Command & Conquer 4: A dud?

[Kromis]

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/commandandconquer4

Early reviews are starting to scare me...

 

[dguy6789]

C&C has become a yearly refresh type of game like Madden or any other sports game. It's no longer the C&C we knew and loved.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

Command and Conquer has been a dud for a long time now.

 

[ussfletcher]

Red Alert 2 was the last great C&C game..

 

[TechBoyJK]

I like generals/zero hour.

 

[dguy6789]

I liked Generals too. It was very different, but I still thought it was excellent. Didn't care for C&C 3 and RA3 anywhere near as much.

 

[Cogman]

The worst thing that happened to C&C was EA getting their hands on it. It used to be such a good game franchise

Generals was OK, after that, trash. (Generals was way too buggy IMO)

 

[Maximilian]

Red Alert 2 was the last great C&C game..

This.

C&C4 is a joke.

 

[allthatisman]

C&C 3 was a great game... It was visually great looking and the story(while sort of corny) was good for an RTS. The multiplayer was way buggy, and I hated what EA did by balancing and re-balancing to the point where GDI was totally neutered. Red Alert 3 was the same for me... good amount of campy-ness(which I like)... George Takei... and over the top units, and even more so with the expansion.

Tiberium Twilight on the other hand... I am very skeptical because they changed a lot about the base mechanics and the way the game has been played for well over a decade. I personally like the single player campaigns and always wish they were longer, but that is just me. I will still likely buy this one, but I am skeptical.

 

[Maximilian]

C&C 3 was a great game... It was visually great looking and the story(while sort of corny) was good for an RTS. The multiplayer was way buggy, and I hated what EA did by balancing and re-balancing to the point where GDI was totally neutered. Red Alert 3 was the same for me... good amount of campy-ness(which I like)... George Takei... and over the top units, and even more so with the expansion.

Tiberium Twilight on the other hand... I am very skeptical because they changed a lot about the base mechanics and the way the game has been played for well over a decade. I personally like the single player campaigns and always wish they were longer, but that is just me. I will still likely buy this one, but I am skeptical.

Here we have an example of C&C4's target market ---^

People who cant tell good game from bad game.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Has it been consolized or is it PC only?

 

[Martimus]

Red Alert 2 was the last great C&C game..

RA2 sucked bad enough I couldn't force myself to finish the game. And this was after playing probably thousands of games with C&C: Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert. I would say that Red Alert was the last great C&C game, but I liked C&C 3 much better than RA2 or Tiberian Sun. None of them are as good as the original though. (Never played Generals, as RA2 and Tiberian Sun were bad enough that I lost interest in the franchise by then.)

 

[allthatisman]

Here we have an example of C&C4's target market ---^

People who cant tell good game from bad game.

Lol, whatever...

Since I don't know what games you like, you have me at a loss. I enjoyed the games, if you actually played those games and still hated them, well sorry you paid money for them...

so what do you consider to be a good game?

 

[JTsyo]

Probably pick it up in year or two just to finish up the series. Played everything but Generals so $20 is worth it to see how it all ends.

 

[clok1966]

RTS has went the way of RPG's, MMORPG, FPS.. all of it. its been so simplified for the 10 second generation we have nowdays. Some simplification or game mechanics need refreshing and updateing, but so many games are just "easy" now.

RPG's used to require hours and hours, lots of real thought had to go into skill upgrades when to sell and use stuff, should i buy more pots at store, you controled every one of the 3-6 in your party. Now days you run one person, hit "attack" alot and last 20-40 hours.

FPS dont have actual health, you just retreat heal in 2-5 seconds and and kill one guy repeat till you have killed that room of 30 bad guys. In the old days they dropped you in a room with 30 guys, limited health and you killed um all or redid it.

RTS, no micro manangment (some will say imporovment, me I say no) no resource controling, no managing your units .. just build a mass and rush um nowdays (of course that worked in old days too, depending on opponent).

I love almost any RTS (almost) and most the C&C games where good, ok and so-so.. none im sorry I played.

When Westwood was shelled, destoyed and the left overs taken over by EA .... it was the end of greatness, but some of the old ideas hung in there for awhile.

I am sad to hear C&C4 is no good (if true).. personally RA II is my favorite, so many ways to win, and lose but thats opinion only.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Personally, the first of the series I played was Generals and Zero Hour. I liked them, but they were some of the first games I played, so it was all new and interesting to me. I thought Command and Conquer 3 was OK. Didnt care for Red Alert 3 or Kane's Wrath.
The absolute worst was the downloadable expansion Red Alert 3 Uprising.
Anyway, I just saw gamespot gave CandC 4 a 7.0 rating, but havent read the full review. I want to play both C and C 4 and Supreme Commander 2, but will probably wait for a sale or for the price to just come down.

 

[KaOTiK]

Personally, the first of the series I played was Generals and Zero Hour. I liked them, but they were some of the first games I played, so it was all new and interesting to me. I thought Command and Conquer 3 was OK. Didnt care for Red Alert 3 or Kane's Wrath.
The absolute worst was the downloadable expansion Red Alert 3 Uprising.
Anyway, I just saw gamespot gave CandC 4 a 7.0 rating, but havent read the full review. I want to play both C and C 4 and Supreme Commander 2, but will probably wait for a sale or for the price to just come down.

Save money and play now, buy Supreme Commander Gold package.
I can't recommend SC2, it honestly shouldn't have even used the SC name and started an entirely new franchise.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Just read several of the reviews from the metacritic site (slow day at work). Seems the game is more centered toward co-op and online play with a weak single player campaign and not a very exciting wrap up for Kane. This is disappointing to me, since I play mainly for the single player campaign, and wanted to see an exciting end to Kane's saga.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Save money and play now, buy Supreme Commander Gold package.
I can't recommend SC2, it honestly shouldn't have even used the SC name and started an entirely new franchise.

I did play Supreme Commander and liked it a lot. Didn't play Forged Alliance though. I played the demo for SC2 and it was OK, but left me with a ho-hum feeling.

 

[allthatisman]

Personally, the first of the series I played was Generals and Zero Hour. I liked them, but they were some of the first games I played, so it was all new and interesting to me. I thought Command and Conquer 3 was OK. Didnt care for Red Alert 3 or Kane's Wrath.
The absolute worst was the downloadable expansion Red Alert 3 Uprising.
Anyway, I just saw gamespot gave CandC 4 a 7.0 rating, but havent read the full review. I want to play both C and C 4 and Supreme Commander 2, but will probably wait for a sale or for the price to just come down.

Yeah Uprising was pretty lame... they did bring back the General's Challenge though, which I always thought was fun. The units were all way too powerful, expecially the floating head, which was just stupid alltogether.

I have yet to tackle SupCom 2, but it looks amazing. The way I see it: C&C was more of a "fun" RTS and not mean't to be taken very seriously... games like Supreme Commander and Anno 1404, etc are more strategy. Both are good in their own respects, but it's all about what you are looking for in a game.

 

[AlgaeEater]

I was looking forward to SupCom2 AND C&C4 back in December.

Talk about kicking a guy when he's down.

 

[Maximilian]

Has it been consolized or is it PC only?

Its PC only surprisingly but its still garbage. I think C&C3 and RA3 failed to make good sales on the consoles so they just didnt bother this time round.

It pains me to think of what we could have had now if EA never got their claws into westwood.

 

[Regs]

I can't believe c&c is 15 years old all ready. Either way - it does need to die.

The original fans of c&c are mostly between the ages of 24-40 by now. At our age, who wants to hear this story anymore that is obviously targeted for young teenagers? Recapturing a market segment is no easy task, but the formula of childish clichés and bad AI/path finding won't work with many ages.

Now if they stuck with real-time strategy....with more realistic and goal orientated strategic objectives....perhaps they would capture more of the market instead of 11 or 12 year olds.

I have no interest being randomly put in different settings on a global map with no particular relevance or any sense of a military objective or purpose. There is always some super machine you have to stop in Asia, a missile silo with a dooms day device in Africa, or a town getting razed in Europe. Why can't there only be on theater when there could be several different out comes after completing a mission? In this day in age, the production quality of Command and Conquer is poor and it's painfully obvious with each subsequent sequel.

 

[pontifex]

Command and Conquer has been a dud for a long time now.

I was just coming in to post this same exact comment.

 

[Zenoth]

In my book I still believe that the very best of all the C&C franchise is C&C 2, a.k.a. Tiberian Sun, and of course Tiberian Dawn is still a classic, and I really liked it since it obviously started it all, but it reached some epic proportions especially on-line back then with Tiberian Sun, can anyone remember the on-line World Domination with per-day dynamic changes to the world map based on wins and loses throughout the world? That was unheard of in those days, it didn't last long, granted, but it was extremely fun in my opinion.

I think that C&C 3 is actually good, especially with Kane's Wrath, in fact Kane's Wrath's campaign brought us back during the Tiberian Sun events for some missions which I thought was brilliant since it finally connected C&C 3 to the previous installment in a more dramatic way than vanilla C&C 3 did (if it wasn't for Kane himself we might have mistaken the game for something else than a C&C product in some parts, well I think so anyway), overall it wasn't bad at all, now of course the good ol' path-finding issues were still there and the idling harvesters made their glorious come back, but those issues are now part of the franchise as much as suiciding generals and nonsense diplomacy is part of the Total War franchise, there are those things that seem to never go away from specific products in the video gaming market, like signature issues.

The "demise" of the franchise did not start directly due to EA however, and that's something lots of so called C&C fans seem to forget, no one today seem to recall the first impressions of Yuri's Revenge or the disappointments of Renegade, no one wanted Yuri to have his own unfitting army of slavers and UFOs, he was just a nuisance to deal with, had it been considered more seriously by Westwood Yuri would have gotten his own campaign, not to mention that Yuri's army was generally considered "noob friendly" on-line, and you were often kicked out of a lobby if you ever dared taking his faction for any matches, and no one wanted Renegade to fail for the majority, it seemed fresh - and it was to some extent - but it ultimately went down the drain, well at least vanilla Renegade did, though the modding community managed to keep it alive by intubation, and EA themselves back then were never involved in the actual development process.

I really liked Westwood like everyone else, but objectively speaking they did make mistake as well, not only EA, and as much as it pains me to admit it, yes, the entire franchise has been a dud for some time already, either I like it or not it won't matter, it's true, but I liked C&C 3 better than anything I've seen from C&C 4, and I preferred Red Alert 3 over Yuri's Revenge, so for me EA's only total failure with the franchise is C&C 4, the rest is acceptable despite the obvious mishaps, but then again nothing is perfect. I do believe that the C&C franchise had to finish however, or at least the Kane/Tiberium story-arc, it was about time, in fact I always thought that Kane died at the end of Tiberian Dawn, he kind of tasted an Ion Cannon blast with both arms open ready to deal with death, who would have thought... fifteen years later and we're still talking about that story. It's like Half-Life, it started in 1998 and we still don't know who the heck is the G-Man twelve years later, so much for story-telling.