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I figure this topic could include any game about 5 years old or more. So i'll start with a game i'm playing now.

So I oddly enough from time to time go back to 'Command and Conquer 3'. I don't know why it has a decent aesthetic for a lot of the Nod stuff. I've played most C&C games till C&C 3 was made and that was my last one. I always wanted to get the Kane's Wrath expansion but never did.

I kind of watch the "All Star" cast and I feel the only one that puts in a good effort is Joe kucan as Kane. Some say tricia helfer but if I remember correctly she kind of over-acts whereas everybody else is kind of half hearted with it. The GDI director boyle played by the guy that plays Lando Calrissian in Star Wars is kind of enjoying to see though it's a bit cheesy. To be fair if you hear some of the stuff the characters say some of it is super cheesy and some is just out of place. "I'd give my left nut to get some action!" or something along those lines. What?! Wtf kind of a line for a Nod officer is that?

All that said the gameplay feels pretty solid and the aesthetic is pretty awesome. It doesn't fail in any way that other C&C games haven't failed in the past with. Mostly being make some uber unit in droves that can counter everything and destroys tactics completely. Strangely enough some of this can even be a bit bypassed I feel. Nod obelisks powered up by laser artillery is nice as is the super unit for each faction. Sadly it did feel like some of the stuff was just a copy/paste of another faction's ability. For instance the Ion Cannon is exactly the same as a Nuke for Nod. Oddly enough it feels as if the Ion Cannon got cooler as an ability and the nuke got worse. Back in old C&C days a nuke being launched was a crap your pants moment as a huge chunk of your base and units were just obliterated off the map. It was a one time thing but very satisfying or horrifying depending on what end of it you were on.

Some of the Nod air power was a bit weird but i'm willing to give them some slack with some things. The stealth bomber for Nod made sense and their attack helicopters look really cool. That said I always imagined GDI as the Air Power and Tanking side whereas nod is about hit and run, stealth and massed units when that was done. I feel Nod is actually pretty aesthetically sound in C&C 3 and feels like Nod. Their aircraft work like Nod, the use of tiberium is just like what they'd do, their light vehicles though copy/pasted from the previous games work, the massed poorly trained and equipped militia actually works well with the elite and well equipped units (like shadows) and some abilities feel pretty decent. I suppose the problem is most units feel copy/pasted from C&C 1 and that is a problem but the aesthetics were totally re-worked and done well. Fanatics (the suicide bombing infantry) are really fun and the Black Hand flamethrower units are very aesthetically like Nod with looks and voice acting.

The Scrin are still kind of weird to me as well as how they function in the game but it kind of works too. The cheese with the scrin is a bit heavy in their very small campaign but C&C has always been heavy on cheese.

The GDI have a lot of copy/paste from previous games too. Zone troopers look a little dumb but I imagine GDI goes for tanking and elite units with some high tech space based units and less about what looks pretty. In a sense GDI are sometimes like space marines. Sniper teams are ok but I suppose it's unit abilities such as snipers giving a range boost to artillery that seems pretty cool. I still prefer shadows for Nod to GDI's snipers but their roles are a little different in at least one way as well as the unit composition. Then there's the APC for GDI which allows units to shoot out of it which is pretty cool.

So I dunno I suppose a lot of the same things were in the game as in previous games. I'd have liked to see more space based and air units for GDI. I'd also have enjoyed more crazy stuff for Nod. It's odd to see the tech kind of going backwards. Perhaps a collapse of civilization is going on? Also the tiberium mutated life or at least the different types of tiberium were missed. All old news but it still would've been nice to see.

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So for me the big thing about C&C is just the aesthetics. They were the best part of the game. I dare not touch C&C 4 though. I've heard some pretty horrible stuff. It'd be nice to see how the series ended even if it sucked though. Perhaps anything I imagine would be better than what happened. I suppose I could always play 'End of Nations' though since it's pretty much the spiritual successor to C&C anyway with some key differences.

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I've also gotta talk about 'Freedom Fighters'. It's basically an alternate universe where the soviets developed the A-bomb first and ended world war 2 with it. Also supposedly they seemed to have been the only nuclear power in the game. Basically the game starts with the soviets encircling the world and finally beginning their invasion of the U.S. and basically you take your band of 'freedom fighters' out to stop them. It's kind of like Red Dawn except with adults. Anyway this game was released back in 2003 and I've pretty much given up all hope of a sequel. The closest thing IO interactive has made since was the kane and lynch series and I've heard bad things. Seriously they should've just made a freedom fighters 2. Back during a time when WWII shooters were big sh*t it was a nice break from that setting.

I'm not sure if games from 2008 count as retro honestly, but anyway.

Currently playing a Colonization campaign as France. Trying to channel muskets and horses to the Native American tribes who are currently embroiled in a war with Spain. The Cherokee have already fallen to the Spanish, but armed with French muskets I'm guessing the Iroquois will be a much tougher proposition!

That's probably the most retro game I'm playing atm. I almost always have a campaign of HoI 2 going which I drift in and out of - I recently finished up a grand campaign as Germany, ending with a seabourne invasion of North America in 1953. A nuclear attack on Chicago wasn't enough to convince the USA to exit the war so ze Germans had to do it the old fashioned way. The game ended with Japan in complete control of Asia (including Siberia), India as a full independent member of the Axis, ditto Scandinavia. Africa was completely overrun by the Italians (!!!!) and Europe/North America firmly in German hands. I thought to myself "well, what's next?"

A Soviet campaign... That's what!