Command and Conquer My Box

Uh-oh, I think we have a problem here. I just finished the 2-mission demo of Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars (C&C3) and it's pretty damn fun. This is coming from a guy who swore off RTS games after Warcraft 3. This is the same guy who cannot memorize a simple build order to save his life or execute any strategy beyond rushing every available unit to his death on the other side of the map. But this demo surprised me with its gorgeous looks and impressive controls, causing me to reconsider my prejudice against real-time base building/tank rushing games. More after the jump...

I'll admit that the presentation of C&C3 really won me over. The production values are sky-high. EA did not skimp on the visuals budget, from the intricate detail of individual units, the dazzling weapon effects and destructible environments to the glorious FMV cutscenes featuring your favourite B-list and has-been/never-been Hollywood stars. My only complain with the handful of cut scenes in the demo is that Grace Park looks like she has a mono-brow in some scenes. And no, Billy Dee Williams was nowhere to be found but I'm sure he will be deliciously cheesy in the final game.

I was also very impressed with the control scheme in the demo. C&C3 is my first exposure to RTS's on the consoles and I'm almost sold on the platform's ability to excel in this genre of gaming. The panning controls are lightning quick, almost on the verge of being too touchy, but I can see why they chose to ramp up the sensitivity of the left thumbstick. The camera zoom and rotation are equally fluid. Selecting and targeting units is awkward, made a little easier with the cursor's "snapping to" effect, but still a far cry from using a mouse. While selecting all units or a single unit is easy enough, it's still incredibly difficult to "click & drag" select with any degree of accuracy. Given the extremely fast pace of this game, every second counts.

That brings me to the command bar, which is at once convenient and cumbersome to use. The right trigger, combined with the D-pad, opens up a centralized menu that allows you to build structures, set groups, use powers and create production cues. It's handy enough, until you start getting half a dozen notifications at one time and are stumbling through the various menus on the command bar to find what you're looking for. From what I could tell, the bumper buttons serve no function, which is a complete waste, as I can think of many uses for them. How about a way to cycle through the most recent build notifications or alerts? How about a way to bind a shortcut that allows you to build more of those stupid silos with a single press of a button? Managing saved groups of units is also a pain and could be streamlined further.

I could go on. The controls can stand for some refinement but I'm amazed at how intuitive it is right now. I can see myself being able to execute a general strategy in broad strokes. As for micromanaging groups of units, well... it would take me a lot of practice before the control scheme becomes second nature.

The demo itself is pretty beefy, featuring an excellent tutorial, two sample missions and a couple FMV cut scenes to round things out. Play over Live is available but I haven't tried it out yet. The first mission is extremely hand-holdy. I was actually taking too long to destroy the enemy base and the game mercifully opened access to the Ion Cannon. Selecting it in the command bar produces a gigantic crosshair which I centered over the enemy HQ and fired. It obliterated everything. Hmmm, perhaps this is a late-game weapon, you think?

Overall, I'm impressed by the demo. Reviews for the PC version of C&C3 indicate that the single-player campaigns will collectively take a couple dozen hours to complete, which is a breath of fresh air in this era of ridiculously short single-player games. This game wasn't on my radar before, but now I'm afraid I have yet another AAA title to keep my eyes on.