StarDestroyer.Net BBS

It is out on FilePlanet (or atleast, it let me activate my pre-loaded copy just now). It comes with a tutorial, one GDI campaign mission and a single skirmish map (player locked as GDI versus a Nod AI).

My impressions so far: I've been pleasantly surprised. Because it goes back to many of the original C&C conventions (one resource, instant building placement etc...) it feels much more easy to play than most other modern RTS games; it certainly doesn't break the RTS mould in any areas but I fell like I have more fun in a half-hour skirmish of this than I do in a whole two hour Supreme Commander match.

The interface is laid out nicely, very similar to Red Alert 2 with elements of Emperor: Battle for Dune's transparent interface. It has tabs for different structures and units; with the added improvement that building more than one of each structure gives you multiple build queue tabs within each tab. For example if you build two barracks then within the barracks tab there will be two sub-tabs, from one you can build some riflemen and from the other some rocket soldiers and they will each build in parallel and exit from different structures. Alternately you can just select the building you want to build troops from and its build menu will automatically appear.

You get quite a few generals 'powers' to deploy too, which appear as icons down the left hand side of your screen. Unfortunately for GDI about half of these just summon a veteran group of units you could build anyway, which is something of a let down. There is no Generals like system for purchasing these powers either - they just come with certain buildings (Orca air strike with the airfield for example) so you will be using the same ones each match. Each power also has a credit cost associated with casting it.

The game is fairly attractive graphically, with flashy special effects such as heat haze from aircraft engines. The art for base structures (for GDI at least) does a very good job of harking back to the style of the structures from the original Command & Conquer.

Make no mistake though, this is a very bog standard RTS; but with EA at the helm I doubt anyone expected otherwise. It has managed to save the oft-forgotten planning mode from Red Alert 2 which is more useful than many people realised and it does appear to have some sort of "suppression" system, but I haven't quite figured it out yet.

As I said, it has pleasantly surprised me. They appear to have taken many of the best ideas from the previous titles in the series and wrapped them all together in a very streamlined bundle. Literally thirty seconds into the game you will be building your factions main units, which I find immensely superior to Supreme Commander systems of teasing you with ever more obsolete-before-they-are-built units for an hour.

Just played another game, it didn't go well for me. Some screens:

My base just getting started.

My units trying to take down a Nod Avatar mech.

Nod Stealth tanks and suicide fanatics finishing off what remains of my base.

At least it promises to have an interesting story. EA really dropped the ball when they released Generals without the cut-scene FMV storyline that was included on previous C&C titles.

I agree. Sticking with the overarching story of GDI vs. NOD is always good. The moving on from RA to a more modern setting was interesting, albeit, lacking given it didn't have that atmosphere from previous games Westwood pumped out. Live action actors and characters you can get to know along with a proper plot and not just generic missions linked in some random campaign helps too.

Unfortunately for certain "dedicated gamers", FMV cutscene storylines have nothing to do with honing the razor's edge of game geekdom or increasing their "actions per minute" click power, so they don't enhance the game at all

Darth Wong wrote:Unfortunately for certain "dedicated gamers", FMV cutscene storylines have nothing to do with honing the razor's edge of game geekdom or increasing their "actions per minute" click power, so they don't enhance the game at all

Pfft, elitist nerd whores.

The cheesy, corny FMVs were some of the best parts of this genre of game. Gave me a reason to beating mission #162761 other then a pat on my back as I outwitted an opponent dumber then my cat.

Darth Wong wrote:Unfortunately for certain "dedicated gamers", FMV cutscene storylines have nothing to do with honing the razor's edge of game geekdom or increasing their "actions per minute" click power, so they don't enhance the game at all

They are heretics, and will be purged with the Technology Of Peace.

KANE LIVES IN DEATH!

Oh yes, the Ion Cannon finally has the power to utterly level a small to mid sized base - a fulfilment of a promise made in the cutscenes of the original game 12 years ago, huzzah.

And seeing frakking Grace Park in the cutscenes after every GDI mission is certainly going to motivate me to give those Noddy scum the whole nine yards.

Typical- the fucking demo comes out while I'm at work and the day that I have my first postgrad class. I'll have to wait till late tonight to go near it.

I've been looking forward to C&C3 the moment it was announced, as I knew they couldn't call it C&C3 without the sort of plot and cheesy, overplayed cutscenes that is a hallmark of the series (until Generals).

There's also the reason that I really liked both Battle for Middle Earth (depsite the simplified base building) and Battle for Middle Earth 2 (more classic RTS base building), gameplay/look/feel wise, and I doubt C&C3 differs significantly from them (apart from obvious C&C style presentation rather than LotR style).

THE TECHNOLOGY OF PEACE!

Oh man, this demo is crazy huge (or my connection is very, very slow). This'll take hours.

Aaron Ash wrote:Oh yes, the Ion Cannon finally has the power to utterly level a small to mid sized base - a fulfilment of a promise made in the cutscenes of the original game 12 years ago, huzzah.

There's a trailer that shows an ion cannon strike as part of a cutscene and it looks stupidly powerful. I mean, this how the world ends powerful.

Aaron Ash wrote:The art for base structures (for GDI at least) does a very good job of harking back to the style of the structures from the original Command & Conquer.

Well, I've seen in screens that the Hand of Nod looks like it did back in the original C&C, so that's at least one building of the Brotherhood's that harkens back to the old days.

Arg, I can't get through a level, it keeps crashing!

The art for structures is very evocative of C&C 1. The ion cannon is stupidly powerful now, I guess. Only used it once, in the demo level. Took out the entire Nod base, which was medium sized, roughly.

Trogdor wrote:

Aaron Ash wrote:Oh yes, the Ion Cannon finally has the power to utterly level a small to mid sized base - a fulfilment of a promise made in the cutscenes of the original game 12 years ago, huzzah.

There's a trailer that shows an ion cannon strike as part of a cutscene and it looks stupidly powerful. I mean, this how the world ends powerful.

That's the theatrical trailer: link

On a related note... is the guy that says "I'm ordering it. [the ion cannon]" Lando Calrissian?

EDIT: it is! it is! http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001850/

GDI Commandos say "Gotta present for ya!" (among other things).

I love the sniper teams too. All in all, I'm quite pleased, I think I'll pick this one up.

EDIT:

Jaepheth wrote:On a related note... is the guy that says "I'm ordering it. [the ion cannon]" Lando Calrissian?

Yes. Billy Dee Williams.

Trogdor wrote:Oh man, this demo is crazy huge (or my connection is very, very slow). This'll take hours.

Go with an ISP that has an umetered games service. After 10gigs my bitrate is slowed to 64kbps even and right now I'm pulling in C&C3 at 250kb/s, so it'll be done in 1.5 hours. When it's not slowed the speed is insane. It really is good value if you play lots of demos.

From some of the interviews that I've read, the game designers have tried to implement some features I'm really interested in, namely, a fighting retreat.
Units have been given different HP values for different faces so flanking maneuvers are encouraged (to a degree) but if one wanted to pull units back without exposing the rear parts, you can just press R and the unit will go into reverse. The VOiP will be a nice feature during multiplay fights.

For a noob like myself, Generals didn't really seem to be a C&C game at all. It had none of the iconic C&C stuff, no cutscenes, no plot links that I noticed. I loved the Act of War cheesiness, so I'm definately going to give this a go.

WTF? This demo .exe is retarded. It finishes extracting the temprorary files to start installing- then it asks me if I want to install CDisplay. A comic book display program I already have.

Any ideas?

Vympel: You might want to ty restarting if you haven't already, it sounds like you have some cross talk between different installation programs. If all else fails try deleting your temporary files then retry the install, this has fixed similar problems for me. You can find the temp files in "C:\Documents and Settings\<your account name>\Local Settings\Temp\".

A few other neat features I've noticed:

There are no buildable air transports. Instead each infantry unit (and some vehicles) have the option to purchase a transport in the their command list. Once you click this (at a cost per unit) a transport comes and picks each unit up (one transport per unit, remember each infantry unit is now a squad of 4-8 men). You then gain control of the transport. When you order the troops out of the transport it reverts to AI control and leaves the map automatically. I love this system - it's so much easier than jiggering about in your base for half an hour making sure you've built enough transports and that nobody gets left behind. You just decide "I want to move my soldiers over that river" and two clicks gets it done, without ever losing sight of your troops.

There's also some cool abilities for units. The big GDI artillery, Juggernaughts (unfortunately, they even say "I'm the Juggernaught!"), have a special ability that lets them bombard anywhere on the map so long as you have a sniper team close to that location.

The Commando and the Zone Troopers (who mercifully are now helmeted) get jump-jets to allow them to cross obstacles near instantly; additionally the Commando can jump-jet into a structure or mech and will automatically destroy it with C4.

Theres some nice touches carried over from the Battle for Middle-Earth games too. Infantry units are well animated, even when idle they keep moving (some even do push-ups, like they did in the original). When they defeat something in combat they make a few celebratory gestures (if theres no more enemies nearby).

Also some of the units have different voices for different states; for example if the sniper team gets taken down to low health (i.e. theres only one sniper left) his voice will become far more stressed over the radio, and he says his partner is dead and urges you to get him out of there.

There are also things that are not so great; the graphics for the railguns look completely dull and uninspired, just a thick creamy blue laser. I'm not overly keen on the flamethrower effects either, the flames are extremely light coloured and look more like snow cannons than streams of liquid fire.

Also there's an overzealous portion of defensive buildings for GDI: an anti-infantry machine gun, an anti-tank turret, and anti-air machine gun and a Sonic cannon. I wish they had consolidated at least two of those together, as in Generals. Also the Sonic cannon itself I find a bit disapointing; Sonic tech was GDI's secret weapon in Tiberian Sun, but it's latest incarnation is just a big awkward gun that looks and sounds nothing like the Disruptor.

The Commando is also an awful pain to keep track of. He doesn't get any special map icon as they used for hero units in Generals and he looks near identical to a standard GDI trooper. Bind him to a key as soon as you build him or you'll spend five minutes looking for him each time you need to use him.

Anyway, still far more positives than negatives for me so far.

Oh for fuck's sake- I emptied my Temp folder- same bloody shit. I restarted my PC, the same bloody shit.

This is infuriating.

EDIT: fixed it. There was a file called setup.exe in my E:\ that was, not surprisingly, the installer for CDisplay.

Why my CnC3.exe thought it'd be a good idea to activate this file on extraction as opposed to, you know, the FILE IT EXTRACTED, I have no idea.

the CnC3 demo exe that you download is just a self extracting zip if you really have problems, (like I did, with it extracting to temp, and then complaining about not enough HDD space), then you extract it manually, and run the setup that way.

Played the tutorial (didn't really need to, obviously) and the Prologue- fantastic. Good ol' C&C. Solid gameplay, gorgeous graphics, and a fantastic level of immersion that Supreme Commander 100% lacks.

What about tanks battles? How large can the battles be? Bigger than supcom?

I played the game and I have to say that I am impressed. The battles aren't as big as Supcom (chiefly because the AI will deploy pretty fast and start attacking you early) but the graphics and all the explosive pyrotechnics are definitely pretty beautiful.

Of course, nothing beats the ion cannon that promptly vapourises the enemy base with a single salvo.

Fucking Awesome

I particularly enjoyed the troops being able to dig a proper bunker.

if they could just manage to do a RA3 with that kinda love, I'll be most pleased.