Amazon Maximum Age: 240 months
Amazon Minimum Age: 144 months
Batteries Included: 0
Binding: DVD-ROM
Brand: Electronic Arts
EAN: 5030941055406
ESRB Age Rating: Teen
Is Autographed: 0
Is Memorabilia: 0
Height: 1 inches
Length: 7.5 inches
Weight: 200 hundredths-pounds
Width: 5.25 inches
Label: Electronic Arts
Manufacturer: Electronic Arts
Model: 15629
Packaged Height: 110 hundredths-inches
Packaged Length: 730 hundredths-inches
Packaged Weight: 40 hundredths-pounds
Packaged Width: 540 hundredths-inches
Platform: Windows XP
Platform: Windows Vista
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Release Date: 2007-03-26
Studio: Electronic Arts
Feature:
- Ultra-responsive, smooth-as-silk gameplay that places your entire arsenal at your fingertips
- 30 single-player missions, in a vast open-world theatre where each decision you make matters
- Observe, broadcast, and compete in thrilling online battles - with all-new interactive spectator modes, VoIP communication & player commentary
- High-definition, live action video sequences seamlessly ties the game's epic story together
- Adaptive AI matches your style of play & gives you the highest level of challenge
Product Description:
Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars takes you forward in the Command & Conquer universe, where a brief peace ends in a storm of war. The year is 2047 and a massive nuclear fireball explodes in the night sky, marking the dramatic beginning of the Third Tiberium War. With the corrupt substance Tiberium blanketing most of the Earth, the infamous Kane is back to lead his Brotherhood of Nod in a massive assault on the Global Defense Initiative (GDI) and the few remaining livable Blue Zones left on the planet. Only you can stop him. Welcome back, Commander. Build flying battleships, wield the power of terrifying Ion Storms & combine units to form powerful never-before-seen super-units Multiple online game modes, all-new multiplayer maps, and a fully featured content editor, go online to see how you stack up in RTS' ultimate forum
Customer Reviews:
 Ridiculously one-sided, with the GDI so damn dreary and boring, 2008-12-01
I'm a long time Command & Conquer Red Alert fan, so I'd only heard the inklings of the original C&C series, featuring the highly charismatic and almost godlike Kane, worshipped as such by so many gamers, and the names thrown about of GDI, Nod, Tiberium, etcetera, and I wanted to get in on it.
The situation setup in the beginning is spellbinding and drags me in with full optimism and wonder. The world is divided into three zones based on Tiberium infestation: Blue Zones controlled entirely by the GDI where life is good, Yellow Zones where Tiberium infestation has almost destroyed the local ecosystems and where Nod gets most of its recruits, and Red Zones which are completely uninhabitable.
Maybe because it was the first one listed, or I just wanted to save the more fun faction (Nod) for last, I started with the GDI. And right away I was disillusioned.
Michael Ironside, or "That Cranky Old Jerkass with the Metal Arm from Starship Troopers", seems like such a lazy actor here that he could easily be replaced by some other cantankerous old man actor like Stacey Keach or Kurtwood Smith and it wouldn't even make a difference. The entire GDI setup, acting, and color scheme just screams "Sci-Fi Original Movie" D-quality production. Be it Captain Generica as played by Ironside, or even the smooth and cool President Lando Calrissian (since he's played by Billy Dee Williams. I forgot his name) who seems to be the only saving grace here.
The worst of the actors is the Intelligence officer, some woman whose name I never even learned. She looks like a woman, yes, but she is so stiff and jagged, with such a grating tone of voice, blank and dead eyes, and heavy cheekbones, that she seems like she used to be a man. And nothing she ever says is ever important. Anything she says in the beginning, she ends up repeating in-mission, while the mission text tells me this during the loading screen, and with EVA transmissions, and with the Objectives bar in-game. She's completely useless, only there to add some tranny sex appeal, somehow. And the few times where she does show emotion, it's so forced and awkward that you can barely stand to look at her any more.
The environments are far more realistic and graphically advanced than Red Alert 3, but it gets to a point where nearly ALL the environments have the exact same shade of gray, brown, and tan, and it starts to become a tired hassle to play through them. Even worse is that the GDI forces are some of the most generic and lamest military forces in any RTS game I've played. They have almost nothing special beyond bombs and machine guns and tanks, with some "futuristic" style weapons like the Zone Troopers and.... zone troopers. Their arsenal looks like that of a "Sci-Fi Original Movie" D-quality mixed with Starship Troopers.
Every mission feels like the exact same dreck of "build a base, kill Nod, be good guys, feel happy and play patriotic music". There's no influencing manner beyond just a lazy sense of duty which is only further escalated by the "dramatic" acting of Captain Generica.
At the end of the campaign, you are faced with a "dilemma" of choosing to use a Liquid Tiberium bomb, which would be the 2047 equivalent of the 1945 Atomic Bomb. Amazingly, Captain Generica drops his Generican title and puts on the most solid, credible, and heartfelt acting without breaking character in explaining to you every reason why you shouldn't ignite the Tiberium Bomb, whereas President Calrissian's entire justification why you should boils down to "NOOOOD BAAAAADD DROP BOMB KILL INNOCENTS BUT END WAR ROFL!"
Then comes the Brotherhood of Nod and Kane. And here is where I realize the C&C games got their shining moments of greatness and where this whole worship of the game character Kane came from.
The game developers are completely and totally in favor of the Brotherhood of Nod. They love them. They put all their effort into them. Nod is their bread and butter. Without Kane and Nod, C&C3 would be the most boring and generic dreck this side of "Sci-Fi Presents: Captain Generica's Starfleet of D-Movie Quality".
Kane is beyond words phenomenal. His tone of voice, his message, his rhetoric, his body language, everything about him oozes such charisma and righteous belief in his own cause, that the disillusionment I suffered with the GDI instantly converted me to his side. And unlike the GDI, who just seemed to be "we're the good guys because we are", Nod actually made a very convincing argument as to why their side is right: the GDI takes control of the precious Blue Zones for themselves, where they rule completely, and in an isolationist fashion which ignores the plight of the downtrodden in the Yellow Zones. While they call themselves the "Global Defense Initiative", they only bother to protect 20% of the globe that they control. Nod makes this very clear, and even though from the outsider's view (and my view until I started the Nod campaign) they are a deranged, evil cult dedicated to a world where Kane is god and no one but Kane matters to the world, once you are inside Nod, you fully realize just how beautifully right and just Nod is.
This doesn't just extend to the FMV's or Kane, but the main lieutenant is a great deal more charismatic, calm, and at ease in his role than the GDI counterpart. He's the average Southern man who cracks dry and wry jokes, and even if the information he gives isn't so stellar that you can't learn it from the repetition in-game, he gives it with such style and flair that you want to listen to him because of his delivery, rather than necessity (of which there is none).
On the battlefield as well, Nod is superior in their variety of weapons from the much more enthusiastic riflemen the Militants, to the heartbreaking sacrifice of the Fanatics, to the variety of vehicles and weapons that come down even to jeeps and motorcycles instead of the same dreary tanks and APC's.
Then there's the Scrin. I won't say anything about them because I haven't reached their campaign yet, though I did manage to test them out in the GDI campaign.
This causes me to come to my complaints on gameplay.
- The three sides are in almost no way different. Unlike the Red Alert series where different buildings were faction-specific and different strategies had to be employed to account for different units and tactics and things, virtually all three sides in this game are identical save for different unit appearances. The best comparison would likely be Age of Empires, where all sides are fundamentally identical save for some minor unique differences. All sides have the exact same basic buildings with the exact same spots in the building queues and the exact same functions and purposes. This is no "Starcraft" when it comes to variety. Even the Scrin have the same generic riflemen/rocket trooper infantry to start out with; though with much more alien functions, they are fundamentally the same thing as riflemen and rocket troopers.
- SEVERE PATHFINDING ISSUES. I'm using version 1.0 so maybe this is addressed in patches, but thus far the in-game units have had severe pathfinding issues. I've had far too many instances where ordering a group of tanks and infantry has caused some of them to go where I say, and half of them will end up trying to find a way around something in their way, only to not find a way around, but end up going off in other directions. Other instances have seen vehicles completely ignore the "Guard" stance, and go chasing after enemy units until they run into an enemy defensive structure and get killed. On more than one occasion, I've had to click an area for a unit to go, only for them to completely ignore my order and go some other way. On many of these occasions, they've decided to dash straight into the enemy, so that I've angrily rightclicked where I want them to go maybe 30 times as they finally listen and obey. Other instances include trying to attack units within their line of sight around obstacles. While other units are clearly capable of hitting enemies from the edge of certain obstacles, some units not only can't, but see fit to wander out INTO THE LINE OF FIRE and get within arm's reach of the enemy before bothering to shoot. This leads to some serious issues with gameplay and strategy.
- The AI is ridiculously overbearing and gratingly annoying even when it isn't difficult. Hard mode has proven too hard for me sometimes, so I've gone down to Easy mode, only to see the AI continue their exact same tactics as in Hard mode, just with a slight decrease in frequency. And their tactics almost ALWAYS amount to "Junkyard Dog" tactics, in which they muster up as many light or light/heavy mix units as they can into a small pack of 6-12, and attack me with no intent of causing any damage except to fully stall my war effort again and again without any final invasion to put the crush on me. In this way, I've never lost (on Hard mode) because the enemy never bothered to finish me off, but just keep harassing me over and over until I have virtually nothing and just give up in anger and frustration and restart or quit the mission.
Despite, or perhaps because of, the heavy emphasis on the greatness of Kane and Nod, the game is only half-good and half-fun, while the bland environments and mostly bland units have me feeling more and more desiring to play Red Alert 3 again.
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