- Title: Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars
- Platform:Xbox 360
- Publisher: EA
- Developer: EA LA
- ESRB Rating: “T” For Teen
- Genre: Real-Time-Strategy
- Pros: Nice graphics and sound; great gameplay; challenging missions; lots of stuff to do
- Cons: Controls are great, but you’ll still curse them occasionally
Features and Modes
Command and Conquer 3 offers up a campaign mode that allows you to play as the powerful GDI forces and sneaky Nod as they fight each other and a new alien enemy, the Scrin. The campaigns will take you a good 20+ hours to play through the first time, but each mission has bonus objectives and there are usually lots of different ways to accomplish each mission, so the replay value is very, very high. Add on to that the multiple difficulty levels, and you have a game that should last you for a long time. If the story missions don’t satisfy you, you can also set up skirmish levels against up to three CPU opponents where there is no story or mission, just building up forces to annihilate the other forces. You can also play Command and Conquer 3 over Xbox Live with up to four players, and there are a number of different rules and options you can play with. All in all, C&C3 has the potential to give you many, many, many hours of enjoyment, and in terms of sheer value you really can’t beat it.
Gameplay
Controls have always been the main stumbling block in console RTS games since a controller can’t give you the fast and precise control of a mouse and keyboard, but C&C3 does a good job of giving you enough control without being too complicated. You can easily select all of the units onscreen, all of the units in your army, single unit groups, or all of the units of a particular type with combinations of shoulder buttons and the A button. You can also bring up structure commands (to build new buildings or units), special powers, unit commands, and more by holding the right trigger. This lets you build units and do other things without having to click on that particular building first, which make everything in the game go much faster. The controls aren’t perfect, though, and when the game starts getting really fast paced and you are being attacked on all sides you tend to get lost in the series of “hold this button and this button and press that one twice”-type commands, but you get used to them.
Graphics and Sound
Graphically, Command and Conquer 3 is a great looking game. The combat units are all nicely detailed and you can easily tell exactly what each unit is at a glance. The buildings look nice as well. The overall look of the game is a bit washed out and not as sharp and vibrant as it could be, but that sort of fits in with the gritty war theme and the storyline of our changing planet in the near-future, so it all works out. One slight drawback is that there are some framerate issues when there are a lot of units onscreen at once, but it never gets so bad that you can’t easily select units and play the game.The sound is also very good. Sound effects for combat are exactly what you expect from the GDI and Nod, but the alien Scrin have unique sounds that are pretty darn cool.
Bottom Line
