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So how do you guys feel about how EA handled the C&C franchise?
Let's start with the the first one they did, Generals. I feel they jumped on the anti-Islamic-terrorist bandwagon here, and rushed the game. It wasn't in the typical C&C style. Units to build structures rather than a toolbar was a bit too much for me. As was the lack of a defensive force spawning with your Construction Yard.
Next up is C&C3. Squad based infantry, don't start with unit (again ) and a terrible story line. Although, I loved the fact that they got Joe Kucan back in to play Kane... I found the story was rushed, especially when it got the sudden Scrin invasion. As well as this, in Westwood's version (and cannon) the Scrin were not waiting for a liquid tiberium explosion to "wake them up" and were actively observing the situation on Earth, as seen by the crashed cruiser in Tiberium Sun... Change the cannon of what Tiberium was. Most importantly of all though, the removed the majority of GDIs high-tech walkers and they return to using old technology.... Again, I felt it was rushed and poorly executed. Great concept though.
Red Alert 3 time. Literally. Time travel again? Seriously? It is pretty much the same as C&C3 but infantry are alone again, thankfully. The plot is even the same as C&C3, two age old enemies unite to fight a common foe (Japan). Aswell as this, there is a GIANT plot hole. By killing Einstein, the Premier would prevent Russia's rise to power because WW2 would still of happened (Einstein prevents Hitler from gaining power. So by killing Einstein ,Hitler would still create the Third Reich). The actors they chose were brilliant, as always. Tim Curry (SMASHING ) and Randy Coture were outstanding. But the game was pretty bad.
Finally, the end of the Tiberium storyline: C&C4. Oh God. Removal of base-building. Game revolving around the control of Strategic Points. Units gain experience and new equipment. It's pretty much Tom Clancy's End War with a few more poisonous green crystals. Kane turning out to the biblical Kane, and wants to get off planet Earth to escape God's punishments. SAY WHAT? That was the final straw. It was a terrible game.

I've played every single C&C game, completed them all on Hard (even Renegade)... I was deeply saddened at what EA did to the franchise. Your thoughts?

I loved both generals and red alert 3, as for the plot hole, Einstein was killed after he had gone back and killed Hitler.

Also, Kane was ALWAYS the biblical Kane.

corpsesarefun wrote:I loved both generals and red alert 3, as for the plot hole, Einstein was killed after he had gone back and killed Hitler.

Also, Kane was ALWAYS the biblical Kane.

Einstein was erased from history, not killed. My bad.

Generals was fun, C&C 3 was fun. That's about it.

C&C 3 was awesom. I dont think I could say how many hours I have spent on that game, the old ones like Tiberian Sun and Firestorm was just historical good. As for Rd Alert, 1 & 2 was good, but 3 was just horrid. C&C4 sucked balls

CNC dawn and sun were good games, I like Tiberian sun more than CNC tiberian dawn (1). Red alert 1 was more my style than red alert 2 (OTT tanks and all) and red alert 3, Ugh that game reeked of gunk. CNC 3 was average, but 4 just really disappointed the franchise.

Basically, EA's version of the franchise and purchase of the franchise really screwed things up.

I think most of them were fun. Tiberian Sun (The one after the original CnC) was the least fun though.

CnC3 was probably the best of them for me. CnC4 was a great experiment and though they didn't quite succeed, it was still a nice and fresh view on the RTS/RTT genre. Red Alert 1 and 2 were fairly good, as well. RA3 had decent gameplay but some of the camp and tropes it embraced weren't my style-- RA2 was probably the best of that series, but RA3 is possibly superior in terms of gameplay.

Generals was fun, too, though I wonder where they're going with that?

other newer ones were ok but still bad
but C&C4, you dont even deserve the tiberian, or the C&C in your name. I mean honestly what kind of rts does not support base building!

zman111 wrote:I mean honestly what kind of rts does not support base building!

World in Conflict
Dawn of War 2
By some definitions, the Total War series.

To name a few.

Hell, CnC4 had more base building than these games (except for Total War, unless you only include the real-time aspects).

CnC4 was at least better than tiberian sun, which was sort of just boring old rote continuation of the same formula without even that much exploration of the formula (the RA series and CnC3 followed the same formula but did it much better, exploring the depths of what they could do with the formula, while CnC4 parted from the formula to explore a different concept).

Dawn of War/Company of Heroes showed us what RTSs should be like, C&C just can't compete.

Sorry, but I totally disagree there. CNC was pretty much the industry standard for anything RTS in the 80's. DOW is only better simply because its been made later.

It's like comparing an early corvette and a volkswagen golf. Two totally different periods and RTS styles.

If you want to complain on the modding front. Lets see, CNC came up with over 2 thousand mods I believe.

Tiberian sun had random events complete with ion storms, the first dynamic lighting in an RTS, true tunneling and an endgame unit that doesn't directly attack (Mutant Hijacker).

If anything, Joe Lucan deserves a Knighthood, and EA to rot in hell for the mistakes it made to the Franchise.

CnC paled in comparison to Total Annihilation (released two years earlier) in terms of mods. But then again, that's probably unfair, because almost every game ever made pales in comparison to TA in terms of modding.

Well, TA does have it's quick and easy modding interface, where CNC wasn't actually made to mod.

But I digress, having played all of the storylines and missions (including Covert ops, and the Unfinished missions) and finishing all of Dawn of war and company of heroes, I really enjoyed CNC a lot more.

The story actually was half decent and at the start was quite believable. DOW campaign, especially DOW soulstorm and dark mellenium both were just *run and gun* effectively with strongholds and base defenses.

I applaud EA on CNC3, I love that game especially the Kane's Wrath Expansion

I am pissed, however, at shooting down the Tiberium FPS and how CNC4 was handled, that was just disgraceful. However, Generals 2... it looks good, but with what happened with CNC4, I'm remaining cautious about it.

CnC4 could have been done better, I don't disagree, but it's nowhere NEAR as bad as it is said to be. Frankly half the time people bash CnC4 it's just the spastic reactions of fanboys when they realize that oh my god, it's actually different from before! When looked at without such emotions, it's not actually a bad game, they just kinda rushed it it seems which caused it to be more shallow than it should have been. Which is disappointing, but it's by no means a bad game. It's also by no means a great game, which it really should have been, as they had some really interesting ideas for it...

Melissia wrote:CnC4 could have been done better, I don't disagree, but it's nowhere NEAR as bad as it is said to be. Frankly half the time people bash CnC4 it's just the spastic reactions of fanboys when they realize that oh my god, it's actually different from before! When looked at without such emotions, it's not actually a bad game, they just kinda rushed it it seems which caused it to be more shallow than it should have been. Which is disappointing, but it's by no means a bad game. It's also by no means a great game, which it really should have been, as they had some really interesting ideas for it...

It's the scrapping of a time-honoured formula that the fans dislike most... Me included.

Westwood pretty much created the RTS (Dune was also a good game) and EA just tarnished the C&C name.

I found CnC4 to be absolutely boring and drawn out tbh. RA3 was weird...I didn't like the style, and the storyline was kinda dumb imo. I preferred RA2 to that.
The best EA has come up would be CnC3 I think. I actually didn't mind the squads, though it would have been nice to see the walkers.

My worst nitpick is the level system, I MEAN COME ON! a fps style "you cant play with the cool s*it until you have played this to the nth degree for a year" system?! EA- IF YOU ARE READING THIS KEEP THE LEVELING TO THE COD GAMES! AND KEEP THEM AWAY FROM US RTS NUTS!

When I buy a game I expect to be able to open it up (logins) Go to skrmish (ok) then rush up the tech tree for each faction to figure out which one I like the most (oh! im sorry, LOOK YOU GET TIER 0 UNITS UNTIL YOU PLAY OUR GAME FOREVER!) *decends into unintelligable rambling*

DeadlySquirrel wrote:It's the scrapping of a time-honoured formula

They didn't scrap it. It was still used damned well in RA3 for example. They just used a different route, experimented, tried something new-- which for EA is a pretty big deal, usually big companies like EA don't have the guts to do anything but play it safe (see Blizzard, whom is the utter master of being boring and predictable in making mediocre samey games with no innovation whatsoever).

DeadlySquirrel wrote:

Melissia wrote:CnC4 could have been done better, I don't disagree, but it's nowhere NEAR as bad as it is said to be. Frankly half the time people bash CnC4 it's just the spastic reactions of fanboys when they realize that oh my god, it's actually different from before! When looked at without such emotions, it's not actually a bad game, they just kinda rushed it it seems which caused it to be more shallow than it should have been. Which is disappointing, but it's by no means a bad game. It's also by no means a great game, which it really should have been, as they had some really interesting ideas for it...

It's the scrapping of a time-honoured formula that the fans dislike most... Me included.

Westwood pretty much created the RTS (Dune was also a good game) and EA just tarnished the C&C name.

+1

Thats what bothered me the most, I was a big fan of the base building and I have trouble adapting to the walker base styles ...granted I could just be rusty, since starting a job for a hospital network i get less time to game overall and generally pick tabletop over pc/console.

Melissia wrote:They didn't scrap it. It was still used damned well in RA3 for example. They just used a different route, experimented, tried something new-- which for EA is a pretty big deal, usually big companies like EA don't have the guts to do anything but play it safe (see Blizzard, whom is the utter master of being boring and predictable in making mediocre samey games with no innovation whatsoever).

I agree they tried something new and overall I enjoy the game ... just a learning curve ... for me atleast

Edits: sorry i can spellz i promise.

I like the red alert games. The style always felt better and the two sides really play off each other well. Both 2 & 3 I love them both like a good parent should. AR3 bugged me when the thing stared and just threw out all the story from the first two games, but it made up for it with all of the fluff. I mean just go to the webpage and read it. It's just fun. Makes me wish they would make some other types of games in the RA setting.

The old CNC/RA were the best for me, command and conquer 1 was awesome, I still remember getting it on christmas day when I was a wee still innocent kid and it got me hooked on RTS gaming, the tanks, the men, the base building was just wow.

Come red alert and this only got better, skirmish mode literally got me playnig so much on that game and the improved units and graphics was just another I love this series!

tibersun was only ok for me, but red alert 2 just rocked so much, it was prob the one i spent the most time on.

afer this it kind of slumped fo rme, generals was ok but i got bored quickly, then from there on sadly it was worse, RA3 was ok, got a bit of play but ti didnt capture my excitement. and from ther eon I lost interest.

renegde was a nice change to the name and command and conquer sole survivor was a nice wee touch but got boring quick.

The packs like 'are you ready and alert' were great for adding tons of maps, unts etc to the game.

Was a great series but the swap form the tradition of tknig your base and a few nuits and securing ti to becoming a massive force was just my idea of heaven.

Heck even in the missions in RA1 wher eyou had some small enemy forces fighitng you alongside the main soviets was awesome (the smaller different coloured teams located usualyl in civilian towns in the campaign)

While TA was another good game, I wouldn't personally rate it as addictive or as ground breaking for the RTS market as the CNC series. the mods were fun, the units also had some cool stuff and the huge maps, long range guns etc added great play... but for me it was a different type of RTS.

TA was A LOT more groundbreaking, scale alone did that.

The C&C formula was already tried and tested with Dune.

Tried, tested and sucessiful enough to continue maknig games using it. As I said, TA was a good game, but in my opinion it wasn't as big a deal as Red Alert. They had differen tmechanics, TA using a commander to build structures, RA using a construction yard. so basically placed base location comapred to a build at will.

Red Alert 2 and it's expansion, Yuri's revenge..

.. are quite honestly, my #1 favourite computer game I've ever played, of any genre. Westwood at the peak of its abilities, right before EA came along and screwed around with it.

They have just the right amount of wacky vs. grounded realistic military and the cutscenes are fantastic, with great acting (premier romanov especially!) and really high production values.

All the missions are completely different and offer up all sorts of cool easter eggs on the map.

The switch to 3d took a lot of charm out of the rts genre, IMO. The only thing I liked about C&C 4 was the soundtrack and cutscenes (Kane's story played out really well, I love the fact that his end goal was ascension, to make himself immortal.. and it was also cool how they gave an explanation as to how he survived being killed multiple times).

Personally, I love Generals. Still do. The best C&C ever made, followed closely by the not-yet-so-goofy Red Alert 1.

Gameplay was cool, graphics were cool, music was cool, factions were cool. I'm only sceptical regarding whether they manage to get a sequel to this right, or if this was a one shot with any attempt to create a follow-up becoming ruined by the company reaching too far and introducing "clever" changes that will screw everything up again.

I haven't played C&C 4 but I thought Kane was an alien *posing* as Caine?

Henners91 wrote:I haven't played C&C 4 but I thought Kane was an alien *posing* as Caine?

Nope. He is the biblical Caine attempting to escape God's curse. When it started to get all Christiany is when I lost interest completely.

What's worse is, EA decided to retcon Kane being behind Stalin's actions in RA 1. Brilliant bit of writing, that. Then POW. EA broke it.

Kane was either in the original red alert or red alert two at the end, I remember it very clearly.

corpsesarefun wrote:Kane was either in the original red alert or red alert two at the end, I remember it very clearly.

He was at the end of the first one, in the Soviet campaign he is Stalin's advisor. At the end, he kills Stalin and tells the commander about the NOD and how the Soviet victory has aided their efforts and now all they have to do is wait for tiberium to arrive... But EA decided to separate the universes, despite them being intricately linked...