Command and Conquer Generals Released

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. "

Comments

Been playing it already for 3 days...

[wetson]

...don't ask me how, but I live in SouthEast Asia(if that'll give you a clue).

My initial comments, based on playing Skirmish mode:

- Effects are okay (nice explosions) but I think some of the animations esp. for the personnel suck. I think the 3D engine is solid, but not really ground breaking. Not sure if the terrain is deformable (haven't played around with the superweapons as much), but I don't it's a big loss that it isn't. Most, if not all structures are certainly destroy-able.

- Tech tree isn't that deep, although the Experience Points system is something different. I've been able to beat opponents using the plain old tank rush, but it's not as bad (or good, depending on how you look at it) as in previous versions.

- Lack of previous version's cut scenes (no more Kari Wuhrer --- damn!!!)

Re: tweaking

[jamesh]

Tweaking the rules.ini file kept me playing the game for a while after the original novelty had warn off. making harvesters mostly invicible was a variation that was great in multiplayer (for a change anyway). I think later incarnations (red alert etc) added this as a game option.

Tweaking also meant we could change the game just enough so that the normal strategies (light tank storm etc in later incarnations) didn't work so well, and we'd all have to invent new ones.

The map designer in redalert was also great! it added so much value to the game in multiplayer mode.

Warcraft 3 Killa?

[StormyWeather]

Electronic Arts today launches what they are hoping will be the WarCraft 3 killa.

Umm.. I thought Warcraft 3 already killed itself. Maybe I'm just getting too old now, but EVERYONE played the original it seems, but everyone I've talked to that I know hated 3. That's the nice thing about piracy. Everyone I knew back in the day pirated Warcraft, then went out and bought it because it rocked, but if people pirate a game they don't like they won't buy it.

Now, if they wanted to try and kill something I would suggest going after MOO, but then again this is EA(Electronic Assoles) we are talking about, so it may be good that they set their expectations low ;).

Re:Warcraft 3 Killa?

[Anonymous Hack]

I really think more and more games are getting too clever for their own good. Warcraft 3 being a perfect example. Certainly hardcore gamers will go in there and memorize 25 different hotkeys and be able to follow games running at turbo speeds... but when we look back at Dune II and Warcraft I they played fairly slowly, you only had about 4 hotkeys (Move, Attack, Guard and Harvest/Mine/etc is all i remember)... you didn't have to remember a whole bunch of stuff before you could even play a game. The same thing is happening in first-person-shooters.

I was talking to a friend the other day who said he thinks things started getting out of hand when Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat came out because there were all these combos of up-down-left-right-high-punch-low-punch-jump-back. .. I think he's probably right. Certainly i've memorized my share of secret moves and fatalities, and i even played TIE Fighter and various flight sims... but games like real-time strategy and first-person-shooters i always considered the Space Invaders of today... games where you can just kick back and click around and shoot and that's it. Who knows? Maybe we'll see a back-to-basics movement in the future when they start simplifying all this stuff again. Either that or a more intuitive input system (like thought-controlled-movement :-)

Re:Can't they stick to aliens?

[TGK]

I will never forget a trip to Japan I took just after I graduated from college. There was a large arcade next to my hotel, and geek that I am, I couldn't resist the idea of checking out the latest and greatest from our friends across the Pacific.

Imagine how supprised I was to find that this arcade contained not only the cutting edge of both American and Japanese gameing companies, but also the old classics as well.

I kept a croud of 15 kids enraptured with my exploits on "Battle of Midway" (or whatever it's called) for about 20 mins before I realized that the plane I was -=flying=- was a Zero and the planes I was shooting down were Mustangs and B29s.

Yeoch.

Re:Can't they stick to aliens?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, well guess what? There's at least 2 games available in the mid-east in which you play the role of a palestinian during the infantada. They are first-person shooters where you kill isralies and US soldiers. And this was even highlighted in one of the US major gaming magazines. No uproar heard though? Maybe freedom of speech means something?

Re:hrm...

[Dark Lord Seth]

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.

I remember playing Dune 2 on the Amiga 500 & 2000 ages ago. I imported it from the UK for about 25 USD and it came on 4 (or so) floppies because CD-ROM drives were rarer then diamonds back then. It was a great game on the Amiga though, with music, in game sound and even different voices as you ordered your units around a bit. That is where my addiction to RTS games began, the moment I ordered my first Harkonen (sp?) trooperer to engage some Atreides infantry attacking my precious big red lump of pixels which was my harvester. All I remember after that is making HUGE bases that are completely walled with rocket turrets at every corner and the fact I never really finished the game because the two vs one end levels were too hard for me back then :(

Great game and pretty original back then as well. Receives a well deserved place amoung my personal RTF "Hall of Fame" which also includes "Total Annihilation" (despite the cheap name) and "Homeworld"