Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars - Full Review

After putting in a good 50 hours into Tiberium Wars I managed to complete the game and am now thus able to write a full, all covering review about the game. I will be dividing it into 3 parts:

1. First Impression
2. Gameplay
3. Story

Note that the story part will be one huge spoiler for the game, so if you haven't completed it yet I would recommend not reading that part.

First Impression
I got the demo of Tiberium Wars pretty much the second it came out and started playing it instantly after it was done installing. At first glance everything seemed to check out like a classic C&C game. Just starting up the game and being presented with a menu that has a Tiberium infested earth in the background is already enough to get you back in the mood. It kind of takes you back to the days of Tiberian Sun, where you were confronted with those kind of images almost every mission.
The first time you enter a game in Tiberium Wars you will have to adjust yourself a little if you were expecting classic C&C controls; it's been 8 years since the last C&C and some things have changed, such as the Sage engine EA has been working on so hard the last few years and that single thing you will have to get used to is right clicking to give orders. Those of us who played Generals would already have been kind of used to it, but when you see the sidebar and feel like your back in the classic C&C game again, the urge to left click it quite large at the start. But like every other thing in life you'll get used to it fast enough.

First item on the agenda, the structures and units of C&C 3. I have heard a lot of people tell me their awsome, I have a lot of people telling me they are just more of the same, copied directly from Tiberian Sun or even Tiberian Dawn. While this may be true for some units and structures, it's also what makes C&C be a C&C. You can look at a GDI MCV and instantly go: GDI MCV! You can look at the Hand of Nod and instantly go; Hand of Nod! And so forth. Also some old units from Tiberian Sun have returned, such as the Juggernaut which also had a small fashion upgrade. I think that, in the entire game, the Mammoth Tank and the Juggernaut have to be the most cool looking units in the game.
In short it's a lot of the same mixed with some new ideas and new designs. And it's not at all a bad thing, because it makes you remember you are playing a C&C game. Besides, if they would have gone with something totally different, everyone would have been anal about everything being different and it not feeling like a true C&C blabla.

The graphics of the Sage engine look absolutely fantastic. Lighting, shadows and explosions are all so well done you'd wish you could blow stuff up all day long just for the effects. Blow up a tank and parts will fly everywhere, you'll see the barrel flying off in some random direction while other random parts fly everywhere. Shoot down an air unit and it will explode in the air, making a desperate attempt to land before crashing and burning into the ground and causing a second explosion. Buildings no longer have 3 kinds of graphical status (Full health, half health and destroyed) like in the previous C&C games, but now break down bit by bit with every shot they take until they finally explode into tiny pieces when completely destroyed. Blowing up bases and units becomes so much more fun with the graphic advances the Sage engine has provided.
Next to all that, the enviorment now also directly influences the lighting off the map. Playing in a blue zone where everything is peaceful will result in a clear battlefield and you'd imagine a blue sky over it. Play in a yellow or red zone however and you'll instantly notice how the Tiberium there affects the weather. Gas fumes are everywhere, it's dark and whatever light there is mostly green, shimmering off the huge Tiberium crystals that are growing in the ground. When you look around a red zone a bit you'll even see the reflections of the Tiberium shine into the camera as you pan over them. It's that kind of detail that makes it all a very nifty experience.

The music however is as bad as the graphics are good. While EA did promise to do everything they can to make the music 'C&C worthy', they never even came close to the quality Frank Klepacki once made C&C standard. All in all, there are maybe 1 or 2 tracks that pass by every now and then that make you go 'hm, yea that does kind of have a C&C beat to it', but the rest is not really something you would download a soundtrack for. I understand that Frank was employed with another company and that it would have initially restricted him from doing tracks for EA, but you'd say that a big company like EA would find a way around that. I mean they also got an actor from Lost so why not Frank. Buy him out for a few months or something, would have made a hell of a difference, but aw well. What's done is done. Music could have been better, but hey, who buys this game for the music?

Gameplay
The gameplay of C&C 3 is smooth and the tons of improvements they did to the Sage engine since Generals are clearly noticeable. Units no longer hump each other trying to get somewhere and appear to actually have half a brain to work with. Even the harvesters seem to have a decent comprehension of what is going on around them now, even though the idea of going back to base when being attacked is still something they have never heard of. That and taking turns with unloading Tiberium... the bay is designed for only one of you guys!!!
Another big change is the principle of Fog of War. In the old C&C games you could scout the map and what you scouted would then be available to you for the duration of the match. In C&C 3 they took a different approach and already gave you the entire map, but added a fog of war over it which you have to scout. It's a welcome change, for me anyway, because I used to hate the total blackness around me and knowing how the map looks without having to scout is much more useful.
Production cues is another new concept which also adds a whole new strategic side. You have to option to build a crane, which is basically a second construction yard and gains you access to one extra building tab. You can build two power plants at the same time for example and that concept is extremely handy for defenses and it also speeds up the entire match because bases are built more quickly. In turn, the way you build units are also changed. Where the speed of building used to be increased with each production structure you had, you now build units sepperatly at each structure. Say you have 5 war factories, you can build 5 tanks at the same time, speeding up the production process just the same or maybe even more as with the old method. Again, it speeds up the battles and how fast you can have an army ready. All you really need is money.

The Story

Attention! This part of the review contains HUGE spoilers to the story as a whole. If you have not completed the game entirely and don't want to know the story, don't read on from this point!!


Command & Conquer always had an epic story and it was the question of the community if EA would be able to continue the story without screwing it up. So lets have a little flashback first.

Great World War II had just ended when the Global Defense Initiative was set up in the wake of the now eliminated Soviet threat. While their initial goal was to be a global military organization under the command of the UN, their objective suddenly changed when an ancient cult came back from the ashes and made a huge push for power. The Brotherhood of Nod and it's leader who is only known as Kane rose up and started propaganda against GDI long before Tiberium manafested itself on earth. However it was not until a mysterious meteor impacted earth near the Tiber River in Italy that Nod became a more serious threat. The Brotherhood seemed to have a very high interest in the alien substance the meteor carried with it and quickly saw it's potential while scientists of GDI discovered the substance was in fact mutating the earth slowly. In the first Tiberium War GDI focused primarily on halting Nod as a group as the recommendations of scientists to make Tiberium the top priority were dismissed with a small thanks. Tiberium would continue to be very valuable substance, having the unique ability to leech minerals out of the ground, it was no wonder no-one wanted to get rid of it.
At the end of the First Tiberium War a GDI Ion Cannon was detonated over Kane's temple in Sarajevo and Kane was presumed MIA and most likely dead under the rubble of the temple. Video footage recovered from the temple later confirmed Kane was killed in the blast and there was no possible way he could have survived.
In the decades that followed GDI started to focus more on Tiberium, with the Brotherhood without a leader it was no longer a serious threat. Tiberium however was slowly taking over the planet at a faster rate then anyone could have predicted. GDI was using most of their resources at countering the effects and stopping Tiberium in it's tracks. It wasn't until early 2030 that Kane resurfaced, just as young as in the first war, and the Second Tiberium War had begun. Tiberium had by now manifested itself in the biggest part of the planet, mutating wild life and plant life everywhere. Next to that new strains of Tiberium were discovered, such as blue tiberium and Tiberium veins. Kane was determined to speed up the growth of Tiberium while GDI was doing everything in it's power to eradicate it. In the middle of the battle however, an alien space ship was discovered by Nod which was claimed by GDI after a fierce battle. Inside they found something which would be known as the Tacitus, a collection of background information on Tiberium specifically. After a long and fierce battle Kane was killed once again, this time for sure, the GDI commander responsible for his death assured. Shortly after Kane's death, his AI computer CABAL came in uprising, wanting to claim the two halfs of the tacitus for himself to unveil the secrets of Tiberium. Eventually GDI and rough Nod forces managed to destroy CABAL's core and recover the tacitus which their AI EVA was able to translate. That was the end of the second Tiberium war.

It was quiet for almost two decades before trouble once again arose.
Kane is back, alive and kicking almost 60 years after Tiberium first arived on earth. Before GDI got their hands on the Tacitus back in the Second Tiberium War, CABAL managed to translate portions of it, revealing information about the aliens who sent Tiberium to earth. It revealed that, when enough of the planet was covered in matured Tiberium, a chain reaction would cause an explosion that would alert the aliens and make them come to earth. Kane's faith in the aliens and in Tiberium drives him to lure the aliens to Earth in an attempt to steal their technologies and knowledge about Tiberium. In order to do this, he needs GDI to fire an Ion Cannon strike at Temple Prime in Sarajevo where a Liquid Tiberium Storage is being held in a bunker. A strike from the Ion Cannon would detonate the Liquid T, causing a massive chain reaction that would alert the alien visitors. And what better way to piss GDI off then by killing all the world's leaders in a single blow?
After a successful attack on GDI's ASAT facility, a nuke is launched against the Philadelphia, an orbital space station where all world leaders reside, far away from the Tiberium threat. With the destruction of the Philadelphia, GDI is fast to retaliate; taking back Washington before pushing into Sarajevo to crush Temple Prime and end the war quickly. The battle was short, while Nod managed to hold off GDI for some time, the Ion Cannon was eventually engaged and Temple Prime (and the Liquid T stored underneath) destroyed. The chain reaction that followed engulfed the entire planet, killing thousands of people in the process but completing Kane's plan to attract the aliens to Earth.
The aliens manage to penetrate orbital defenses and set up camp in England and Germany as a diversion for their bigger plans but are quickly taken by surprise as they come to realize that the Tiberium explosion was way to early. Tiberium, known to the aliens as Ichor, was for the most part immature. The planet was supposed to be dead and overrun with Tiberium by the time a liquid tiberium explosion took place. Instead, the world was still heavily populated. While the alien military adviser suggests aborting the mission and to wait until the Tiberium has done it's job, the foreman responsible for the Earth Harvesting Operation demands to continue harvesting operations.
While GDI is busy fighting the aliens in England and Germany, the aliens are building massive towers all over the planet which Kane believes to be intergalactic portals to other worlds when completed. Wanting to get this technology in his own hands, Kane manages to acquire the key codes to activating a completed tower. GDI however is pushing to destroy all towers, seeing them as a serious threat. They manage to wipe out all but one, which Nod is heavily defending alongside with the aliens. As the last parts of the tower are being completed, GDI manages to destroy the last remaining relay node of the aliens, sitting right on top of ground zero in the Tiber River. It stops all aliens on earth dead in their tracks, but not before the alien foreman escaped the planet trough the by now completed portal.
The alien invasion was stopped dead in it's tracks, be it with a final casualty rate of over 25 million people thanks to GDI's Liquid Tiberium Bomb which they used on the last relay node. Kane secured the tower, activating it soon to explore their faith. All meanwhile the Supreme Commander in the home galaxy of the aliens has intercepted footage of Kane, how he knew about the Tacitus, the aliens. This man knew to much, further investigation is required. As the last words are spoken by the alien Supreme Commander, we have to sit tight and wait for the expansion pack.
"Prepare a full invasion force. We WILL take earth..."