Command & Conquer 3 (Released)

[InferiorBeing]

So... the demo's out. Anyone played it as of yet? It includes two campaign missions, the tutorial, and Skirmish. You play as the GDI in all of these.

My short review:

Graphics are great, duh, but one of the things that impressed me the most was how incredibly stabile and smooth it runs, with zero slow-down so far, even in the bigger shoot-outs. Surprised.

Gameplay: It's pretty much your run-of-the-mill 90's era RTS. You harvest resources, and build an army you use to steamroll the opponent(s). Absolutely nothing is changed from the original Red Alert and Tiberian -games gameplay wise; save maybe for the fact that infantry are created in squads rather than individuals, and that these can garrison buildings. Also, most units have different selelctable abillities such as "Entrench" and so on. Also, units are created with crazy, crazy speed.

AI: Surpirised. It's unusually solid and challenging, to be honest, even on medium. In the demo, the only AI personality that exists is "Balanced"; though in the full version you can choose between such as "Rush AI", "Turtle AI", "Guerilla AI" and "Steamroll AI" as well.

Cutscenes: Awesome, with semi-known actors such as that balding officer with the steel arm from Starship Troopers, an Asian woman who I'm told starred in either Battlestar or Star Trek or whatever, the dude who plays Sawyer in Lost, and of course Kane. The acting is delightfully campy as well.

So... that's it. I'm moderately surprised and impressed.

It does not occur to me as very tactical. All you really do is build a clump of tanks and aircraft and click "Attack-Move", and go grab a cup of coffee. The infantrymen will run to cover and so on when stationary a la Company of Heroes, but this is just a visual thing. It has no effects on their protection, and they all move out of cover in order to engage the enemy when they see one, anyways.

*EDIT* I'm a retard. Here's the link. http://www.fileplanet.com/spotlight/2007/cnc/

(Update)

http://files.filefront.com/Command++Conquer+3+Tiberium+Wars+Demo/;6821954;/fileinfo.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%26c_3#Demo

http://www.commandandconquer.com/

 

[Poil]

No link?

 

[InferiorBeing]

Forgot that one. You could always have googled it, though... Anyways; my bad for forgetting it. Original post updated. Sorry.

http://www.fileplanet.com/spotlight/2007/cnc/

It might be out on other pages than Fileplanet, but that's where I downloaded it, anyways.

 

[Poil]

Bah, subscription crap site. Paying money in order to download a demo? **** that!

I was feeling too lazy to google it. And you always get tons of sites which doesn't actually offer it for download anyway.

 

[Cymro]

It's almost the same as requiring Steam to play the Half Life 2 demo - since when did you put copy protection on a demo

 

[bugman]

Looks awesome... i want!

 

[InferiorBeing]

Apparently it can be freely downloaded at leisure here:

http://files.filefront.com/Command++Conquer+3+Tiberium+Wars+Demo/;6821954;/fileinfo.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%26c_3#Demo

http://www.commandandconquer.com/

 

[Narcissus]

C & C Generals and ZH are my wife's favorite games of all time.  Great fun, but wow ... unstable!!

We have already pre-ordered two copies so I'm hoping that it is fun (and stable).

I rarely mess with demos, usually if I find it interesting enough to play the game, I buy it. 

Any other thoughts or impressions are welcome, though ... I love to read what others think about games.  It builds up the anticipation (or helps me prepare for a crappy game  ).

Narcissus

 

[Poil]

They're going to release it to a 360? Does that even have a freaking mouse?

 

[Merentha]

They're going to release it to a 360? Does that even have a freaking mouse?

No.  Much like BFME2, I expect the 360 version will have simplifed controls, slower gameplay, and other features to make it easier for the idiots who decide to play an RTS on a console.

 

[Instag0]

I've gotten to the point where I can beat a medium computer in around 12 minutes, but I tried my first hard opponent today and was shocked at how many units the AI was able to pump out. There was a continuous stream of attackers that eventually wore me down. As soon as I defeated ten of their tanks on one side of the map, it'd not only send ten more, but also send ten tanks (along with infantry, of course) to my poorly-defended main base. I assumed it would be like the medium computer, focusing on one area of the map at a time, but I was very wrong.

I've been hearing of people playing as NOD though, and I'd like to know how, because I can't seem to select them in skirmish mode. What I'd really like is someone to get a hold of a four player map so we can play that in the demo . I know when I was in the beta for Company of Heroes, once the demo came out, someone set up a guide for taking skirmish maps from the beta and put them into the the demo. That let us play the beta maps with the demo AI, which was a lot of fun.

 

[Merentha]

By the way, from what I hear, brutal AI is the same as hard, it just gets more money.

 

[phbbbt107]

By the way, from what I hear, brutal AI is the same as hard, it just gets more money.

That's not surprising, since nearly all video games increase the video game by letting the AI "cheat".

 

[InferiorBeing]

Instag0, did you notice the enemy getting "smarter" on Hard as well, or did it just produce more/stronger units? Does anyone know to what degree the AI cheats (If at all) in this game? In what ways does it improve as the difficuilty is raised?

By "cheating", I mean such things as getting more (Or in some cases, like "easy", less) money than a human normally would and so on.

 

[Instag0]

It definitely seemed smarter because it attacked in two places on hard, rather than just one on medium. I'm pretty sure the AI gets a large resource bonus on hard. On medium, when I controlled three tiberium fields, I'd never manage to get 4 times the resources of the computer. However, on hard, the AI easily manages to get more than 4 times the amount of resources I have, while only controlling two tiberium fields (and another later on in the game).

 

[InferiorBeing]

So it cheats, then. Well, normally I'd be a little dissapointed, but considering that his is EA, I'd better be grateful they even have an AI...

*EDIT* You can play as NOD as well as use the different AI personalities in the demo, by the way:

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/commandconquer3/show_msgs.php?topic_id=m-1-33879954&pid=932602&page=0

But if you try playing as the Scrin, you'll just get an instant message telling you that "You have been defeated!", and kicked out.



In the words of the discoverer himself:

To choose Nod in skirmish do this: Highlight Nod but dont click it. Now since Nod starts with 'N' you hit 'N' and click the mouse at the same time. might take a try or two to work.

Nod is now selected to play as. Also works with selecting to fight against GDI. (select GDI, hit 'G' and mouse)

Also works with personalities. R and click for (Rusher), T and click for Turtle etc....

Thank me now!!!!!!!!

...Thank him now.

 

[Cymro]

I thought the whole point of C&C 3 is that you could play as GDI or NOD without having to press a special keycode

 

[Merentha]

Its the demo.

My thoughts on Nod:  Initially weaker units, but they have the capability to do completely off-the-wall things (like their beam tanks being able to reflect shots off Venom aircraft)  and have more commander abilities.  Could be very potent in the hands of a skilled player, but the GDI units are pound for pound much better and easier to use.  I'd recommend GDI for a while.

 

[Sir Prince]

So, anyone here besides Orion downloading the demo but ending up with a demo fo C&C Generals or Microsoft Virtual Earth or other game/program demo?

He was ranting and raving about it earlier on X-Fire. He kept getting the Generals demo, and he tried several sites and torrents.

 

[InferiorBeing]

I thought the whole point of C&C 3 is that you could play as GDI or NOD without having to press a special keycode

I'm talking about the demo... The game won't be out until the 30th or so. I don't even know if it's gone Gold yet.

So, anyone here besides Orion downloading the demo but ending up with a demo fo C&C Generals or Microsoft Virtual Earth or other game/program demo?

He was ranting and raving about it earlier on X-Fire. He kept getting the Generals demo, and he tried several sites and torrents.

Well, if you're having trouble finding the sites in which to download the demo from, I gave a few links in the first post... Here's another one, by the way.

http://www.mofunzone.com/download_games/command_conquer_3_tiberium_wars.shtml

I've been downloading demos from that site for some time, and I'd assume they've got the correct one...