the next day I bought the game. First reason was that I wanted to see how B&W played and second was that I wanted to support the developers' hard work. And it was well worth it.

These articles give an in-depth view of the development process so you can relate to it and hopefully come to appreciate the game even better. I hope they keep doing it.

Wake up!

[NDPTAL85]

1. Generals isn't out yet so wtf are you talking about.

2. " If they want this to catch on, they really need to port the server to Linux." Are you one of those folks who are so deluded that you actually think there is a large Linux gaming market out there?

Re:Wake up!

[Radical Rad]

1. Generals isn't out yet so wtf are you talking about.
2. " If they want this to catch on, they really need to port the server to Linux." Are you one of those folks who are so deluded that you actually think there is a large Linux gaming market out there?

He specifically stated that he was talking about the porting the server not the client. It's even right there in the snippet that you quoted. So what is with your vicious knee-jerk reaction against his comment?

If you don't understand what clients and servers are, don't be too embarassed to ask. That would be better than flaming someone for making a comment that goes over your head.

Keep it real or don't. Don't go halfway....

[tickleboy2]

I've been a fan of C&C games since the start, but I was slightly disappointed with Red Alert 2. Here you have a great game with great units until you can start building mind controlled dolphins and squids! I'm sorry but I'm surprised that the developer that created these units didn't get laughed out of the design meeting. The secret is, either keep the game moderatedly realistic, or don't. The first C&C game was great because most of the units were realistic, and then there were a couple of units that were just a little far fetched (cloking tank, Ion cannon). Instead of using these so called fantasy units, why don't they focus on some new weapons that we might actually see in the future? For example: Star Wars, Missle Defence, etc. But I also enjoy the so called "fantasy" games like Starcraft, but here they didn't incorporate any realisim into the game. So Westwood, please do us a favor and do one or the other, but don't do both!

Re:Keep it real or don't. Don't go halfway....

[Jeffrey Baker]

I thought the reason C&C was great was because of the far-out units. Pile 5 engineers into an APC, drive the APC over some crates until it becomes cloaked, then skate into the enemy base unseen with 5 engineers. Sell all the buildings and you win.

At least, that's the main strategy I usually employed.

Re:Keep it real or don't. Don't go halfway....

[filtersweep]

You might as well play Starcraft... I'd prefer not to have those "tricky tricks" that fly in the face of the spirit of the game... sure I can surround everything by dogs, but that is just a cheap ploy to use a sneak attack- and it only works against a newbie.

As the "typical" (according to some article I can't believe) gamer, I'm a married male who doesn't have the rest of my life to learn all the crazy, arcane strengths and liabilities of all the odd units... kind of like playing a Mortal Combat type game where the six-fingered mutants are able to crush you with all the arcane button-move combinations that I can't even remember when I need them...

I'd STILL prefer the RTS genre to be more of an animated chess (or go) game than the brute-force ass-bangs I usually see in online play... and I could care less about playing the AI.

I'd prefer a "sense" of realism over anything, whether it be realism of unit strength, or "physical" size of units, or whatever- but I don't want real time waits (ie. three months to receive new units). Sure these games are set in the future, and sure, they are just games... and I don't want something so dull as MS' overly realistic forray into RTS games... whatever that thing was called (with each players' morale meters).

What I like about CC is that it is a campaign game... I'm not a fan of first-person shootups (face your enemy, no aiming required... you'll hit 'em). I'd rather see a game where I can choose my level of participation, toggle between different units, set up the attack, then participate first person in a chosen unit. I doubt with the thousands of units that end up in a large campaign that this is even possible, but it would certainly add a different dimension to the game.

And promo screen shots always look worlds beyond what I see in actual gameplay...

Re:Inspiration

[Stonehand]

No, the United States does not recognize Taiwan as a separate nation. US policy on the matter has, in fact, been rather odd for quite some time.

a) The US considers Taiwan as part of China. Very, very few countries recognize Taiwan as a country, partly because China is quite willing to leverage its economic power to punish nations which would otherwise do so.
b) The US maintains diplomatic relations with Beijing not Taipei.
c) The US does NOT advocate Taiwanese independence.
d) Yet, the US also not only warns against the PRC using military force versus what the US says is part of the PRC, but under US law is obligated to provide the means to *defend* one piece of the PRC against the rest.

It's quite bizarre, but it's aimed at trying to push eventual reconcilliation and, presumably, unification under a democratic government. Thus, we diplomatically ignore the practical reality that neither side rules the other.

Re:Linux port?

[NanoGator]

"Since you came along. Look it up in the dictionary, the definition for nerd is you."

Wow.. that was really clever. So what's it like being a graduate of the Bob Saget School of Comedy?

Mac First!

[pinkpineapple]

"...and it will be shipping for Mac OS X a month before being released for the PC."

This are great news!

PPA, the girl next door.

Re:US and China?

[Shanep]

wonder what hell the world will become when THAT happens ;-p

Extra crispy?