Command & conquer 4

[The Veteran]

Couldn't see a post made for this game anywhere and based on my experience with it so far I think it certainly deserves one!

 

I bought this game for

[FullAuto]

tl;dr

 

Just kidding.

 

Have to admit, I played C&C and C&C2 and enjoyed them, but the AI was never any sort of challenge at all. They were a good laugh in multiplayer though.

 

It doesn't surprise me that C&C4 is bad. It's difficult to make good games, and it's absolute murder to keep making good games in a franchise. I wouldn't want to work in that sort of environment, with a publisher glowering at you over your shoulder as you make the latest in a commercially successful series. It has to satisfy fans of the series who have played every game. It has to do something different to attract new players. It has to be easily marketable. It has to sell a lot of copies. Etc etc etc.

 

The vast majority of series' simply go downhill at various rates. EA's record of running things into the ground is established (buying Westwood, C&C seemed to go into a nosedive) and while they're not alone in terms of pure shittery (Ubisoft's always-online DRM, Activision's ruthless exploitation of franchises), they're certainly one of the reasons the market has ended up the way it has. Other companies have seen their financial success, and emulated them.

 

Only the devs (and sometimes not even they) care about making good games, but I bet a good percentage of gamers don't know who makes the game. Thanks to advertising and such, they probably think the publisher made it, that'll be the company they associate with the game. Review scores can be bought if necessary, you can find company shills posting on forums praising their games. The publisher does not care if the game is a steaming turd, they just want to make a massive profit.

 

I'm not suggesting devs work for love and rainbows, but from talking to some of them, they (especially the indies) settle for making a good game, breaking even, and moving on to the next (hopefully) good game. Compare this to a studio owned by a publisher, whose games don't sell so well (see Bizarre Creations for a recent example). The publisher sells or dissolves them. Sometimes the devs don't even own their ideas in that situation. I think that makes it difficult to care. Their end result may be much more polished than a comparable game from a studio with a smaller budget, but its not necessarily going to be a better game.

[Space Voyager]

Ehm, add a few screens and this is a full review as far as I'm concerned! Oh, and rating.

[The Veteran]

Do we need a review for it? Will happily rewrite it with a little less one-sidedness and slap a few pics in if we don't already have one

[NKF]

I haven't tried it myself and probably will not. It's the principal of the matter, but I refuse to go on-line just to play a single player game. Patches, fine. Multiplayer, fine. But it doesn't feel right that you're not allowed to even run the game without going on-line. I mean, what'll happen in 10 years time when their silly server is gone? That's what put me off playing some other title I'd picked up at random one day while thinking "hey, I haven't played some generic fantasy hack and slash in a while". Had Apocalypse and Mages in the title, but the name eludes me now. Popped it in, thought I'd go for the single player campaign - whoops, won't run as it wants to connect to the server. I guess I should go and finish Arcanum or Morrowind, which I enjoy to bits but the nature of these games keeps me too distracted (or lost) to find the main plotline.

 

Still, I feel after this you'll probably have a more refreshed outlook on Red Alert 2. If I remember correctly it takes a few things they tried in Tiberian Sun and improve on them. Also if you haven't, make sure you try getting some Soviet infantry to ride the Allies' AFV's - their enhanced attacks tend to be quite impressive. Other than that, it has a whole bunch of familiar units like the Mammoth that keeps it close enough to the source.

 

- NKF

[Matri]

It's generally agreed that Red Alert 2 is the best of the series while ironically the engine it is based on (C&C2) is the worst.

 

Well, before this abomination popped up, anyway.

 

Word is, EA fired the whole C&C4 team before the game was completed, but kept them around to continue working on it until it was done. Just think on the consequences of that: You have less-than-zero incentive to finish the game, even less incentive to actually do a half-assed, half-decent job of it, and every game patch will most likely be roughshod hackjobs that will make Victor's monster look like a Monet masterpiece.

 

Also, that the only ones who actually stayed to finish the game was the guy in charge of vehicle design.

[Space Voyager]

Do we need a review for it? Will happily rewrite it with a little less one-sidedness and slap a few pics in if we don't already have one

My guess is unless there is a reason against it (like it not being any kind of strategy) any review is a good one, even heavily retrospective ones.

 

I only proposed it because you already wrote more than a usual review holds, so there isn't much more work needed.

[Matri]

Also, they cancelled Tibe

.

 

That's just unforgivable.

[The Veteran]

I think what's unforgiveable is thta they've given up on the whole series but as for Tiberium itself I'm not sure how great it would've been. Renegade was a bit of fun but at the time it was very bold to cross genres inside a franchise I think and while it probably bought some new FPS fans to the game I can't imagine it was universally purchased by the RTS fans of the real games.

 

I think Tiberium would've garnered a lot more support than Renegade as it looks like a pretty impressive game and cross-genre franchises are becoming more common nowadays so it's a little less 'out-there' for fans. From watching that video though I failed to recognise it as even a tiny little bit C&C. None of the player weapons reflected anything used in any of the games although the railgun is pretty nifty. The enemies are presumably the Scrin but they clearly aren't as we've already fought the scrin and that was NOT them. The maps looked very generic with a lot of corridor action which is the complete opposite of real C&C levels and even Renegade didn't get that part of the formula wrong. There seemed to be larger scale squad combat involved but one of Renegade's best features isd that it didn't try and place you in a regular C&C game as a highly expendable grunt in a squad of short-lived troopers. Instead it made you a commando who worked alone and could enter structures and other such interesting stuff. Even the friendly units seem pretty non-descript and the walkers can only be compared to Titans although they look absolutely nothing like Titans do so I don't know.

 

Quite frankly they've done such a bad job already with 4 that I think Tiberium would've been no better. I can imagine boss-fights already and that's just ridiculous! They've already thrown out 90% of what made C&C great so it doesn't take a genius to figure out how much of the good games will remain in another new release. I would've certainly played this game if it was released but frankly a large part of me is glad that it won't be as I'm sure it would just be another nail in the coffin for the whole franchise.

 

The point is, games like the originals will keep new generations playing for years to come, just like XCom garners new fans even though the franchise is long since dead. Games like Tiberian Twilight however will serve simply to destroy any interest in the franchise by introducing newcomers to an awful game. If this had been my first experience with C&C you can guarantee that I would never have bought another one.

[The Veteran]

As if the game can get any worse I've just loaded it up twice and both times got no sound. So now I have to trapse across the internet to fix a game I hate just to keep playing the damn thing...

[FullAuto]

Wait 'til you see the new X-Com...

[The Veteran]

eh :s

[Matri]

Wait 'til you see the new X-Com...

Bah.