Be Excellent To Each Other

Hello!
Keen Grim...-fans will know that the Grimlet loves to play (or watch me play) Command and Conquer 3 (or "Fire - BOOM" as he calls it). Subsequently, he has had the sequel on his Amazon wish-list for a while, and it arrived last night!

I did me some installing, waited for the automatic patch (sigh), and was quite surprised that the first location you see in the game is Manchester, UK.

I only gave it a quick go, but it's pretty good. You can move your base around now, and it makes all the tanks and everything. I'm pretty sure I'm going to miss the base-building, but maybe that will come later in the game. Graphics are very pretty but not stunning, and you can't zoom out as far as I'd like. It doesn't support dual-screens either

I will report more when I've played more. Anyone else got it?

That came out pretty quietly, didn't it? I remember a big build-up and marketing campaign for 3. Do the cutscenes still have Cameron in?

I remember reading (possibly in Ejj) that they'd done away with base-building as a point of gameplay principle.

No, I don't think so. I've only seen one, though.
It did sneak out quietly.

Some updates:
There is no base-building. There is also no resource collection of any kind (neither tiberium or power). You are only limited by your population cap. And you can hardly build anything at the start of the game.
Oh.

Roll on, Starcraft 2.

Sounds more like Total War or some such.

Don't you have to "level up" to earn all the interesting stuff? I'd be a bit peed off if the first 10 hours I couldn't use anything other than infantry grunts and light tanks.

That's always been the case though, pretty much - you never got access to all the available units until the very last couple of levels, in every C&C.

It carries through to Skirmish this time.

Ah. That's a bit rubbish.

Are there any resources? If not, what governs what/how many units you can build then? (Or is it purely pop-cap?)
Did they go for a COH/DOW style?

From what I hear, you all get a crawler and there's something like a ten unit pop-cap. There's no resources at all. You start off with just a few units and unlock them throughout skirmishes and mulitplay. Apparently they take a LONG time to unlock, making the game feel rather grindy. Battles are fought over victory markers ala Dawn of War / Company of Heroes. When you lose your base unit, it instantly respawns so there's no point in base rushing.

Also, there's usually a lot of teams in skirmish and multiplay, so there are lots of mini-allied armies jostling. That's wot I've heard, anyway. 6/10 Eurogamer, or something.

I find it quite sad that C&C has had to change from an old school mechanic. Not as sad as I'd be if they did the same to UT games, though.

"UT's sticking with me, it's OK Dave."

I passed on this as soon as I read there was no base building, to me that's absolutely pivotal to the RTS experience, making the most amazing base possible and then watching the AI get flattened by it when it tries to attack.

I very much like to attack in my own time and on my own terms, proper old-fashioned RTS style.

Can't wait for Starcraft 2 as it's supposed to just be a modern remake of the original.

In one of my rare posts (I read far more than I post here):

Long before I started playing MMORPG's (this is my 3rd) I used to love RTS games such as Dune2, C&C etc

I've just read what EA games have done to C&C4 and am appalled basically.

Command and Conquer was one of the best games of 1995, sadly bought up by EA games, with a good release of C&C3 but my god

WHAT THE FLAMING **** did they do to C&C4 ?

It is like they couldn't be bothered

I'm so depressed I've started to replay Dune 2000, a Westwood game before EA wrecked the series.

We are talking some major unhappy customers here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews ... ewpoints=1

This is all very sad but I can still play C&C3 for the next 20 years and save a lot of money in the process. Every cloud has a silver lining.

Hang on... a game released only for windows is now "ruined" to make it console friendly. Despite not being released on a console.

I'd lay them blame at them trying to copy aspects of CoH poorly, and going for a CoD4esque levelling system, from what I've heard.

Well yes that's why I deleted the post when I realised but you'd already replied.

The rot set in with C&C3 though so it's still the 360's fault.

What problems do you have with C&C3?

Sorry, not 4 (nor 3) related, but are those free downloads still working? I'm getting a weird screen...

Nothing with the game as such, it was just that all the console-crowd moaned about it so they've now dumbed down the entire genre to the profile of socially illiterate American fucktards between the ages of 13 and 22 who won't use a keyboard and mouse and get a proper games machine.*


* Well that's what I think anyway.

Yes, but you're a trolling cock.

Do you think it's just barely possible that EA have done more market research than you have, Atrocity?

At least I'm not as personally abusive to other BEEX members as you are.

I think it's possible that they're being money-grabbing dicks by shunting out a shoddy pile of cheap consoleified crap that'll thoroughly piss off just about any C&C fan who has the misfortune to play it.

I can see the logic in there and I am glad of the warnings I will be steering well clear of it.

It's just boring listening you going on and on about it. Change the record and I won't bite anymore.

He's right, though. C&C has rapidly degenerated into a pile of pig cocks.

He's completely right. C&C4 has a proper dumbed-down 'console' feel to it. I was trying to put my finger on that last night but thought it was just because the buttons were bigger than they used to be.
Maybe that is what the PC market want nowadays, but I'd be surprised if there were lots of happy C&C players.

No no. It's those "American fucktards"ese;'s fault. Damn those American fucktards.

Fuckin ynks!

I guess it comes down to a fairly simple question: What are there more of, hardcode C&C/RTS fans or casual gamers?

I mean, look at Wii - they dumbed their games down massively but made them fun, and they sold billions of the damned things. Unfortunatly, part of the fun in C&C (for me, at least) was the massive complexity it did have, and the base-building.

I seriously doubt that's why they've done this. It's just someone's stupid idea which was taken on board and unfortunately implemented. They'll learn from the review scores that they've made a boo-boo. C&C has a massive, rabid fanbase. If EA wanted to appeal to the casual market they'd just commission some other game.

How is it "consoleified"?

It's just simpler, in the same way that DoW2 was far simpler than DoW1. Base creation is gone, your unit cap is fucking laughable, the waypointing is gone. DoW2 had RPG elements that made it a different game, but C&C4 is just... Less.
It feels like all the stuff you'd need a PC to do (or rather, to allow the user to control using the range of inputs at his disposal) has been removed to simplify the game for the console market (which, considering it's not coming out on consoles (to the best of my knowledge) is a bit nuts), as if they thought console games sold more because of what games they were, rather than just the fact that they were on consoles.

As someone cleverer than me said - there's hardly anyone to Command and no-one to Conquer.

And, while I know it doesn't matter to everybody, it doesn't look any better than C&C3. And does anyone use anything but a zoomed-right-out view on RTS games?

What do you expect a company to do except be "money-grabbing"? They're not fucking charities. Do you work for free? Why should they?

Don't be naive. Many longtime C&C fans have probably bought this anyway. Some sales will have been lost. If more sales are gained from the simplification of the game than were lost to it, then that will be regarded as a success by EA. You even admit this is likely, otherwise they wouldn't be "money grabbing", would they?

lol

I've never heard a PC RTS fan say, 'You know what this genre needs? Dumbing down!'

Base building, resources, defences, planning massive attacks - they're absolutely pivotal to the RTS experience.

They've knocked out a quick and dirty console game (maybe it'll turn up on the 360 at some point), slapped the C&C name on it, rehashed the same game engine, and are seeing how people they can sucker in.

The very low unit cap and no base building suggests to me they couldn't really be bothered much when it came to level design and AI, so have decided to drag some pretty thin content out over a long time with grindy sub-standard MMO elements.

Shoddy.

They don't care about RTS fans, they were always going to buy it. They cared about the people who weren't going to buy it. I'd be interested to see the sales figures.

While we're all happily saying how bad it is, has anyone actually played it beside me?

Nope. Never have liked Command and Conquer games. They seem to be made for Faeroe Island wankstains.

They need to make another fucking Homeworld is what they need to do.

They'll never do that because of fuck witted Madagascan pensioners.

And I've never heard a racing game fan ask for a game where it feels like the steering column is welded at 1/3 lock. Or a racing game fan asking for a game with stupid dumb fucking police chases that you can spend two hours trying to get away only to get caught and then have to do it all over again. ETC, ETC, ad nauseum.

Ever since EA released NFSU2 which it sadly seems they got so right on so many accounts by complete accident they have refused to listen to any one and gone on to release some seriously serious piles of shit. NFS : Most wanted still retained some of the magic that made NFSU2 so good but it was downhill all the way from there. There is an entire online community dedicated to the Underground games crying out for another proper street racing game and there have been numerous petitions for NFSU3. What do EA do? Make NFS : Shit. Yes I intentionally left out the F. Another game that was fun for about one day before you realise it's actually rubbish.

EA were ruined ages ago dude. In the same way that Bethesda will stop loving and caring about games and Fallout will end up as a cash cow rather than their object of desire.

Greed, it fucks everything in the end.

Less can be more! Even without the RPG elements, DOW2 feels like a widly different game to DOW1. I'm talking about skirmish/multiplayer mode here as well. The core gameplay is still like DOW1 -- make troops, shoot enemy, cap points, but the reduced unit count means that the game plays very, very differntly. No longer do you just spam hordes of mostly-identical troops. Each troops in DOW2 has a well defined role. You can't just build one without there being some form of consequence.

The problem with the reduced unit count is that you keep running your 3 or 4 squads from end to end of the map, as there's large "holes" in your defence that the enemy easily slips through. On the one hand it's "more dynamic", and on the other it's "a pain in the dick".



Peopel who make big games appear to be idiots :/
Batman Arkham Asylum has wayyyyyyyyy more functions than buttons available, but it seems to do a very good job of mapping them all and having them easily accessable. It didn't feel the need to have Batman do only 5 things.



I know I don't. Artifical limits on cameras fuck me off. I was frustrated by World in Conflict, where even though you you control at most 6 units at a time (in multiplayer) , the camera was zomoed in so much. Thankfully everyone else felt the same and the game was later patched to let you zoom out so far taht all you could see were clouds

Disagree. Homeworld, COH and DOW2 are some of the best RTS games to date. (They're also all made by Relic )
2 of them don't really feature base building, and one of them only has it as an excuse to limit the types of units you build and to stage them our further, widening your tactics.



You sound like someone who has no idea how to build a complex system, or moreover have any idea what working in a productive business is like. If the manager says "It'll have this feature", it'll damn well have it. No 'effort' or 'laziness' involved. Do you slander everything that doesn't confine to your narrow views?

They made a second one, you know?

I'd put DoW > DoW2, but only because I'm fucking good at it


I can't figure out which two you're talking about. You have bases in Homeworld and COH.

Have you tried R.U.S.E? It's in free Beta on Steam at the moment.

You have a mothership and I suppose you can build a research thingy. Is that really 'a base' ? Especially as it can move! In multiplayer you can warp it to the other side of the map, for instance.

Other RTS games have moveable bases.