Generally boring

C&C: Generals is the least amount of fun I've had whilst playing a Command & Conquer game. It marked EA's first foray into the franchise and left me seriously worried about what the future held for some of my favourite RTS games. It focuses on three new armies and a world that's completely new to the C&C universe where you play as either the United States of Technology (USA), The People's Republic of Brute Force (China) or the Guerilla Warfare Terrorists (GLA).

Generals focuses on much more realistic combat, but this somehow manages to suck some of the fun out of playing. Two of my biggest disappointments in the game were how universally pointless infantry were, and how prevalent your superweapons are. Each faction has its own specific superweapon, but they can build as many of them as they like, meaning it's quite possible to win every mission just by sitting back and constructing 30 nuclear warhead silos before unleashing them all at once (on top of your support powers!).

Unlike previous C&Cs, there were barely any cinematics between missions, meaning the story was not very well revealed at all. I found myself absolutely not caring about either faction or the state of the planet as a whole as the story was revealed without any urgency or compassion. And you always kind of know that the GLA isn't going to beat the US and China, game developers surely wouldn't allow such a thing!

Whilst the game isn't really bad, it just never captured me and I really struggled to have FUN with it. There are scenes of beautiful destruction and tank battles feel a bit more realistic, but the terrain, the troops, the story, the factions and the outcomes just aren't interesting in the slightest. It's just a mad rush to build up enough of an army before a) your resources run out or b) you get superweaponed into oblivion. If it didn't bear the C&C name I'd probably feel less contempt towards it.

5/10

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Added by Grand Assault 4 months ago on 2 August 2009 08:16