Sure looks like a lot of units, doesn't it? That's purely because there are 10 people playing. The units and upgrades it builds (some crawl, some walk, some fly) depend on which of the three classes you pick. You're then given a Crawler, which is a mobile base with a reasonable amount of biffing power in its own right. At the start of a mission or match, you choose to play as Offence, Defence or Support. The entire game has been rebuilt, leaving something that's both back-to-basics and completely unrecognisable. Base-building, harvesters, Tiberium fields, power requirements, large armies, the Scrin - bar the faction names GDI and Nod, and a few returning iconic units, everything familiar has been removed. C&C3 was retro and wild, Red Alert 3 was full-pelt silly and had co-op, but something had to change. In an age where traditional RTS is fragmenting, fleeing from the old build-and-bash core to various extremes - Dawn of War II's role-playing, Supreme Commander 2's sandbox tech tree, StarCraft 2's absolute precision - EA is looking for a way to keep C&C relevant.
The question is whether these upstanding old PC gamers are necessary sacrifices, because C&C4 does have a bigger picture in mind, rather than being about ruthless change for the sake of it. Long-term C&C fans seem to be the people Tiberian Twilight is least interested in. Meanwhile, the game component - remember that? - throws out almost everything traditionally associated with the series. In C&C4 the attempts at gravitas just make them sad and limp. The units, anyway - there's a lot of pleasing incidental details in the environments.Ĭ&C's legendary cut-scenes have always been cheaptastic, but historically that's part of the charm. It does look a little bit like StarCraft 2. Glimpses of the supposedly Tiberium- and war-ravaged world outside the small Battlestar-on-a-budget set from which Kane and company address you are transparently just 2009 folk chatting from 2009 streets and gardens. Most of the story involves watching your unnamed character's wife unconvincingly crying at you, while the climax involves an all-white room and an unconvincing painting of a door. We're supposed to take this stuff seriously now? While long-time Kane actor Joe Kucan clearly relishes the opportunity to at last lend some subtlety and moral greyness to the shiny-scalped megalomaniac (or is he, etc), the rest of the unstarry cast can only muster bad soap opera. So there's nothing final or particularly satisfying about C&C4's conclusion, and for some reason it tries to replace the tried-and-tested campy cut-scenes with something grittier and nuanced.
Granted, a thing happens which suggests an end to the last 15 years (and 70 in-game years) of conflict between the GDI and the Brotherhood of Nod, and another thing is said which implies Kane is something more than human, but that's how C&C usually ends. You want to find out who Kane really is and where he comes from? How he never dies? How his tiny beard always looks so neat? You want to know about that stuff, do you? Are you sure? Wouldn't you like some more questions? Don't you like questions? C'mon, what's wrong with questions? Why are you leaving? Won't you come back?Ĭommand & Conquer 4 is the conclusion of the Tiberium saga, but you would have to be more naive than the Trojan doorman wheeling in the horse to think this really means the end of C&C. When Command & Conquer 4 was announced, they made it sound like it was time for some answers.