Command Conquer: Generals PC Review

Let me begin by remembering the wonderful, 5 page long Generals review that I’d done – with screenshots, but was lost in the Great Hard-disk Clearout of three weeks ago.

The Command and Conquer series has been going for a long while now, since the early 1990s. There have been many games and many add-ons and the inevitable hacks. But for Red Alert 2, an unofficial map editor seemed to become the official one almost over night. And just as soon as Red Alert 2 came and went, Generals was in the spotlight for about a year, anticipated by fans everywhere.

The idea of Generals is the same as all the other Command and Conquer games, you are in control of your own little army and you have to fight a war against the enemy. There have been new additions to the gameplay this time, with a “Generals promotion” feature where you get points, with which you can buy special items for use in that one battle. Also the bases are more “Age of Empires style” with builders going around building your structures wherever you please, but the loss of walls has been tragic to people like me, who like having a clear entrance and exit to our bases.

Graphics

The graphics of Generals are a vast improvement on Red Alert 2’s, this time round we have a nice new 3d engine, which I think Emperor: Battle for Dune was a test-game for this engine, but the graphics are neat and nice. The engine isn’t the best, you’ll need a high spec PC to play this game, and maybe Westwood should’ve opted to use the Warcraft III graphics engine. The little men are ugly, to say the least, they are crude, quickly made and have a cuboid for a gun. The vehicles and everything else is fantastic.

Gameplay

The gameplay is the same as every other game, only that more time must be spent in Defences and you don’t start with the usual 12 units. You have to rapidly build defences though, because if you have a hard enemy they’ll come with a force of about 3 tanks in the first 10 minutes. The general feel of the game is great and it’s very engrossing. Also the disposal of the Refinery and Ore/tiberium harvesting has gone, and now it’s supply routes, where you get trucks, chinooks or workers to get supplies from a dock. Or if you are the USA you can do that and get a supply drop zone where UN money will be dropped every so often.

Sound

The sounds are beautiful and give the feel of a real battlezone. The sounds are authentic and crisp, wind howls around high hills, rivers trickle their beautiful sound, markets are full of noise and the angry mob heading to your base makes a nice angry sound…

Lifespan

This game will last for ages, with 3 teams to do the campaign with, many maps and different enemy tactics and difficulties, you’ll be here for ages! You’ll be playing this until, and after, the next game comes out.

Flaws

There aren’t really many flaws, apart from all those that have led there to be 5 patches already – most are minute. But the stupid world builder has, what seems, 100000000 steps to take to actually make a map – THEN IT DOESN’T WORK!!! Shame…

Overall

The game is fantastically produced, a bit over priced, and needing 2 different versions for a LAN game between 2 computers that are 10 metres apart, but the game is great. A graphics hog system resources but are well worth it. Generals has been well and includes little twists here and there, strategic advantages on certain maps, supply routes needing protecting and more! The game is perfect, apart from a few graphics problems, removal of the walls and the lovely music.

10 out of 10