Command & Conquer: Generals
Rating:  -
When you first pop that cd in and install the game, the first thing the diehard C&C fan will notice is the opening movie that seemingly has nothing to do with a story. Once you get into the game, however, you realize the story has really taken a back seat in this game. This becomes one of the biggest flaws in the game. Thinking back to the previous C&C releases by Westwood Studios, I was always blown away by the good stories and the wonderful cutscenes blending live action and CG animation. They were the glue in the games, the part that made it realistic and immersive. The characters had personality and human traits that made you feel like they were really there. Generals, however, is very lacking in personality. The cutscenes that you looked forward to between missions are gone, only in game graphic videos are used(including some flagrant use of bullet time). While these look pretty cool, they aren't enough to build a story. Instead of having a human brief you on whats happening and what your mission is, you are thrown into new scenarios every mission where a faceless voice barks commands. The bottom line in terms of the story is that Generals is simply uninspired. There is nothing about it that makes you say, "Wow, this is awesome." like the rest of the games in the series, which is a shame, because there is a lot of potential.
Now that I've finished with the poor story aspect, on to the gameplay. This is where the game excels. The first thing i noticed about the game when i started playing, was that it plays a lot more like starcraft or warcraft than it does a C&C game. Instead of having a sidebar with units listed that you can build, you build units at their respective buildings. You also have to construct buildings with a unit, rather than building them on the sidebar and having them magically appear. You also get a lot more control over your units, with more options for control, such as a more defined guard function and attack move options. Mysteriously missing is the deployment options from Red Alert 2. The three sides in the conflicts are all very defined, and have their individual strengths. The US specializes in strong single units and high technology, while the Chinese specialize in brute force and huge numbers of people. The GLA specialize in simple, dirty tactics such as suicide bombing and poison attacks. Each side plays differently and requires unique strategies. The individual units are all very well done too, each one with a very specific use. Gameplay does have problems though, especially dealing with long range units. If a unit is being attacked by another unit that is out of its range, it will just sit still and let itself be killed rather than attack its assailant. This is very frustrating to deal with, especially when you're having to micromanage over a large area, its difficult to babysit each one of your units. Another complaint is that the computer AI is extremely bipolar. During the battles, it is extremely aggressive, and attacks almost constantly from different sides, but as soon as the battle starts to turn, it rolls over and stops entirely. Beyond all the little issues, however, the gameplay is very good, with good variation and addictiveness. The graphics and sound are also superb. Its great to see humvees driving around with headlights on when its night. There is a lot of attention to detail.
Good:
Great gameplay
Good graphics
Improved combat/construction systems
Bad:
Lack of story
AI issues
Overall: 4/5
C&C fans will definitely want to own this game, but most will probably be disappointed with the lack of inspiration in the story(or lack thereof).
Recommended?: Yes, any RTS fan will want to play this game.
Rating:  -
I've played this game for about the past two months, and although the game itself is pretty good when it comes to its graphics, its sound, and its concept, its online play is somewhat disappointing. I'm not referring to lag, of course I'm expecting to see some of that with performances differences in the players computers.
However, there are numerous problems with gameplay, with no apparant effort whatsoever being made by EA to stem the exploiting.
Here's one popular exploit:
The "Mismatch": A player on a losing team who knows how to do this, can intentionally cause an error that causes the players to lose sync with each other, automatically halting the game and resulting in a disconnect for all players, also referred to as a mismatch.
Theres also a hyper-sensitive censor on the public rooms where games form from, which is fine and dandy when it comes to censoring damn, hell, and its other four letter and beyond family members(and other derogatory words) but also censors words like "salami" which has a very valid non-sexual meaning, but many words that have dual meanings like that are often censored as well. In addition, the censor does not apply to player names, so players will often have obscenities in their names, and the chat censor is easily defeated by putting a space between the first letter and the rest of the word(IE: D amn) It also doesn't catch too many intentional misspellings of certain cuss words.
In addition to that, in-game live play is also governed by the same hyper-sensitive censoring guidelines. However, the disconnection menu(if a player loses a stabile connection, a menu pops up and allows that player a minute for their connection to stabilize, otherwise they are automatically booted) allows players to chat with no censoring whatsoever.
Also, there is absolutely no moderation on these game rooms, so players often rampantly spam, curse, and engage in other immature behavior with noone to stop them. There's also a bot that spams the address to website that claims to have illegal hacks for many of EA's games, but a site whose masters allegedly attempt to hack YOU when you go there. And once again, no attempt by EA to stop it. You can put players on ignore, however, that player will still be there to harass any other player in the room, especially any new players.
EA has exhibited a consistent pattern over the past four years(from what I've observed) of abusing its customer base because it doesn't care, as long as it turns a profit.
Bottom line if you play online, do so at your own risk, as EA apparantly does not care what happens online.
Rating:  -
Ive forced myself to play about 10 hours of this game, and that was all I could stomach. I love RTS' and most CnC games but this one is icredibly boring, absolutely horrible graphics, and a complete letdown. This game isn't half as good Yuris Revenge. For the love of God EA, go back to 2D. Glowing brightly colored boxes slowly moving across a screen pretty much sums up the graphics of this game.
Rating:  -
the best the graphics are great and its so realistic!!!
Rating: -
Overall, the game is a pretty good buy. The armies each have a unique feel and play differently. The battlefields interact with your units, trees crash down as tanks roll by and civilians run screaming from your forces. The animated explosions can be spectacular, and combat is very dynamic, it doesn't drag at all. The skirmishes are very fun to play, but the campaigns are rather lacking. There are practically no plotlines, and most missions simply require you to destroy the enemy base. I was able to use the same simple strategy to beat 5 out of the 7 GLA missions.
The game designers obviously took alot of influence from the movie Blackhawk Down. Not only are many of the missions very reminiscent of the situations in the movie, but some of the music in the game seems to be lifted from the movie's soundtrack. However, the music in the game is actually pretty good.
While I wasn't bothered by the fact that one of the armies were terrorists, I think that Generals takes it too far in the campaign. The last mission ends with a captured ICBM fitted with bio-weapons being launched at an American city. This seemed very disturbing that they would include that considering the current state of the world.
Despite this, I think it's a great game for the money you pay, provided that your system can handle the requirements.
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