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I have always considered the series of games published under
the Command & Conquer title to be poor, not seeing much
improvement from the days of Dune 2. Generals is the first
in the umbrella series to earn my respect, and the first to
do a break from the tradition. The review up front: the artificial
intelligence is not intelligent, but the visuals are absolutely
stunning.
Situated in the near future, the game clearly
has real life events in mind. Two superpowers—US and
China—pit themselves against global terrorists. For
the first time in the Westwood titles, there are three opposing
sides instead of two. Much like Starcraft, these 3 forces
have unique capabilities. The GLA, the global terrorist organization,
uses dirty tactics such as bio weapons, suicide bombers, and
burrowing tunnels. The Chinese seems to have gone nuclear.
Their tanks are nuclear, their power plants are nuclear, and
their biggest weapon is a nuclear bomb. The US, in turn, counters
with air power and sight. This nation relies heavily on radar,
unmanned spy planes, and helicopters to attack and hold ground.
In Generals, the three different nations represent
different philosophies about warfare. The terrorist organization
relies on Cost and Multiplicity. Terrorist units are cheap
to produce, but cheap in quality. As a result of their cost
structure, many units can be produced quickly. The early game
thus belongs to the GLA. In addition, they have tunnels that
allow rapid deployment of an army throughout the map. A single
worker can thus quickly set up a tunnel (allowing an army
produced elsewhere to pour out) and then build a supply center
and associated defense.
In a complementary fashion, the Chinese believes
in Defense and Multiplicity. Their armies and buildings are
most suited for defense. The Chinese bunker is the only building
in which the soldiers on the inside can shoot out, but they
themselves cannot be killed by specialized units (GLA’s
bio tractor, China’s dragon tank, and USA’s marine
flash grenade) before the building is destroyed. Thus I much
prefer Chinese bunkers protecting supply centers and key positions
rather than the civilian buildings in the map. [One caveat:
GLA soldiers can also hole up in their regular buildings,
but none of the buildings are specifically designed for defense
like the Chinese bunkers.] The Chinese also makes extensive
use of mines, requiring invaders to bring scouts and anti-mine
personnel with them in the invasion. The Multiplicity portion
of the Chinese tactic comes into play when certain units get
a boost in performance called the Horde bonus. Clustered groups
thus give better results.
In contrast, the USA forces build their foundation
on Sight and Heavy Weaponry. The US has the detention center
that allows them to see all units on the board for a brief
moment. It also uses satellite radar and unmanned spy planes
to track enemy movement. Its troops cost a lot of money, but
are also the most heavily armored and heavily weaponized.
Due to its cost, though, the US should play with the late
game. Each of the nations also get super weapons, and here
the US has an advantage. Its particle cannons can be built,
charged, and fired well before the GLA’s SCUD storm
or the Chinese nuclear warheads. Thus the USA can build heavy
weapons for the late game and unleash them while the other
two nations are struggling up the tech ladder.
Players of real-time strategy games recognize
that all of these tactics should be used for maximum effectiveness.
One should ideally know the movement of the enemy, and be
able to overwhelm them by both numbers and weapons. All in
all, it should be done as quickly as possible. These three
nations offer different advantages to suit your style, but
the deficits of each nation has to be overcome as well.
Other than different warfare philosophies
and the big super weapons, something called the generals’
abilities also come into play. Experience on the field translates
to more opportunities for the man or woman in charge. First,
individual soldier units gain veterancy depending on the units
or buildings it has killed or captured. Higher experiences
bring about automatic healing power and more potent destructive
shots. The red bullets that look like tracer fire are reserved
for the most experienced units. In one example of Chinese
rocketeers sheltered in a bunker strategically placed at a
choke point, the soldiers gained veteran status from killing
the enemy that attempted to cross through the pass. The veteran
status made them even more difficult to kill. Some effort
should be made to preserve the veterans of your units, especially
the heavy units.
The cumulative experience translates to the
general’s experience. Promotions allow you to access
other abilities, like paratroops, artillery strikes, fuel
bombs, and the electro-magnetic pulse (EMP). The GLA organization
finds these abilities absolutely necessary, since they need
to obtain bounty for every enemy unit they kill. This fuels
the organization.
Yet another difference between Generals and
other real time strategy games is the use of secondary funding.
Instead of merely collecting resources, each nation has other
methods of collecting funds: the US builds depot sites for
U.N. drop planes, the Chinese builds hackers tap money from
the Net, and the GLA receives bounty for killing enemy combatants.
Heroes also appear in this game. They can steal money from
the other players, bomb strategic sites, kill the driver of
enemy vehicles, and generally make the game amusing. These
hero specialists normally cannot be played by themselves,
but the look of surprise by other players when you have infiltrated
their base is worth the time and effort of building a hero.
The visuals of the game is absolutely stunning,
and is the most lauded portion of the game. Glowing area effects
appear for shots from tanks, helicopters, and airplanes. The
first few tries at the game were spent gawking at the explosions
of the various pieces. The most comical sounds go to the GLA
peasants. They have dialogues like, “I need shoes”,
“Cannot there be peace?”, and “I’m
hungry.”
Are there bad points? Yes, and it comes from
the tradition of Command and Conquer. When you group units,
you cannot determine how many units are in the group since
no units appear on the status bar at the bottom. If you have
mixed units, the status bar only shows one type of icon. All
types of movement and selecting is done with the left mouse
button, and clicking on the right button will unselect all
the hard work you just put in. Command & Conquer: Generals
has excellent visual effects, so much so that it challenges
many of the systems in existence. The new gaming systems will
be able to handle it, but expect computers with built-in video
to have trouble. The artificial intelligence unit is not very
clever; it will concentrate on one route of attack. Multiplayer
games against humans are much better.
Overall, the visuals of the game are excellent.
I expect the strategy balance to be finely tuned over the
course of future patches, making this an excellent human-on-human
game.
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C&C:
Generals