You can't kill the Messiah... (Kane's Wrath)

[Darth Wong]

That's a straight CPU/GPU power issue, as far as I can tell. Their video player software is just unreasonably hungry for CPU cycles, and on a faster machine that doesn't happen. I only know this because I have several machines and the slowest one does that (or did, until I upgraded it), but the faster ones don't.

Then they royally screwed up the system requirements, because my configuration reaches their recommended settings. I should be able to get correct video playing on a machine with the recommended settings for the game. Instead I get to play the "let's match voices" game.

Yeah, it seems that game manufacturers routinely understate system requirements.

May I ask what your specifications are?

Nothing fancy by modern standards. Athlon 3800 X2 dual-core CPU. 1.5GB RAM. NVidia 8600GT video card.

[PREDATOR490]

Having fond memories of playing the first C&C on the Sega Saturn made me buy C&C3 but I feel badly disillusioned now. The original struck me as finding a really stable point between serious and campy which the following games have generally managed to screw up.

My major gripe is the sudden shift they have taken towards beefing up the content of the acting scenes. In the first one you usually just had a brief outline of what the mission was going to do and you were on your way. No massive dialogue or attempts to 'involve' the player when there is nothing they can actually do to get involved.
If this was an FPS or RPG you might be able to select dialogue choices but its a RTS. The scope of the player's actions is limited strictly to the battlefied which has always been railroaded in it's choices. I would have been more interested if they had pulled more 'choice' stuff like they did for the last GDI mission or if fufilling bonus objectives helped you later etc.

Truth be told, the only reason I got C&C3 was to watch the FMV hence, I cheated my way through it once I realised how fucked up this game was. The look of the game is poor, the gameplay is extremely fast paced for me and the variety is limited. On the score of the FMVs, I felt it was a really bad match between animation / acting. The actors looked like they didnt really care about half the stuff they were talking about and the only one that seemed to fall into place was Kane. Even then, Kane has went from being a mysterious 'dark' figure who blew your C.Os brains out in front of you to preaching nonsense wildly.
I can honestly say I will not be picking up this new game unless I hear some decent reviews. Specifically, I want to know if they are going to actually start giving the player information on what Kane's story is rather than the 'subtle' suggestions.

[Xon]

My rig doesnt have any issue playing it, but I've got a freaking 8800gts 320mb graphics card. Even then there are some slowdowns because I upped the rez to my LCD monitor's native rez (1280x1024) when you have +40 aircraft on the screen.

[TC Pilot]

The original struck me as finding a really stable point between serious and campy which the following games have generally managed to screw up.

Wait, how was Command and Conquer campy?

My major gripe is the sudden shift they have taken towards beefing up the content of the acting scenes. In the first one you usually just had a brief outline of what the mission was going to do and you were on your way. No massive dialogue or attempts to 'involve' the player when there is nothing they can actually do to get involved.

Welcome to 1996.

I can honestly say I will not be picking up this new game unless I hear some decent reviews. Specifically, I want to know if they are going to actually start giving the player information on what Kane's story is rather than the 'subtle' suggestions.

Odds are, the few developers left from way back when (are there even any?) didn't have much in the way of an explanaion, and I doubt anything by EA is going to change that. Even if they did, it probably wouldn't be a very satisfying answer.

[Darth Wong]

Most people have completely forgotten that the C&C series came from a company called Westwood, not EA. EA is the fucking Borg of computer game software companies. Resistance is futile. They will add your software distinctiveness to their collective.

[Covenant]

Even then, since when has Kane been anything more than a extraordinary demagouge and politician? He's never shown any technical or strategic talent as far as I've seen.

You could sub "Hitler" in for Kane, and I'd say that ol' Adolf caused the world quite a lot of grief.

Actually, Kane is an excellent commander and a fantastic planner, but that's mostly fudged by the fact that nearly all of the non-Kane, non-player members of NOD are either corrupt, insane, brainless, traitorous, or dead. Or some combination. Kane's big advantage seems to be that he went to the future and bought a history book instead of a sports almanac, and is basically reading from the C&C script directly.

So I have no idea how intelligent Kane is certainly, but he's managed to pull off an awful lot of stunning victories via the proper placement of you, the player character, or his NPC minions when you play as GDI. It's basically like if Osama bin Ladin invented Fusion Power, started a worldwide revolution based on it, took over 50 percent of the world, came back from the dead a few times, advised Stalin back in the past, and then orchestrates an elaborate plan to draw aliens to Earth so he could do... something.

This is standard Evil Villian type stuff overall, but Kane rarely makes mistakes, besides trusting people to do things and then have them fail to or turn traitor. The rest of his losses are the result of GDI's otherwise superior power.

I won't make any big claims, but I think you could call him a pretty terrifyingly good leader overall, since he somehow has managed to beat time. Either he's a brilliant mad scientist from the future who came back and is mucking up time, or he's a master manipulator of some obscene variety who has been running some game since World War II leading up until now.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Most people have completely forgotten that the C&C series came from a company called Westwood, not EA. EA is the fucking Borg of computer game software companies. Resistance is futile. They will add your software distinctiveness to their collective.

Amen to that, brutha.

I liked Generals, because it was different and, well, wasn't C&C other than the title on the box. But then they had to go and try and be Westwood, despite assimilating the company and having all the veterans bugger off after seeing the fate every major developer suffers when EA gobbles them up.

I'd say it'd be nice to see EA crash and burn once people realise they're throwing out tie-in garbage, be it for movies or prior franchises in the gaming world, but no one seems to have noticed. I guess mediocrity is the trend setter of the modern gaming age.

And I laughed out loud at your specs. listing. I imagine my MIGHTY P4 3.2 GHz "Prescott" with 512 MB RAM and an AWESOME Radeon 9200SE would undergo meltdown if I even attempted to install anything newer than Half-Life 2, and even then...

[PREDATOR490]

I thought C&C1 was much better with Kane. He came across as being an intelligent leader who was quite ruthless. I cant recall him doing anything like the speeches he was giving out in C&C3.
For what little we see of hime he is polishing his gun or telling you to do X and Y.

I found that kind of style more fitting for this kind of game rather than what they have done now with the movie like story they have going now. It is definetly more relevant when neither side can actually win without destroying the franchise so the 'epic' storyline angle dosent really make sense. It is already reaching a point where Kane has died multiple times without explanation.
At the very least whoever is writing this stuff for C&C3 would seem to be indicating that Kane has something to do with the Scrin and he obviously wanted them to appear for some reason so I hope EA intends to actually take this plot somewhere rather than do a cop-out.

[Nephtys]

Kane is known to the Scrin, as CNC3's 'secret campaign' mentions. Given that CABAL, the computer Nod constructed following Tiberium War 1 is based off of retrofitted Scrin gear, perhaps it'll at least tie together why the hell Kane isn't dead, and knows what's going on. Especially considering the CABAL lab with the tubes at the end of 'Firestorm'.

As for advising Stalin... we could write that off as parallel universe. Or, if we really are going with the 'Soviet Victory = CNC1, Allied Victory = RA2', then time travel is already established in-universe.

[Darksider]

Most people have completely forgotten that the C&C series came from a company called Westwood, not EA. EA is the fucking Borg of computer game software companies. Resistance is futile. They will add your software distinctiveness to their collective.

I have no doubt that C&C 3 would have been perfect if the original WestWood team had done it, but as it is, it was one of the few EA games that I thourougly enjoyed playing. The gameplay is more fast paced than your average RTS, which I like, and seeing Kane again was awsome.

However, this expansion pack doesn't reveal much that we already didn't know from C&C 3, or couldn't theorise from it. It seems that EA has decided to give the C&C franchise the same long, drawn-out descent into mediocrity that it does to all it's popular franchises. and given the new Red Alert game in development, the other C&C universes will soon follow suit. I mean, does anyone remember when Red Alert was supposed to be a prequel to the Tiberium series? no? anyone?

EA's "shareholders first, second and third, fuck the gamers." strategy gives me little hope for the new C&C FPS.

[Walsh]

I thought C&C1 was much better with Kane. He came across as being an intelligent leader who was quite ruthless. I cant recall him doing anything like the speeches he was giving out in C&C3.
For what little we see of hime he is polishing his gun or telling you to do X and Y.

I agree. In the first game Kane treated you like you knew what was really going on behind the scenes, like you were in on the whole act and he would joke around and not take himself too seriously, but now in C&C 3 he treats you just like one of his countless brainwashed minions, all you get from him is the same mad ravings and propaganda that the rest of the world gets, and it's not as entertaining as the old cutscenes were.

[TC Pilot]

I thought C&C1 was much better with Kane. He came across as being an intelligent leader who was quite ruthless. I cant recall him doing anything like the speeches he was giving out in C&C3.
For what little we see of hime he is polishing his gun or telling you to do X and Y.

Kane's position as leader of Nod changed considerably after he was vaporized in Sarajevo. Before, he had just been the aloof uniting factor in the Brotherhood, with only a very small cadre of zealots. Only afterwards did his cult of personality really take off (the title of this thread points to that).

Hell, keep in mind his goal during Tiberian Sun was to cover the whole planet with tiberium.

I mean, does anyone remember when Red Alert was supposed to be a prequel to the Tiberium series? no? anyone?

Personally, I've never subscribed to that theory, but Red Alert 2 pretty much confirmed, at the very least, the divergent timelines.

[FA Xerrik]

Most people have completely forgotten that the C&C series came from a company called Westwood, not EA. EA is the fucking Borg of computer game software companies. Resistance is futile. They will add your software distinctiveness to their collective.

I have no doubt that C&C 3 would have been perfect if the original WestWood team had done it, but as it is, it was one of the few EA games that I thourougly enjoyed playing. The gameplay is more fast paced than your average RTS, which I like, and seeing Kane again was awsome.

However, this expansion pack doesn't reveal much that we already didn't know from C&C 3, or couldn't theorise from it. It seems that EA has decided to give the C&C franchise the same long, drawn-out descent into mediocrity that it does to all it's popular franchises. and given the new Red Alert game in development, the other C&C universes will soon follow suit. I mean, does anyone remember when Red Alert was supposed to be a prequel to the Tiberium series? no? anyone?

EA's "shareholders first, second and third, fuck the gamers." strategy gives me little hope for the new C&C FPS.

Of course they draw them all out. After all, people still end up buying every last game out of whatever dying hope they have that the franchise will be redeemed. They don't have to make quality games, because it's just way more cost-efficient to shovel our whatever they come up with.

[The Yosemite Bear]

after all they got me, so did hellgate london, and moo3....

[Thanas]

Nothing fancy by modern standards. Athlon 3800 X2 dual-core CPU. 1.5GB RAM. NVidia 8600GT video card.

Hmmm. I have a Intel Dual Core 2 (1,75), 1 GB RAM and a Nvidia Gefore 7600. I wonder what I will need to upgrade...probably the RAM and the video card.

[PREDATOR490]

I found the Red Alert universe rather interesting and Kane's addition made it seem like it had a link to C&C1. I was not very impressed with the follow ups to Red Alert which ruined the potential for a link between the two. I would hope they try and properly bridge the series together at some point.

The other thing I would prefer is the introduction of a counterpart to Kane. It seems a bit unfair to have Kane all the time without a GDI counterpart like Ironside. Keeping the player 'commander' consistant between the games would be superb because it allows them to build a proper storyline of sequels rather than pushing the reset button with every game.

[Battlehymn Republic]

Well, I think it's supposed to highlight the difference between the two. NOD is monolithic and autocratic. GDI is democratic and changes leadership frequently. Not to mention rather instable.

They do need to reveal who Kane is sometime, though. Is he the Biblical Cain? The Vampire: the Masquerade version? A cyborg alien clone from the future?

[Stark]

Kane is known to the Scrin, as CNC3's 'secret campaign' mentions. Given that CABAL, the computer Nod constructed following Tiberium War 1 is based off of retrofitted Scrin gear...

Really? I've only vaguely read about the middle part of the CnC story (where it doesn't seem to make much sense, to be honest) but I don't remember hearing CABAL was Scrin-based?

Kane was certainly better earlier where he was a showman and you were part of his inner circle, and you could see his act from the 'inside'. Now he's just childishly-scripted villian yawns.

[Darth Mall]

Nothing fancy by modern standards. Athlon 3800 X2 dual-core CPU. 1.5GB RAM. NVidia 8600GT video card.

Hmmm. I have a Intel Dual Core 2 (1,75), 1 GB RAM and a Nvidia Gefore 7600. I wonder what I will need to upgrade...probably the RAM and the video card.

I ran CnC 3 fine on full settings on an amd 3800+ 64, a 7800GT and a gig of ram. You should be fine.

Now with another gig of ram, the only issues i had was slight stuttering with the videos sometimes

[Thanas]

^The slight stuttering you experience have become full five minutes synch errors. I am clearly not fine. The rest of the game is very much okay with no lag etc, but the vids....urgh.

[MKSheppard]

I pretty much gave up on CNC ebcause:

No subtitles in 1995? Okay, since FMV back then was totally new. But in 2008? Fuck you EA.

[Coiler]

Kane was certainly better earlier where he was a showman and you were part of his inner circle, and you could see his act from the 'inside'. Now he's just childishly-scripted villian yawns.

That could be explained as him getting crazier and crazier throughout the years. Getting vaporized, impaled, and exploded can't possibly be good for your mental health.

[PainRack]

I found the Red Alert universe rather interesting and Kane's addition made it seem like it had a link to C&C1. I was not very impressed with the follow ups to Red Alert which ruined the potential for a link between the two. I would hope they try and properly bridge the series together at some point.

The other thing I would prefer is the introduction of a counterpart to Kane. It seems a bit unfair to have Kane all the time without a GDI counterpart like Ironside. Keeping the player 'commander' consistant between the games would be superb because it allows them to build a proper storyline of sequels rather than pushing the reset button with every game.

Wouldn't that be James Solomon? I loved the way he played out in 2, where he seemed semi-obsessed about killing Kane.

And since Mcneil presumably dies in C&C2, and we never did learn the mysterious commander of Firestorm.......

Well, perhaps Jack Granger was the commander in Firestorm?
My gripes is that the FMV in 3, despite being more flashier and having fanservice actors in them, it just seemed more of an add-on than Zero Hour. There really was miminal involvement except for a couple of moments, such as igniting the Liquid T bomb in the last GDI mission.

[Darksider]

And since Mcneil presumably dies in C&C2, and we never did learn the mysterious commander of Firestorm.......

Actually, Mcneil isn't dead. He's still acting as a GDI battle commander during the third Tiberium War in the C&C3 novel.

[Chris OFarrell]

"This place is locked up tighter then Killians...uh no Sir, no, I didn't say that"

Those Nod Shadow Teams are wacky