C&C3 Demo

[Vympel]

He's more than just incredibly hard to kill. How long has he been alive now?

When was the original C&C set?

They really need to bring out a "Bible" for C&C that details exactly what's happened in continuity and what hasn't. In particular, the official ending of this game should be Nod victory. I'm sick of GDI winning.

[Teleros]

Nah - more GDI victories = more games = more money for Westwood / EA . Wait until C&C6 when they're taking the fight to the Scrin homeworld and trying to sort out NOD on Earth lol.

Hmm, as for the original C&C, well I've been nosing around PlanetCNC.com etc sets Tiberium Dawn at ~1995, and Tiberium Sun ~2026. Pretty sure similar dates are given in the manuals, although I'm a long way away from my copies.

[Darksider]

IMHO an awsome canonical ending for the game would have Nod/The Scrin in control of earth, and the battered remnants of GDI's forces using hit & run tactics to fight back, with the bulk of the surviving GDI forces stranded on another planet, maybe the Scrin Homeworld, massing to re-take earth.

[Teleros]

Maybe, although I imagine we'll see them go the more traditional route . Actually, reminds me of Warcraft 1 / 2 in that respect .

[Teleros]

Quick update - according to an in-game intel update in the demo, C&C3 is taking place in the 2040s or later (by 2043 the GDI had abandoned various bases due to lower NOD activity blah blah blah).

[Walsh]

He's more than just incredibly hard to kill. How long has he been alive now?

There have been several references to the biblical 'Cain' who killed his brother Abel, and then went off to the 'land of nod'. Which would make him several thousand years old.
If you go by the Soviet ending from the original Red Alert, it's somewhere in the region of 120 years at least.
Going only by the tiberium series, he's at least 80ish.

As Kucan mentioned in an interview, they specifically leave the questions about Kane's age and apparent resurrections unanswered as it leaves the gamer open to draw his/her own conclusions, leaving each gamer with a somewhat different experience. I couldn't find the exact quote, but this one comes close enough.

GFW: So Kane's back from the dead, again, in this one. How does Kane survive all these ion cannon blasts and impalements?

JK: That's a good question. One of my favorite things about the fiction of the game, and the fiction of all games, actually, is the unanswered questions. I think it's very important in a medium where you're dealing with an audience of one, where you're dealing with one player playing -- we can create some of the story for that player, but there's so much that happens in that one person's mind. You know who you are, you know why you're fighting, you know why your allegiance is toward Nod or toward GDI. It might be for the personalities, it might be for the units, you might just be evil. Believe me, I've gotten some e-mail from some evil people, so they're out there...

Link.

I'll include this quote from another Kucan interview, it made me laugh .

GS: Did you have a chance to work closely with any of the other Hollywood talent that EA brought in for the game? Do you have any interesting stories from working on the set with them?

JK: I was in charge of Tricia Helfer's hair and makeup. And I polished her boots between takes. I was not, however, flown to Hawaii to assist on Josh Holloway's shoot. Apparently, they let just anyone polish his boots. Grace Park has a glass eye (not a lot of people know that), and it was my job to make sure it was pointing in the right direction when she spoke directly into the camera. There's nothing more disconcerting to an experienced gamer than to get a briefing from an actor with a wonky eye!

In all seriousness, Tricia was a lot of fun to work with, and she is a real talent. She certainly deserves all of the attention she's been receiving lately. We had a good rapport on the set; I think that whole restraining order thing was just her idea of a joke. If you're reading this Tricia: Good one!

Any interesting stories...well, there was this one time when the bald cap on my head slipped off and my long, flowing blonde hair fell out, and it looked like a mullet. And then someone on the set yelled, "Hey look! Kane's got a mullet!" And we all laughed and laughed. And then I had that person fired.

[Jaepheth]

I believe Kane makes an appearance in both the Allied and Soviet endings in Red Alert. And the premise of Red Alert was that someone went back in time and erased Hitler, and we never see the traveler's face. Add to that Kane's quote of "He who controls the past commands the future. He who commands the future, conquers the past."

So I would theorize that Kane is a time traveler who's molding history to meet his goals, and as such, can pop up at any time to take control of the Brotherhood of Nod.

[Teleros]

He doesn't appear in the Allied RA1 ending, but he pops along in the Soviet ending to bump off Stalin.

[Darksider]

Also, even though you never see the time traveler's face, IIRC it is made clear in the opening sequence that it's Albert Einstien.

IMHO, Kain is a Scrin agent working to destabilize earth before the invasion.

Even more evidence is given in the C&C 3 cinematic trailer, when he apparently orders Nod forces into a suicide assault at temple prime (likely against the Scrin) I think he's trying to weaken the GDI, then lead Nod to slaughter so the Scrin can take earth.

[Teleros]

Incidentally, if you haven't downloaded the demo head over to Fileplanet and give it a go - just been playing it and it's wonderful stuff . Haven't yet been able to edit it though - XCC Mixer can open the .BIG files (like C&C Generals etc), but something screwy's happening when it comes to reading some of the .ini files in data\ini\ , so no buggering up the units for me yet .

[Darksider]

Incidentally, if you haven't downloaded the demo head over to Fileplanet and give it a go - just been playing it and it's wonderful stuff . Haven't yet been able to edit it though - XCC Mixer can open the .BIG files (like C&C Generals etc), but something screwy's happening when it comes to reading some of the .ini files in data\ini\ , so no buggering up the units for me yet .

What are the system requirements? I don't know wether or not my peice of shit computer can run it.
(i'm going to be building a new one in a week or so)

[Teleros]

From the official site:

OS: Windows XP, Windows Vista (32-bit; 64-bit versions of Vista are not supported)
CPU: 2.0GHz or high, or AMD equivalent
RAM: 512 MB or more
Disk Drive: 8x or faster DVD drive for retail SKUs, not required for digitally downloaded version
Hard Drive: 8.0 GB or more of free space
Video: GeForce4, ATI Radeon 8500 or greater (ATI Radeon 9200 and 9250 PCI, NVIDIA Geforce 4 MX cards not supported.)
Sound: DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card
Network, Internet Multiplayer: 2 players (no voice support) – 56 Kbps Internet connection; 2-8 players (with voice transmission) – Broadband-class connection

[Darksider]

From the official site:
*snip system reqs*

I'm right at the RAM requirements, and i'm one level up with CPU and GPU (2.53 Gig, and 128 MB respectively)

What are you using, and how does it run for you?

[Teleros]

Just to clarify - these are the specs for the actual game. Demo install file is 1.17GB; program is an extra 1.29GB.

OS: Windows XP Pro
CPU: Athlon X2 4800+
RAM: 2GB DDR
Hard Drive: 2x WD Raptor in RAID-0 array
Video: 2x GeForce 7800GTX in SLI; 17" monitor

Although I didn't try it with maximum Anti-Aliasing (only 1x in game settings) everything else including resolution was maxed out and ran fine with no probs, despite my resident system hogs (Norton AV, Internet Security, Utilities). Granted I've got a fairly good machine but it's not brand new any more but things were running fine in the skirmish map, tutorial and missions. I'd need to face more enemies and ramp up the AA to max to really see how my system copes though.

[Darksider]

Dammit. Fileplanet isn't working for me. Do you have to have a paid subscription to DL the file?

[Teleros]

Nope - although it takes a hell of a time to sit through the queue (about 1500 on the quickest one when I downloaded it).

Direct Download Link courtesy of EA Games.

Oh and you can also download via EA Link if you have it (whatever the hell it is anyway ).

By now there are also various other sites offering it for download - head over to Google .

[Darksider]

Actually I already just went "screw it, i'm using bittorrent"

But it's not going so fast, so thanks for the direct link.


I'll post reactions whenever the hell I can get around to playing it.

[Beowulf]

I seem to run a steady 30 fps, according to fraps. For my system specs, I had a thread in here not too long ago. Don't need a paid subscription to dl the file. I got it just fine off fileplanet, though it took a while. You could also try the torrent on demonoid.

[Stark]

Having a 6600GT and being used to turning off shadows, the game runs fine on my system. It's nice and pretty, and on aggressive the units have a wide degree of autonomy.

It's pretty neat, too. The ion cannon isn't that bad, but it's better than the 'old' ion cannon. The tech tree is a bit flat, but really it's a pretty fun old school RTS. The units are pretty cool (and the nade guys aren't as silly as in Tiberium Sun) and Kane is awesome.

[Covenant]

I'm having a lot of fun with this. The infantry come in groups, so no more piles of retards. Tanks are bigger in terms of value than SupCom so it's easy to have a large mixed force without having too much micro to move groups of infantry around. Infantry basically replace the worthless fodder of SupCom's lower tiers.

Riflemen seem useful killing troops, and the grenade guys are fun. Rocket troops seem a little bland to me. I'd prefer if their rockets moved more like an RPG and less like the Orca's wierd missiles. But that's just my prefernce, they seem too slow!

The mix of vehicles is fun, but not over-crowded. Juggernauts are, amazingly, actually useful. Mammoth tanks are fun. The railguns aren't super amazing looking but that's okay, they seem sufficent given that the rest of the game is so nice and slick.

The gameplay upgrades are immense, and I'm giddy at them. Click to summon a transport, with a cost instead of a unit as the function? Yes please! Easy-to-read dropdown menus that tell me what a structure gives me and what a unit does? Thank god! An 'aggressive' stance that lets me tell my units to be extremely violent? Awesome.

And best of all, that warplan mode. Now I can plot out a few actions and then tell them to go when I close the menu. This is something we all were talking about and said SupCom should have had. C&C3 offically has better largescale combat control options thatn SupCom. That's pretty pathetic for the epic-scale ubergame. On some larger maps, maybe with a farther zoomed-out camera option (or mod) you could really do a great job commanding units like this.

The fact that there's a few fun things like outposts and those firebase trucks too? Very nice. Way better sense of 'area control' because of that.

[Shinova]

Played the demo as well. I'll divide this into pros and cons:


Pros:

- Command and Conquer is back!! Kane lives!! So far the story seems quite interesting, and the FMVs are quite good. I'm looking forward to what happens in the story.

- I'm playing at max settings except AA. The graphics have a pro and a con. The pro is that everything looks quite good. A lot of people have complained about the infantry looking poor, and granted the game's no CoH or Dawn of War, but I think they look good. All the buildings look great, especially the Nod ones. The vehicles, no complaints here. On a personal note, I like how the tiberium looks too.

- Low system specs for an upcoming game means you probably won't have to worry about missing out on any of the graphical eye-candy, even in large games.

- Very minimal interface. The pros are the freed-up space and the aesthetics look fairly good. It's pretty much Red Alert 2 in all the basics, so anyone familiar with CnC and RA2 shouldn't feel out of place.

- Good weapon effects. The ion cannon indeed is quite beastly, and I LOVE the explosion. Those thin beams converging, a blue sphere forms and then BOOOM!!

- Return to Command and Conquer's style of base-building, with combat that seems a mix of classic Command and Conquer and Generals. It's a personal preference, but those nostalgic for those old days will find their wish granted.

- Those extra commands like the automatic transport for infantry, reverse for vehicles and vehicle facing armor. Very nice touches there.

- Squads for infantry is a good step forward.



And now the cons:


- I mentioned that the gameplay is a mix of classic CnC and Generals. That's it. If you're looking for anything new and revolutionary, you won't find it here. You're here for the classic CnC fare, and that's what you'll be getting, although from my play it seems to lean a little more towards Generals.

- The engine's been souped up with normal maps, specular lighting and all that stuff, but it's still the same old Generals engine, and you'll realize that without those extra graphical effects the game'll look pretty much just like Generals. Not a great step forward in terms of looks and gameplay, especially when considering CoH's destructible environments and implementation of cover.

- There needs to be a better way to pan the view around. The rmb hold works but it's not as precise as I would like it.

- Your units, especially infantry, can sometimes be hard to find, which is really irritating. Sometimes when you think you have everyone and then you find that you've missed a missile squad or two, etc.

- Vehicle facing and armor is a nice touch, but it's nowhere near as good as Company of Heroes' implementation. Vehicles in CnC3 can move and turn on a dime just like in Generals so much of the "feel" and mechanics of a tank is lost, compared to in CoH, and plus CoH just plain handles vehicle movement better.

- Base and unit building are practically exactly like CnC's. You won't be seeing repeating and varied unit queues and automatic commands and infinite building queues like SupCom's, although granted CnC3's nowhere close to that scale. Unit commands, queueing them, and waypoints are also inferior compared to Supcom's. The only thing CnC3 may have over supcom is the planning mode, but there's an easy way to do this in supcom as well.

- Resource harvesters!!!! AAARRGH!! If you don't like the idea of peons harvesting resources, you'll definetly hate it here. And the resources, aside from tiberium spikes, are pretty much finite so games have the possibility of grinding to a halt if they go on for a long time, although this can be a matter of personal taste.


Conclusion and personal notes:


It looks great, it has that old CnC story and feel, but gameplay-wise it's basically Generals in CnC clothing and some enhancements. The only truly different and good thing is the automatic transports for infantry, but aside from that CoH and SupCom have much, much better gameplay.

They made a step forward with infantry squads, but it's nothing compared to CoH. Urban combat is also nowhere near as close as CoH's. So is vehicles.

Outposts and firebases encourage territory expansion, but it'll still be limited to resource patches and other such key interest points. You won't see land-grabbing purely for intelligence or strategic reasons like you see in SupCom.


Thus, sum up, if you want the CnC feel and story, CnC3 is good for that. If you want awesome gameplay, don't expect anything really spectacular. Company of Heroes, the closest to CnC3 in terms of gameplay, totally kicks the pants off of it.

[Dartzap]

Oh yes, one bizarre thing I noticed when making a squad of riflemen from the barracks... Do two of them just go to the door and guard it? Whilst making rather rude gestures to the rest of their squad? One was most amused when I saw that

[Ace Pace]

I came into this rather skeptical, because after all, it's C&C, master of the RTS genre. I got a rather fun experiance. I could go on on pros and cons like everyon seems to be doing, but this is one of the more enjoyable RTSs I've played in years.

Base building still irks me.

[SirNitram]

I came into this rather skeptical, because after all, it's C&C, master of the RTS genre. I got a rather fun experiance. I could go on on pros and cons like everyon seems to be doing, but this is one of the more enjoyable RTSs I've played in years.

Base building still irks me.

Looking at the basics of the demo, the guts should allow a complete toss-aside of base-building.

Replace the MCV with a Mobile Forward Command Post. Once deployed, you get reinforcement timers dependent on cash. Cash comes in from capturing objectives like the Tiberium Spikes, and a steady fund from the 'Post. No need for base building, just military forces called in.

[Ace Pace]

If someone actully made that mod, I'd get the game in a heartbeat, same way if I could find such a mod for Company of Heroes I'd get that game.

I just can't get over this irrational hatred of base building.