Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars review (Xbox 360)

War is good. Pardon, let me rephrase that; war in videogames is good. As humans, its something of a guilty pleasure to enjoy such violent indulgences. It’s an amalgamation of our insatiable thirst for power, greed and general pleasure in blowing things to smithereens. As a videogame, Command and Conquer has for the better part of twelve years facilitated this desire. Ever since it’s inception in 1995 for the PC, the series has managed to go from strength to strength with each subsequent release, taking players through half a dozen world wars, changing the face of history as we know it, and giving us the perfect reason to bunk off school and stay online all day.

After trying something new with C&C: Generals, Tiberium Wars takes us back to familiar territories in the futuristic plot line centred around the Global Defence Initiative (GDI) and the notorious Brotherhood of Nod. After two world wars, the mysterious substance known as Tiberium has become ubiquitous on our planets soil – which Nod sees as a means to be exploited and explored upon. And so, the wheels are in motion once again for what is quite possibly the most crucial battle in the series history so far.

Gentlemen, this is about combat

Traditionally, RTS games like Command and Conquer have always been at home on the PC. Attempts to bring it to the console market in the past (as seen in the PSX versions of Command and Conquer, Red Alert and its expansion packs Aftermath and Counter-Strike) haven’t gone down too well with fans. Philosophically, people would argue that it’s commanding officer was the mouse and keyboard. With Tiberium Wars however, the series has shown why it’s just as adaptive to home consoles as any other genre, simply down to some tweaking to the controls and interface. All of your main actions are controlled simply by the A button and the R trigger, which you’ll use to make selections and bring up your command window.

From here, it’s simply as easy as selecting a specific tab (infantry, vehicles, etc) and clicking on the unit or structure you wish to build/train. It takes some getting used to, as the PC version set-up is slightly different, but with practise you’ll find that it is just as intuitive and easy to navigate as using a mouse. The omission of being able to “draw” a box to select your units means you can merely have to hold down L and press A to select all combat units in view. Granted, its not quite as easy as using a box method, but you’ll soon get the hang of it and it’ll becomes second nature. You can also perform more complicated tasks here, such as applying groups, rally points etc.

As ever, you see the action (all in glorious 3D, I might add) from an isometric view, with the ability to zoom in and pan the camera around at your discretion, which enables you to subject your units et all under extreme scrutiny if required.

Hell March

Once you become accustomed to the controls – which is made easier by the handy training section – you’ll find that everything is as you’d expect from a good dose of C&C. You choose two factions; GDI or Nod, and play through a lengthy campaign based over three difficulty settings (easy, normal and hard). Without spoiling anything however, you’ll soon learn that the two teams are not alone, as a third participant soon rears its head. As ever, GDI are fundamentally the crush and destroy type, while Nod tip the scales more in favour of discretion, and prefer using stealth tactics to gain the upper hand. Whichever you prefer, you’re going to have to play a couple of Acts from GDI before you can tackle Nod. Fortunately, Tiberium Wars plays just as wonderfully simplistic, yet immensely challenging as its predecessors.

Missions are well designed and are played out so that you’ll be forced to test a variety of your base building and tank busting skills to the limit. And, unlike early instalments, you are offered further incentive to play beyond your basic mission parameters. These can include anything from capturing specific buildings or enemy structures, destroying a particular unit/vehicle, to slightly more elaborate objectives that include infiltrating strongholds to gather additional intelligence on your foes.

As mentioned, they aren’t mandatory, but you’ll be rewarded with a special ribbon to acknowledge your accomplishments.

Fight, Win Prevail

If the single-player campaign isn’t enough to tickle your fancy, the obligatory Skirmish and multiplayer modes are sure to satisfy any remaining need for destruction. Skirmish is as cut and dry as it’s ever been – choose your team, set your number of foes, choose a map and battle for supremacy. This time though, you can even customize the aggressiveness of the A.I, as well as tweaking its preferred attack method to really test your skills. As far as multiplayer goes, there’s no console-to-console play available, but you will be able to battle it out against your mates on Xbox Live in a number of game modes suited to your tastes.

Whether it’s an old-fashioned battle romp or something a little different (capture the flag, King of the hill etc), it’s sure pit your skills to the best of their abilities (unless, of course, your mates are rubbish and don’t know one end of a Mammoth Tank from the other) Expect some graphical downgrades to accommodate online play, however, and a few hic-ups in the frame rate. Likewise, the main game itself suffers from multiple slow down issues at various points, typically when there are a lot of units on screen at the same time. Heated battles do get kind of slow once in a while, but fortunately never grind to such a halt that it becomes detrimental to the action.

Battle Scarred

The game's aesthetics are a joy to behold as always, following on from C&C: Generals gorgeously rendered landscapes and units. Everything looks mighty good, right down to subtleties including tank tracks and undulating wave motions. Particle effect such as explosions, dust, smoke and other such things associated with battle are particularly great, immersing you in ways that the older games could not. On the sound front, Tiberium Wars is just as gloriously overblown and exaggerated as its predecessors.

C&C 3's storyline is involving in a cheesy sort of way, with a surprising amount of recognisable faces playing your respective commanding officers and fellow grunts. Fans will also be delighted to learn that series veteran Joseph D. Kucan returns to reprise his role as Nod’s unscrupulous baldy man himself, Kane. Unit responses are also top notch, as are the remainder of the games sound effects. Only the soundtrack perhaps fails to live up to expectations, which, though enjoyable, fails to surpass the glorious offerings seen in the original and Red Alert’s 1 and 2.

Mission Accomplished

Overall, Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars is a return to the mould. As a player for ten years, EA hasn’t let me down. The controls are intuitive, proving there’s life in console RTS games yet, and the game itself is as diverse, challenging and enjoyable as the series ought to be. Baring some minor issues including frame rate and graphical downgrades during online play, it’s as near perfect as any fan could hope for. Not only that, but it’s simplistic enough for newcomers to learn the ropes after a quick training at boot camp. With a great single player combined with endless fun to be had in the multiplayer offering, you’ll be hooked for months. It’s going to be a long war, solider.