Game Title – Command And Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars
Developer - EA Los Angeles(AKA, EA-owned Westwood)
Publisher - Electronic Arts
Genre –Real Time Strategy, Sci-Fi
Release Date – March 28th 2007 (PC) May 10th 2007 (X360) August 28th 2007 (Mac)
Platforms – Windows, Mac, Xbox 360
Game Overview
Important Reference:”Tiberium”- Tiberium is a peculiar mineral/plant/organism? That was discovered by either GDI’s Dr Mobius or nod’s Kane near the Tiber River(depending on who’s story YOU believe) in 1995. It was found on a meteor near the river, and it has the peculiar tendency to eventually transform everything it touches into more Tiberium, giving off lethal radiation and microscopic crystals as it does. Do to the ignorance of those who owned what little Tiberium existed, it was allowed to spread out of control and thus began the first Tiberium war between GDI who wished to eradicate the mineral, and Nod, who’s leader Kane sees Tiberium as the stepping stone to a new stage in human evolution.
it is the Year 2047, 40 years since the Second Tiberium war, the world has been divided into 3 classifications based on their level of Tiberium infestation. Blue zones, the only Tiberium found in these zones is either in silos or under the watch of sonic restrictive fences, the landscape is completely untouched by the taint of Tiberium, these pristine areas are populated by very little of the population (the richest and most powerful) they are under the personal protection and care of the Global Defense Initiative (GDI). Next are Yellow zones, while referred to as “habitable” , they are no place to live, Tiberium infestation is dangerously high and many thousands die each year from Tiberium poisoning, wandering Ion Storms, or simply the numerous violent conflicts that occur every day. These zones hold the vast majority of the world’s population, and they are unofficially (but without a doubt) controlled by the Brotherhood of Nod, exploiting the public’s hatred for the apparently uncaring GDI to acquire recruits and raw materials. Lastly, the Red Zones, Areas so transformed by Tiberium, they no longer resemble Earth; seas of Tiberium glaciers highlight these regions where the amount of Tiberium infestation has reached critical mass. Violent Ion Storms frequent the zones, making travel through them difficult and sometimes impossible. The only major power here is the mutants who have mitigated from the Yellow zones prior to the Second Tiberium war, only to disappear forever into the wilderness of the Red zones.
/SPOILER ALERT/
There are 3 campaigns, GDI, Nod, and a secret unlockable one for a faction ill talk about later. The GDI campaign starts with a debrief on how the Brotherhood of Nod has fallen from grace since its defeat in Tibwar 2, and appears to have gone quite recently. After the a tutorial mission revolving around investigating a suspicious Nod presence, it is revealed Nod has raided GDI’s ASAT defense system, which was guarding the GDSS Philadelphia, GDIs orbital Command center from missile attacks. Nod quickly launches a nuclear missile at the now defenseless station, destroying it, killing nearly all of GDI’s leaders in the process (gathered there for an annual energy summit). Nod then uses GDI’s temporary confusion to invade Blue Zones across the board, the rest of the campaign is you routing Nod from the Blue Zones, back to the Yellow zones, assaulting their Temple, and then begins the part with the new faction, which I will expand on later. The Nod campaign begins with you being greeted by Nod’s second in command, your first mission is to assault GDI’s ASAT defense station to allow for a missile strike. The Nod campaign revolves around delaying GDI’s post invasion offensives to allow Kane to finish work on his Liquid Tiberium bomb, the rest after that deals with the new faction. The new faction is the Scrin, the Race responsible for “seeding” earth with Tiberium, recently drawn to Earth when GDI fires on of its orbital Ion cannons on Kane’s Temple, which contains (secretly) his liquid Tiberium bomb, which releases a tremendous chain reaction upon detonation. Kane somehow knew the explosion would trick the Scrin into thinking the Earth has reached the right level of infestation to warrant a colonization (a natural liquid t explosion of that size only occurs at such a level of global infestation). They quickly react to the surprise presence of organized resistance on Earth and formulate a plan to claim Earth, attack all major centers of population to distract humans, then secretly build 9 “Threshold Towers”(which become indestructible once completed) which directly connect to the Tiberium Hub of the Scrin, allowing the Scrin to send in an actual attack force. The GDI campaign concerning the Scrin is first protecting Blue Zones from attack, and then once their secret plan is revealed, destroy the threshold towers. In the end of the GDI campaigns, you must destroy the Scrin control node, which remotely controls the majority of Scrin forces, once destroyed, the Scrin quickly fall, and all survivors retreat into space. For the Nod-Scrin campaign, you must delay GDI’s efforts to destroy the towers, so that at least 1 can be finished and then promptly captured by Nod forces for Kane’s agenda. In the end you stop a GDI assault on the last tower, then lock yourself away in it with Kane just as it nears completion. After beating both campaigns, you unlock a 4 mission Scrin campaign, which is basically just doing convert missions against GDI/Nod.
Audio - 7
The ambient sounds are without a doubt the best in the entire series, but the soundtrack is generic and stale compared to the jaw-droppingly awesome soundtracks of the past games (Frank Klepachi anyone?) .
Graphics – 8.5
Although there is a lot of LOL BLOOM in certain levels (such as roads in Blue Zones which are made of glass for some reason). But for a large scale RTS, it has very good graphics and normally doesn’t overdo it. Not to mention this RTS is very well optimized and demands little from the average computer.
Controls - 8
Many of you may not have noticed, but there are 2 dominant interfaces for RTSs these days, the “Blizzard” and the “Westwood” aptly named after their creators. The Westwood (Westwood studios being the Original creator of CNC) is located on the right side of the screen, and includes a mini-map at the top, followed by a number of tabs, then an area for the contents of the selected tab. I honestly don’t have a preference of blizz vs. west, but the controls for CNC3 are simple and functional, a treat in an age of overcomplicated and confusing RTS interfaces these days.
Content - 7
There is basically Campaign (which is quite expansive) and multiplayer, both are “filling” but leave you wanting more by the end of it all.
Replayability - 7
with the polarity of difficulty levels in campaign, it’s good for at least a few replays, but multiplayer isn’t exactly stellar, leaving the replayability lukewarm.
Multiplayer - 2
Multiplayer is this game’s biggest downfall, it’s depressing just thinking about it, here we have a great game with great potential for fun with others, but EA has left weak points in the game mechanics and online play devolves into 100% rushing/exploiting with no strategy involved, truly the one who rushes first wins and the only other alternative is when a failed rush becomes an endless game of cat and mouse. On top of that, EA’s severs are fairly buggy.
Story - 10
Fantastic stories, one of the games main selling points is its trademark Tiberian storyline acted out in cheesy live action cut scenes, which adheres the max of 2 good actors on screen at a time. The addition of making the campaigns interrelate instead of cancel each other out is very welcome, as there is no fighting over which is “canon”, it also means the devs have to actually reference each campaign creatively to make it work.
Innovation - 5
this game is not or was never meant to be innovative, it was meant to be a throwback to the original CNC games (and some would say an apology for Generals). The only innovation is the creation of a CNC game in the well made “SAGE 3” engine (which was tested with Generals). However, Tiberium in CNC3 is by far the least imaginative of all the various incarnations throughout the series, being largely overshadowed by CNC2’s incredibly interactive and immersive Tiberium, which actually had it’s own strategies involved such as purposefully mutating your own soldiers to spawn hideous Tiberium viscriods to attack the enemy base or being wary of the ever-spreading Tiberium which threatens your very base structures. Now Tiberium is just a resource that slowly grows back, sure it hurts infantry, but very slowly and it’s easy to avoid, it just sits there, not even spreading beyond its invisible radius of growability.
Getting Into It - 8
From the first cut scene you are hooked, all the plot “fluff” and awesome missions make this game very addictive, unfortunately, some missions will make you so angry you just want to shoot someone, and re-doing missions gets old after the 3rd time.
Game Length - 10
CNC3 is long enough to satisfy, yet not so long to make you bored. Spanning 3 unique campaigns of about 15-20 missions all with interwoven stories, the game is the perfect length for everyone.
OVERALL SCORE
-- 7.2 out of 10 (please note that this adheres to the scales’ notion of what constitutes a good RTS, some parts are low score “in a good way” or by purpose, so think more like 8.2 rather than 7.2)
Final Comment
Some will claim the game is too simple and therefore bad, yet they fail to realize that is what EA intended from the beginning, not to make some next gen TACTICOOL RTS with all the latest technology and add-ons, but to make a modern throwback to CNC that retains core gameplay to please loyal Westwood fans still sour from EA’s absorption of the Studio. I defiantly recommend this game if you want a straight to the point, easy to play RTS, or even just a fan of CNC.
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