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Command and Conquer Generals Released

Posted by Hemos on from the battle-of-the-games dept.

A reader writes:"Febuary 11th marks the day that the future of the Command and Conquer universe will be determined. Electronic Arts has taken over the franchise and has even shut down Westwood Studios. Many of us will remember Westwood for such games as Dune II. They basically invented the RTS market which makes this a sad time. Electronic Arts today launches what they are hoping will be the WarCraft 3 killa. This game along with SimCity 4 is what EA is counting on. Here is an amazing 430 screenshot pictorial of the Generals single player missions. "

18 of 336 comments (clear)

  1. Eye of the beholders by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Sniff...Westwood also did the two Eye of the Beholders in the beginning of the '90s.

    1. Re:Eye of the beholders by FnordPerfect · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yes, but Westwood was only involved in the development of the first two. The third one was made by SSI without Westwood.

  2. Buying and shutting down... by DarkDust · · Score: 5, Informative

    Well, EA has made some good games but for me it's more and more a game-studio killer, buying other game makers and shutting them down (more or less)...

    The interview with Lord British that was posted recently on /. gives some insight into EA's thinking: make money fast, even at the cost of quality, it seems.

    Very sad...

  3. Movies Too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Bunch of movies here.

    1. Re:Movies Too by Kadagan+AU · · Score: 2, Informative

      Hmm... combine this with the comment above it and it really is almost pointless to play the game... 430 pictures, movies... next you'll see the interactive flash demo.

      --
      This space for rent, inquire within.
  4. and as a sidenote by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    the warez peeps played it and came up with some additional information not contained in this slashvertisement...

    10 hours playtime for all 3 campaigns
    uncounted number of bugs
    AI is.. Not So Good(tm)
    there are no movies furthering the storyline
    then again there is no real storyline
    its built on chinas/arab terroristi stereotypes, us are great peeps though
    worst c&c ever.

    so im off playing dune2.. the dos one you know :p

  5. hrm... by missed · · Score: 0, Informative

    I believe it was Virgin Interactive who first created the PC-RTS market, with the original Dune. Westwood later expanded upon it. I could be wrong, however. Wasn't big on the PC market back then.

    1. Re:hrm... by Ephemeriis · · Score: 2, Informative

      The original Dune was hardly an RTS. While there were certain strategic elements to it...there was little that was actually realtime. It played more like a turn-based, strategic RPG.

      yrs,
      Ephemeriis

      --
      "Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
    2. Re:hrm... by Anonymous+Hack · · Score: 4, Informative

      Informative? Put down the pipes, moderators. The original Dune was in fact an RPG. You played Paul Atreides and walked around talking to Leto, Stilgar, etc. There weren't really any traditional puzzles to solve or battles to fight, you just met with Fremen, spoke to them, found out a little more about what was going on, then set them to work mining spice or training for war. Toward the end of the game you told all your Fremen to attack the Harkonnen palace, and that was that. It wasn't the most interesting game in the world, but it was undeniably one of the most immersive. The graphics and music were absolutely stunning at the time, and remain breathtaking even today. We're talking 320x240x256 VGA, but the color palettes were perfectly chosen, and the attention to detail when flying the ornithopter over sand and rock formations was second-to-none. I highly recommend downloading it from an abandonware site near you. If you get the CD-ROM version it has full speech throughout the whole game, with perfect pronunciation and acting on a par with a LucasArts adventure game. One of the best "art" games ever, in my opinion.

      Dune 2, however, was a total different kettle of fish. That truely was the first real-time strategy where you build units, move them around, click back and forth real fast to avoid getting eaten by a sandworm, etc. There were other real-time strategies before that - the one that sticks in my mind is an old (80s era) CGA game called Sun Tzu's Art of War or something, but nothing broke through like Dune 2 did. Everyone liked Dune 2. The difficulty was very well-balanced, the interface was simple (unlike today's 25-hotkey RTS games) and the music and sound effects worked very cleverly with the game - subtlely changing with action on the screen. I think this was one of the first truly successful (read subtle) implementations of interactive music.

      All in all, Dune has had a great time of it on home computers. That said, i haven't played Dune 2000 or the new C&C Dune. Anyone got reports?

      --
      I got a sig so you would remember me.
    3. Re:hrm... by Cutriss · · Score: 2, Informative

      Dune 2000 was simply a graphics redo of Dune II. Otherwise, the game was the same (pretty damn good).

      A lot of people panned Emperor: Battle For Dune. Personally, I thought it was excellent. The storylines were well-told (Michael Dorn plays the head of Atreides), and I like the involvement that the lesser houses play both in the story and in the game (Ix, Tlielaxu, Fremen, Sardukar, and the Spacing Guild).

      --
      "Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
  6. *sniff* by Anonymous+Hack · · Score: 3, Informative

    Oh Battletech, The Crescent Hawk's Inception (and Revenge) were my first ever Westwood games, and in fact my first ever PC games back in 1988 on a CGA monitor and an XT i believe! The Crescent Hawk's Inception was one of the best RPGs i've played, but of course playing it now only takes a few hours to win. I'd love to see a huge, modern version of that game instead of today's run-around-and-kill-stuff-in-a-huge-robot Battletech games. Here's to more science fiction RPGs!

    Don't forget Westwood also did a whole bunch of the early AD&D games (whether that's a good thing or not is perhaps debateable). They did California Games - those wacky surfer dudes with their hacky sacks :-) Kyrandia, Eye of the Beholder II, Lands of Lore (featuring our beloved Jean-Luc Picard).

    I have a feeling Westwood were even around in the 8-bit days, though going under a different name, perhaps. Were they Ocean? Does anyone remember?

    --
    I got a sig so you would remember me.
  7. EA is counting on? by Galvatron · · Score: 2, Informative
    The linked article says the exact opposite, that EA is enormous, the Microsoft or Disney of the videogame world. I'm sure C&C Generals doing poorly would disappoint EA, but the article doesn't say it's dependant on those two titles doing well at all.

    Also in the article, they talk a bit about sports games, saying it's the perfect franchise because fans will repurchase essentially the same game year after year to get updated player rosters. Is this actually true? I can understand buying the same game every couple years, as they add new features, and you migrate from one generation of consoles to the next. But are there really people who buy Madden 2000, Madden 2001, Madden 2002 and so forth all for the same system?

    --
    "The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
    1. Re:EA is counting on? by Ephemeriis · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yes, there are people who buy every single season of a game just to get the updated rosters. There really is little more than that different from one season to the next, too. A tweak in gameplay here, a minor update to graphics there, but nothing major. Essentially the same game recycled with different players.

      What's worse than that, however, is that many of these people will also buy several different brands of the same game. At EB we have folks come in who have been playing Madden 2003 for months and are bored with it...so they grab Sega NFL 2k3 or NFL Fever for a little variety!

      yrs,
      Ephemeriis

      --
      "Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
  8. Re:Can't they stick to aliens? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Ummm... already been done. Hamas is using it as a propoganda tool.

  9. game ok but need to zoom out more and BIGGER maps! by in_ur_face · · Score: 2, Informative

    Even at high resolutons (>1280x1024), the zoom is horrible. When fully zoomed out, you are limited to such a small portion of the map. I like the 3d but let us zoom out just a little bit more. Also the maps are SMALL! You end up taking over 1/2 the map when you play the game. If you try to play with 6 players you realize the 8person maps are still too small. Overall a good game, I think they did an OK job.

  10. Generals Reviews by instinctdesign · · Score: 2, Informative

    There are a couple of reviews of Generals out. This review from Gamespot gave it a 8.9 of 10. Not too bad.

    --
    forma3
  11. After playing from experience... by Obiwan+Kenobi · · Score: 5, Informative

    I've had the full game since last Friday (I'd rather not reveal my sources, yadda yadda). I've played through the China campaign, and would've played more online but since the full game wasn't released until yesterday (and I can't pick up my copy until today incidentally), there was no one on there :P

    So, here are my thoughts:

    * I love the idea that cutscenes are gone.

    They are cheesy, and it would take Spielberg to make them even resemble TV Mini-Series status. I mean, did anyone actually care about those overracted scenes and goofy costumes? Tiberian Sun wasn't the worst (Red Alert 1 + 2 takes that honor), but they certainly make the game more serious, and the beautiful engine makes the most of showing what's going on and what you need to do.

    * I'm so glad they broke the formula but didn't break the game.

    This refers to the fact that they took the command bar from the right to the bottom of the screen, and now you have the ability to minimize it (why isn't this in Warcraft 3?). Also, they quit that "Primary" crap that haunted old C&C's forever, and now you can have 5 different barracks on seperate hotkeys. This was not previously available in past versions of C&C.

    * The game is SO BALANCED. It is unbelievably balanced. I was so impressed how the rocket launchers now have much more effect on tanks, yet the infantry can take out rocket launcher units in no time flat. Defenses and offensive units strike an excellent balance, and this is probably because the game was delayed, and the online beta test was a rousing success. This just goes to show you that if you keep the game in beta long enough to try it out on many different systems, and people find the weaknesses and strenghts of all the different factions, you'll strike a perfect balance that never upsets the gameplay or the fun. This is huge, and what might make C&C Generals a classic (I can't wait for the Expansion Pack/Sequel).

    * The engine is glorious.

    It's not Jaw Dropping, it's no Doom 3, but its damn good and better than Warcraft 3's in my opinion. Again, thanks to in-game cutscenes utilizing what they've already got, you cut down on the cheese and can really showcase what's truly great about the game. The environmental effects are truly staggering. I just cannot explain how cool it is to be attacking a garrisoned tower, blowing it up, and then watching it fall on the rest of the enemy forces, crushing them instantly. Geek greatness is found here!

    Anyway, to sum up, the more I play it the more I like it. They've finally put some of the most balanced gameplay into an RTS (even War3 can't touch this one), and the engine is a delight. Truly a notable game, and I'm so glad they delayed it to add functionality, gameplay and a graphics polish that the difference between the God Awful Beta Test (if you've played it, rest assured the final game is Much Much Better) and the Final Game is truly Night and Day.

  12. Requirements by Grieveq · · Score: 2, Informative

    This game suffers from the same thing SimCity 4 does - Rediculous end use requirements. I have what I think is a pretty damn decent system w/ a 1.6 Ghz processor and geforce 4. To have it stutter constantly is rediculous. What the hell is wrong with EA lately?