C&C Generals

Seeing Nomar's thread title reminded me that this game is coming out next week. It looks awesome and has been getting good reviews. I pre-ordered this morning. Anyone else planning on getting this game?

 

Actually I think the quote should be "Next time, I poop in your food, Douche!!!"

 

Decided to bring this back up since I got the game today.

A short review of it:

First off FedEx screwed up and I had to go get the package from their office before my nite class. Once I finally got the game up and running I decided to start off in Single player. I played through the tutorial(if you have ever played a C&C game you don't need to play this mission). The graphics look good, real good. When you blow things up guys go flying through the air. There is no FMV the game briefings are played out through cutscenes from actual gameplay(they use some matrix type camera rotations that look pretty good). I plyed skirmish as USA vs. China. One of the big differences I noticed was the way you collect resources. You build using bulldozers and for the USA Chinook' collect stuff from a supply and drop them at your depot. Playing on normal mode I managed to defeat the Chinese in 10:03 which kinda ticked me off because you get a medal for winning in under 10 minutes. That is another cool addition. You can earn medals for doing a few different things, i.e. completing campaigns and win streaks etc. Another in game difference is the ability to level yourself up. As you complete different goals and rack up kills you get General stars. These allow you to acquire new upgrades and weapons. Unfortunately the tutorial did not go over this with me so I spent my 1st star on a drone plane that was totally useless. One thing that IMO is an upgrade from previous versions is the fact that they put a special weapons timer on the side of the screen. This lets you know when you have something ready to go without having to find the building or click through menus to find it. You look to the right side of the screen and if your special weapon is ready you click the button and are ready to go. Overall I enjoyed the game for a first impression. The graphics were really good and the controls seemed smooth with less clutter on the screen than with past versions of C&C. With that said if you are a fan of the series this is a must have. If you like RTS in general this is probably a must have. There is nothing really genre shattering in there but it looks like a game that promises to be enjoyable. I did happen to look in on Multiplay but did not actually get into a game. One interesting thing though is it shows winning percentages for each faction and for now they were all pretty close to the same.


Also in the spirit of the CCNet Warcraft group I started a Generals Yaho group. If anyone wants to join and try to match up with players from CC.Net then go here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ccgenerals27/

 

I have a 2.4 with 512 and a Geforce 4600. You should be ok minimum is 800 128 and ge force 2. You probably won't be able to play on high settings but your ram and vid card should be more than enough to handle the load.

 

Here is a post form the CC bbs you may want to check this before you get the game. It seems there have been some slowdown issues especially in MP.

Edit to clear up confusion. THat post was from the CC Generals bbs not Clutchcity

 

Bringing this back up for the sole reason that I picked up the new expansion for htis game. I really enjoyed the original and after playing Zero Hour for a couple of days it adds a couple of good things to the game. A brief review of the things I have tried:

First I played the US campaign. It is relatively easy and I finished all 5 missions in a few hours.
I then tried my hand at the new gameplay addition that ZO brings in. The "General's Challenge" is excellent. The premise is that you choose a general (there are 9, 3 for each side) and you take on their stregnths and weaknesses. I started with the Chinese general that specializes in Nuclear tactics. You then are matched up agianst a computer opponent(one of the remaining generals) with the object of destroying them. The goal of the challenge is to defeat all the generals using your chosen general. One of the goods things about it is that each general has their own specific strategies and the AI plays each one differently. I started with the US Laser specialist who built a huge base defended by laser cannons. I used my long range cannons to take out one side of his base then I rushed in and took out his power. He was toast in about 20-30 minutes. The next guy I took on was Dr. Thrax. He built a base and peppered me with toxic tractors and other toxin based weapons. It took a little more time to defeat him but he was not very difficult. I was playing on medium difficulty but for the fun of it I switched to hard. I once again took on the laser guy but this time he rushed me and wiped me out rather quickly.
There didn't seem to be a ton of new weapons but one of the things that I liked were the water based attacks. In one US mission you have the ability to use fighters from a Carrier and also have gunships off the coast fire on specific targets.The other weapon I played around with was the Microwave tank. It was mediocre at best. It is supposed to fry ground units(which it did) and disable the power of mearby buildings(which it sometimes did not). I was able to use it as a decoy(it has a good amount of HP, unusual for many C&C special tanks) and let Col. Burton blow up a lot of stuff. THere are some new general abilities that are really nice too. You now gain 1 point for the first for levels but when you reach level 5 you get 3 points. hat is good because each faction now has more than one5 star ability. The EMP pulse is nice and the US has a really cool cannon plane that you can target one thing and retarget something else for the time it is flying.
In all I would say if you liked the original then the expansion will not disappoint. I had a bit of a lag on the last US mission from the shear amount of enemy units. Once I whittled that down a bit it ran smooth. If you have not bought the original and think that you might like it I reread my review above and I still feel pretty much the same way about it.