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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. "
Sniff...Westwood also did the two Eye of the Beholders in the beginning of the '90s.
I used to be a big fan of C&C. Problem is, Red Alert was just like the original, Tiberian Sun was just like Red Alert, Red Alert II was just like the original Red Alert. Each game has new graphics and different names for the same things.
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...
hardly worth playing the game now...
What would Brian Boitano do?
Bunch of movies here.
the warez peeps played it and came up with some additional information not contained in this slashvertisement...
:p
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
...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!!!)
they are hoping will be the WarCraft 3 killa.
Yeah, ok...Word up, homey.
Sheesh.
Bowie J. Poag
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.
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.
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
if its a game, its a game, besides i'd like to destroy iraq
Would you feel the same way if the object of the game was to crash a plane into a US city?
Does the game come with a free P4 cpu? Otherwise I might need an upgrade...
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.
Psst, don't tell anybody, but somebody already made a game about invading the USA. It was Westwood and the game was called Red Alert 2. Personally, I thought running through the streets of DC and garrisoning inside the Smithsonian was fun. But what do I know? My sense of being offended at fiction isn't very well developed.
Isn't that the POINT of a sequel game? Keep the basic game play, which people like, intacted but also add as many new features as you can. Each game had new units with differant special abilities changing the game play just enough to keep it fun and fresh. Yet they kept most of the basic units in some form or another so the learning curve would be small for an old vet.
Game sequels are the game programers remaking the same game to push the latest hardware and add new things that at the time of the orignal game where not possible.
Don't dog on a C&C game for being a C&C game.
Would you feel the same way if the object of the game was to crash a plane into a US city?
To be honest, playing the original Microsoft Flight Simulator at age 6, I thought the purpose -was- to crash a plane into the Sears Tower.
BUILDING CRASH
As to this-- look, there's tons of North Korean and Iraqi movies about the downfall of America in various ways. Every side spins things the way they will, and I like playing games with conflicts/weapons I can relate to. And killing a lot of Russians in Operation Flashpoint doesn't mean I hate Russians.
Plea to game makers - please make the baddies aliens and dragons or robots.
This is political correctness gone too far. You've started down a path I don't think you intended to take. If we turn it to face another way, being half-German I know that many Germans, most Germans in fact are ashamed that their history includes Nazism and Hitler. And they certainly don't like being reminded that the whole affair happened, but you're not campaigning for Medal of Honor and Castle Wolfenstein to change their games? Why not? If aliens landed tomorrow and started complaining that they're being maligned by our entertainment industry would you suddenly want to remove them from the list of acceptable villans? No, you probably wouldn't.
If a company in China or Russian or wherever released a game about invading and destroying things in the USA, I'm sure many people in the USA - and especially elements of the press - would be outraged.
And I agree with you, people in the states would be outraged, but that's not my metric for why I should or shouldn't do something. While I may not agree with the missions, or what they portray (though I think they accurately reflect active military plans the US already has drawn up), I have enough wherewithall to distinguish between a game and reality. The path you're taking leads to the same place 'concerned parents' and activists are taking us by wanting to ban violent video games altogether because of what they portray, and how they will affect us. If a game offends me, I don't buy it. You should do the same, and vote with your dollars, instead of trying to take choices from me.
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.
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
Yes, that's right, they wouldn't, but not for the reasons you think - not because it's 'wrong' or 'disgusting'; rather because people like you, people who can't distinguish between reality and fiction, would crucify them. Or sue them.
Do you know how terrible, how absolutely hellish WWII was? Neither do I, even though I've got a tiny window into it from reading many books and soldiers' accounts and seeing many pictures of it. It makes the whole WTC incident, including the footage of people jumping to their deaths, seem like a birthday party.
But that doesn't stop us from playing any of the WWII-themed games out there. And by 'us' I mean of course the people who can tell the difference between a game and real life.
Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
Syndicate was AWESOME. Syndicate is one of the top PC games of all time in my books. The intro was nothing short of orgasmic, and the cutscenes were gorgeous. The gameplay was sweet and it had some cool interactive music too, though unfortunately it only had two "themes", where Dune II had five or six at least. And the sound of that mini-gun! One of the most amazing sounds ever to come out of a computer game. How come no other game mini-guns just tore shit out like that? It sounds like it's blasting several hundred bullets a minute.
I'm not sure if i'd call Syndicate a real-time strategy on the level of Dune II, though, mainly because a lot of the strategy happened between missions when you taxed your countries and outfitted your team. It reminds me of another old game called Steel Empires (Cyber Empires in America) where you built up resources and outfitted your giant robots before switching to the real-time part where you had a top-down view and ran around blasting the other guy. Great fun in two-player mode :-)
I got a sig so you would remember me.
If a company in China or Russian or wherever released a game about invading and destroying things in the USA,
You realize in ALL the Command and Conquer games, you can play the badguys? Which means, ~gasp~ you're invading and destroying things in the US and its allies (esp in RA2)
You're offended? Where do you want hte missions to be, in canada and chile?
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
In the name of Eris, stop bitching about Sept 11 already. We're talking about a GAME here which thousands of people, including me, have enjoyed. Not because of the fact it involved blowing up US stuff, but because the game simply was quite fun to play. Yes, I enjoyed flattening entire US cities for fun, but I also enjoyed playing on the German side when playing Operation Market Garden in Battlefield 1942 and I also enjoyed nuking Amsterdam when playing Superpower, both involving my own country. Besides, flattening US cities or taking on an US armour platoon in a GAME doesn't have much political "power" anyways.
Hate me!
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?
Can't they just use make-believe places and situations? I find this kind of stuff offensive.
No kidding. Imagine the hell that would be raised if someone came out with a mod pack that lets you run squads of Israeli stormtroopers to squash Palestinian uprisings, conversely if you could play small squads of Palestinians to take out key Israeli civilian targets, or if you could deploy Arab sappers/bombers/engineers to take out key city buildings.
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"
Hate me!
In the first mission you mention, the nuclear warhead storage facility is being run by terrorists, and the player, as China, must destroy it. There are 3 single player campaigns available, where you play the role of China, America, or the "Global Liberation Army" (terrorists). It's actually quite interesting to see the game designers' predictions towards a future war. America's forces focus on technology, mobility and air superiority; China uses masses of units and nuclear technology; while the GLA uses junkyard vehicles, anthrax, and even suicide bombers. But, remember, one can play any side and thus use any strategy. It's not some "America conquers the world" game (at least, so far that I've played... you begin the game in the Chinese campaign, and end it with the GLA, and I of course haven't completed the first campaign yet). When I sit and play any of the sides, I don't sit there and think, "Oh, hey, it would be cool if I was doing this in real life; launching nukes and scuds." It is a setting for a game of strategy, and the setting, a future which may not be so implausible, poses some interesting questions. All of the sides can unleash terrible devestation. All of them believe in their cause. Which one is necessarily "right", if any? Destroy all enemy forces in Iraq? Isn't that what a certain nation is planning on doing? Many books are written about real life events, from the perspectives of all people involved. Just because this is a game doesn't mean that it must be void of any sort of valuable philosophical content. While in a book one must simply accept the perspective given to them, here the player has a choice. I'll admit that diplomacy isn't an option -- but the genre of this game is the strategy of warfare, not the strategy of negotiations. As I stated before, I haven't played through the whole game yet, simply because of time. I could see your point if the game only allowed a person to play as America; however, the fact is that you can play any of the sides, along with their appropriate predicted ideologies and goals.
How about a C&C game where you play Canadian troops trying to avoid being bombed by USAF pilots?
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.