ShatteredMinds

So I’ve tried the Command & Conquer 3 demo, which got released this week, and it’s quite nice actually. Apart from Generals where you have set depots with resources (silly, I know), we’re now back to the good old fashion resource harvesting, namely Tiberium. The demo comes with a GDI prologue and GDI demo mission, along with Skirmish mode for one map. You can only play GDI in this demo but that’s fine I guess.
“C&C 3: Tiberium Wars” feels like a good mixture between Tiberian Sun and Red Alert, where you have familiar structures such as silos and the notorious Mammoth Tank; it lives up to its name, it’s a freaking unstoppable deathmachine. New units and structures offer more varied tactics, such as the Surveyor which can capture remote land where you can place structures once it’s deployed, and the GDI “Rig” which unloads itself into a massive battlestation, complete with repairdrones to repair any nearby vehicle. Soldiers are no longer deployed one by one, they’re squads, much like W40K: Dawn of War & Company of Heroes, and can be upgraded by building an Armory.
The fights are spectacular lightshows when massive forces collide with each other, and the varied environmental sounds make it sound like real carnage. It’s possible to eradicate an army of troopers just by placing a few turret towers, and that is quite a satisfying sight. When you build a batallion of Juggernauts and head for the enemy base, you wish the Empire themesong from Star Wars would play in the background. Deploying a sniperteam and get them up close to the enemy, they can provide with the ability to Juggernauts to use their artillery ability and fire from huge distances.
The graphics are quite alright; HDR, antialias, dynamic shadows and light, the whole shabang. It’s quite demanding graphics, even for my machine to handle, pushing the FPS to a single digit at some points. Guess I need to get the latest graphics-card for “C&C 3: Tiberium Wars” to run smoothly at high settings.