C&C Generals is the long awaited continuation of the famous RTS series. This latest release(which was not created by Westwood) focus' on more a real-world unit base and story-line.
Graphics:
One word. Sweet. This is one of the best looking RTS games ever created. The terrain, unit models, and special effects like explosions are extremely well done. Infantry looks a little weird, but not poor enough for me to remove a point for the score.
This game also has a great physics engine, units bounce over terrain realistically. Infantry fly into the air when hit by explosions. Buildings fall over and can crush units. Great.
All this greatness doesn't come without a price. To get the best visuals you need a Geforce 4 Ti or Radeon 9500+ class video card combined with a very speedy processor.
Sound:
The sound effects and music are excellent. My one gripe is that the voice acting for campaign briefings and response voice for units are a little lame, but its mostly the dialog itself, not the way its spoken.
Gameplay:
I have two major gripes with this game.
My first gripe is the story line. First of all it sucks. I thought they would at least introduce some characters and have an actual story line in this game. But that's not the case. The storyline is this.
"The GLA is evil, USA and China are good and must crush them."
I'm serious folks, there is no more of a story-line than that. The campaigns are pretty much just slapped together single scenarios that don't really have a story to connect them. I liked the video cut-scene's from the old C&C games way better than these in-game cutscene's that while looking nice, don't accomplish anything story-wise.
I also have a gripe about the content and political statement this game makes. The GLA are terrorists, plain and simple. They use biological weapons such as scuds and tractors that spray biological ooze. They also use suicide bombers. Now this in itself isn't so bad. But the campaigns show the GLA using these weapons on innocent people. Even you have to do it yourself in some missions, such as one when your objective to kill innocent villagers and steal their UN supplies for the GLA cause. Frankly these missions and the entire GLA campaign itself sickened me. I know the bad guys in other games do no worse than the GLA, but this is a real-world type setting and it may be a little disturbing for most people. I'm sure USA war mongers won't have a problem with this game, as it makes the exact political statement they want. I don't like seeing propaganda in video games.
My second gripe is the AI and missing gameplay features:
The AI in Generals is generally(haha) dumb. The AI on the hard settings rely on swarming you under rather than tactics.
They usually always send units the same way and on the lower difficulties they send like 4 units at a time. The only thing they are smart at doing is picking nuke, scud, and particle cannon targets.
The gameplay is also a step back in some ways for RTS games. Two major problems. You can't set unit behaviors(aggressive, defend, etc) and the way formations work is stupid. I could live without a good formations system, but the missing unit behaviors pisses me off supreme.
Unless you set a unit group to guard an area(which is all you can do in this game behavior wise), they will not respond to enemies that's are attacking them beyond their range. They'll sit there until they blow up or die. And when using guard mode, after the units respond to a threat most of the time you have to RESET THEM TO GUARD THE AREA AGAIN..stupid. The path finding is also not the greatest. This game has interface and gameplay problems that were ironed out in RTS games from the mid 90s. Its unacceptable that these flaws exist in game released now.
Ok with that out of the way lets get to the good things. Even though Generals took some steps back in the RTS genre they added some new features that I like and provided us with 3 very different but well-balanced factions to use.
The GLA, USA, and China forces, are extremely well-balanced, even though they play very differently. USA is mainly air-power with a adequate ground force, China are the tank whores...with a minimal air force, and the GLA rely on hit and run with fast units and sabatoge, with no air force. China has the obvious advantage because of their ability to tank rush. But a smart player can counter those with fortified RPG troops(that no one online seems to know how to make).
One of the coolest thing about Generals is the ability to fortify buildings with your troops. Maps usually have civilian buildings all around the map that you can put troops in. RPG troops in fortified buildings can mop up an entire tank force or air force. Only the USA has abilities to easily remove fortified troops(Flashbangs and Air drops).
Units in Generals also gain experience, up to level 3. Each level gives them better damage and rate of fire. After level 2 they also self repair. The factions also have some really cool special unit abilities. When USA vehicles are destroyed they eject the pilot that retains all the experience that unit has gained. You can then put that pilot in another vehicle and that vehicle will gain the experience. GLA units get money for scrap from the battlefield, some of their units also upgrade themselves from fallen USA and China tanks. China units get the horde bonus, the more of them there are, the better they function.
Originally Generals was to be like Warcraft III, Each faction with its own hero that gets experience and gains new abilities. Well that was scrapped. Generals now just gives the player experience, when you level up you get to pick from a list of General abilities(different for each faction). Some abilities let you use para-drops, remote artillery attacks, etc. Some Generals abilities are required to build certain units. These abilities add a lot of fun to the game. Experience in the single player campaign carries over from mission to mission. In multi-player/skirmish everyone starts at level 1. Experience is gained when you destroy units or buildings, Level 5 is max. These abilities are well-balanced, although I think some abilities like the Chinese Artillery strike are too cheap.
Each faction still has its heroes however. Each with their own special abilities that can turn the tide in a game. I should note before I get into the descriptions, that the heroes are always stealthed(until detected) which is what makes their abilities useful. The USA has Col. Burton, who can place mulitple charges on buildings and remote detonate them. He can also get up terrian that no other unit can. China has Black Lotus, who can steal money from the enemy, capture buildings from a distance(and sell them, which is a popular strategy online), and remotely hack vehicles to disable them. The GLA has Jarmen Kell, who is an extremely l33t sniper. He can take out entire infantry forces without even being seen. His only special ability is being able to snipe the drivers out of vehicles. Leaving it ripe for the picking for GLA infantry.
Most of the missions in the campaign are well done and fun to play. Although the campiagn itself is pretty short. Only 7 missions per faction, and some missions only take like 15 minutes. Skirmish mode is fairly fun, even though the AI sucks, and should keep you interested for a while.
On to multi-player, the saving grace for an RTS. The online lobby in Generals and the way games are setup is very well done and easy to use. With the latest patch almost all lag issues I had with version 1.0 were fixed. Version 1.0 had horredus lag and NAT/Firewall issues(some still exist).
I loved the original C&C and the Red Alert series. I was hoping Generals would be like those games, and it kinda is, it sure beats the hell out of the terrible Tiberian Sun. I'm having a lot of fun with Generals despite the problems.
Overall Generals is worth the money to series fans and RTS fans alike. Although some real hardcore RTS fans may not be able to forgive some of the current gameplay problems.
Create an Account
Member Login
