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I’m in command

The Commander and Conquer games have certainly had their ups and downs throughout the years. We can all remember the high points like Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert… and we’d rather not remember Tiberian Sun. Red Alert II, the last game in the series, was definitely an improvement though it was clear that the days of C&C challenging the Blizzard games for online popularity were coming to an end.

Menufied

For China!

Capturing oil rigs

Generals promised to reverse that trend. EA Pacific, who also developed RA2, took a ground-up approach to the game. No more building on past engines, everything would start fresh. As with any complete overhaul, there were great risks involved. Generals might have lost its C&C identity and alienated the hardcore C&C fans, or the new design decisions might conflict with each other. The more established a franchise, the more difficult the changes become – but when it’s obvious that the key axiom in the old “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it” adage doesn’t hold, those changes must be made.

Changes summary

The most plainly obvious change is of course the graphics engine. There is nothing, absolutely nothing left of the old C&C here. The full-3D engine comes complete with all the goodies gamers have come to expect in modern games. High-resolution textures, great particle effects, smooth animations and polygons out the ying-yang are all here.

Chinese infantry

Aftermath

Good job revealing yourselves

The interface has been updated as well. Gone is the old right-hand relic that adorned previous games and in its place is a traditional bottom bar. This means that production is also queued up at the buildings, rather than with the interface bar at the right.

Gameplay has had a few key changes as well. There are no engineers, so the annoying engineer cheese is a thing of the past, but buildings can now be captured by upgraded riflemen. The familiar rocket soldier is back in various forms, and each side has its special infantry types (like hackers and hijackers.) Aircraft have undergone a substantial reform as well, but we’ll get to that later.

What’s stayed the same?

Surprisingly, for all the massive visual changes, the actual style of play hasn’t been affected all that much. Units are still distinctly command and conquer-ish; tanks, light vehicles and infantry behave much as they have before. They are still relatively frail compared to WarCraft III, combat is always ranged since there are no melee units.

More oil!

Ah the invincible overlord

Nuke cannons at work

Units still fall into relatively convenient classes. Each side has an answer to another’s weapon, though obviously the GLA won’t have a completely equivalent unit to China’s Overlord tank.