Widescreen Gaming Forum

I expected CnC4 to be a letdown based on preview information. Now that the reviews are out my suspicions are confirmed, and I will probably skip this game entirely. Here's a giant block of review quotes adding up to what I think is a CnC FAIL:

Base-building and broad strategizing have been supplanted by small-scale micromanagement; standard battles have given way to capture-point conquest.

Like most strategy games, Command & Conquer 4 offers a single-player campaign, offline skirmishes, and online battles; but unlike most strategy games, it rewards you with experience based on your activity in every mode. No matter which mode you play, finishing a match inches you closer to your next level. Gaining levels means new units, new powers, and new upgrades--goodies that you can then take with you into any of the modes.

Matches make for short-term entertainment, and the persistent experience you earn in every mode is always dangling the promise of cooler toys in front of you. This will keep you occupied until you unlock every available unit and upgrade, which will take most people a few days. Until that time, you will likely need to endure the imbalances intrinsic to leveling. You may face players who have access to units and powers that are superior to yours, and there's not a whole lot you can do about it aside from reaching the same level. If you create a custom game, there's no way to limit the match to players under a certain level--you can't even give a custom name to the match you host. Once you've reached the level cap, it's hard to overcome the sense that you're just always throwing a single bunch of units into the fray, at least during five-versus-five battles.

All of the mission design problems are exacerbated by C&C4's worst misstep: The vast majority of the units are locked to you from the game's start, even in skirmish mode. You have to play through many, many missions (multiplayer and/or single-player) in order to rank up and unlock the cooler units, upgrades, and support powers... and that's per faction.

Command & Conquer 3's lengthy campaign was notable for several exciting large-scale missions spread across multiple fronts. By contrast, C&C4 puts you in control of a relatively small force whose size is limited by a predesignated number of command points.

But the campaign feels restrictive. As a rule, you simply lead around the same control group from spot to spot as you complete your mission objectives.

Because more powerful units take up more cap space than less powerful ones, it's almost impossible for one side to gain a qualitative advantage over the other. You can spam small stuff (usually the most effective method) or hold out for the big bashers, but your opponent will always have the same relative strength. This makes for little risk in losing units; if your enemy builds units you're weak against, simply scuttle all your dudes and retool to get units they're weak against, and then they'll do the same, etc. In other words, straight fights in C&C4 play a lot like a boxing match between two guys with iron jaws and teensy weensy hands. You and your opponent can pound away at each other till you're both spent like an addict's last dollar, but nobody's knocking anybody out.

Now, it's an RTS truism that the biggest draw is multiplayer, but fans should be aware that C&C4 , like a bear in a pigpen, is a whole different beast from previous C&C titles. Multiplayer involves both sides (all matches are a single team vs. another single team -- Nod and GDI players cannot be on the same teams) trying to capture and hold various control nodes throughout the map. This, however, involves its own special set of tedium, since the game's small maps and mobile bases (critical differences from World in Conflict) mean games always play out the same (one team grabs this or that node, then rushes to take the other team's nodes, while the other team does the inverse). Any attempt to turtle a single node inevitably leaves the mobile team with an advantage, as the turtle cannot run to other nodes. This leads to both players going mobile, chasing each other around the map, and to the ludicrously repetitive process I began this review with... and with which, for the sake of symmetry, I will now mercifully end it.

"We've captured Node 1."

"The enemy has Node 2."

"We've captured Node 2."

"The enemy has Node 1."

And this doesn't help:

PERSISTENT INTERNET CONNECTION, EA ACCOUNT, REGISTRATION WITH ENCLOSED SERIAL CODE AND ACCEPTANCE OF END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT REQUIRED TO PLAY. SOFTWARE REGISTRATION IS LIMITED TO ONE EA ACCOUNT PER SERIAL CODE AND IS NON-TRANSFERABLE.

I guess the days wherein I could annihilate 3 of my buddies in a LAN game are gone. So sad. :(

_________________
VirtualDub Game Recording Guide | BFME2 & RotWK Widescreen/Triplehead Mods

After playing one game with the beta, I already know it won't be good.

Wal-Mart ordered like 30 copies and all of them were still sitting there tonight, crammed in and begging for attention.

I was into the idea of doing a Dawn of War 2 thing with it, but so far everyone says it's BAD Dawn of War 2, so... meh.

Wow and.......................WOW: :shock:
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=239583&site=pcg

_________________
VirtualDub Game Recording Guide | BFME2 & RotWK Widescreen/Triplehead Mods

So as SV says, it's Dawn of War 2... but crap.

No, cheers.

EA, why did you have to rape one of my favourite RTS series?

...

GA, that sounds pretty much par for the course.

It's worse than AC2 in that a disconnection means you lost all mission progress and you cannot reconnect mid-mission... AC2 pauses to allow you to reconnect, and saves the exact place you stopped playing if you quit.

It's worse than AC2 in that a disconnection means you lost all mission progress and you cannot reconnect mid-mission... AC2 pauses to allow you to reconnect, and saves the exact place you stopped playing if you quit.

The changes they made to this game made me reluctant to buy it, but I did just because it was meant to complete the story, I only found out about the DRM after play.com had posted it so I couldn't change my mind at that point. But I can tell you one thing, while C&C4 wants to accept incoming connection you can block them and still play the game, or at least I think you can because I was messing around with it for a bit and when I closed it Windows Firewall was there telling me it was blocking the game from accepting inbound connections.

I will say this though, :triplewide support in this game seems fairly solid, Hor+, doesn't stretch anything, so at least they did one thing right, I'll need to properly play it though to work out if its any good gameplay wise.

_________________
: ) Skid : )
My Multi-Monitor Focused YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/c/SkidIncGaming
My Twitch channel which I've been known to stream on from time to time: http://www.twitch.tv/SkidInc
"Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality."

30 minute walkthrough for those interested: http://www.giantbomb.com/quick-look-command-conquer-4-tiberian-twilight/17-2211/

A buddy of mine (also a C&C fan) bought it at bestbuys and came over to my place to play (since he doesn't have an eyefinity/high end gaming setup)

Here's my overview... I would rather stick my face in front of the fan when "the Sheet hits the fan" than play this game.

Good:
- Gfx looks nice (thought not much nicer than C&C3)
- native support for Eyefinity resolution.
- runs pretty smooth even at 6028x1200 full detail.
- FMV seems to have higher quality production budget.

Bad:
- When you start the game you can't pick say NOD/GDI like you do traditionally in C&C
- constantly felt like someone's errand boy. go going from one objective to objective. (I had the same complaint when I played World in Conflict)
- Forget about building a base, turtling to amass a huge army for an onslaught. there's really no such thing . .
- Focus shift from macro managment of large army to smaller squad based tatics (micro managment). It use to be (at least how I play) where I just send hordes and hordes of units to attack something and if they die they die but more wave will be pumped out and sent in again. but with C&C4 you send smaller groups in and have to pay more attention/time to focus on them to get the job done.
- I dont' know how to explain it... but the FMV acting.. it's still kinda campy and corny. but.. it don't "feel" like the C&C cheesiness. there's just something about it..


Fugly:
- Your view is alot more zoomed in than in C&C3 and you don't get to see as much of the battlefield beyond your current squad. You pretty much have to have eyefninity to see as more of the battlefield as before
- your Girlfriend/Wife (or whoever that chick that talks to you in the beginning) is annoying. I seen better acting in porn. I didn't get enough into the game to know how she fits into the overall story. But she is the Jar Jar Binks of C&C
- DRM ... always connected to EA server to be able to play even in Single player

Comments:
Mind you I only played about an hour of it until I got annoyed and stop playing. went as far as the 3rd stage and about half way into it. and can't stand it anymore. With C&C3 the first time I played I was playing nonstop for 5 hours straight.
If you like RTS gameplay style like in World of Conflict and like the C&C universe then you might enjoy this. But to me it seems like a different RTS game with the C&C asset thrown in. (Think of it as how Super Mario Bros 2 is so different to SM1 and SuperMario 3)

SCORE: 6/10
This is my personal score, coming from a traditional C&C background. This new gameplay style is a either hate it or love it kind of a deal. I personally don't like World in Conflict type style but I would love to read a review from someone that likes WiC game style for a different perspective.

No one expected it to be CnC classic really, I just want to know if it's good. As a singleplayer Dawn of War 2 style game, is it good?