- Nov 16, 2006
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There is something about a well made RTS game/campaign that scratches that itch just right. Quickly building and teching up early. Repelling the initial enemy attacks. Executing a well planned counter attack. Quickly adapting to changing battlefield conditions. Crippling the enemy. That leisurely mop up operation after the enemy builder units/structures have been destroyed. Being so overwhelmingly in control of the battlefield that you just chew through subsequent map triggers without a second thought.
Kane's Wrath is the last classic base building style RTS in the Command and Conquer series, right before Command and Conquer 4 decided to throw the baby, the bathwater, hell the whole bathtub right out the window. A quick 13 mission campaign played exclusively from the point of view of the global terrorist organization NOD and their leader Kane (no GDI or Scrin campaign at all). The game's story stretches from after the events of C&C 2 Tiberium Sun and its expansion Firestorm, through C&C 3's main campaign, and lastly as a sort of epilogue to the main game's campaign.
The classic campy live action segments between missions are present in full force, though a bit tighter in focus now on account of this being an expansion. It introduces a faction system for both GDI and NOD which introduces a number of fun new (or old) units to use. Otherwise its the same fun old Command and Conquer formula everyone knows and loves: soft counters, more emergent gamplay than the more tournament focused RTS games, generally more focused on being fun than being ultra balanced between factions.
Like C&C 3 the game's campaign does suffer from some post MP patch balancing issues, which result in some absurd difficulty spikes in random missions throughout the game, but not nearly as badly as the original campaign which varied between cake walk and nightmare difficulties. The missions are not always well constructed, sometimes requiring some amount of trial and error and essentially foresight to see how different mission triggers would change the ultimate objective. Like many RTS campaigns, there was definitely some amount of save scumming involved, but ultimately as you use the old muscle you begin to remember to wait before completing and objective and heavily building up forces between setting off mission triggers.
I find my love of RTS games returning slowly but surely. They were out of my rotation for more immediately satisfying and less potentially frustrating genres, but its really is hard to get that feeling of satisfaction/rush from dismantling the enemy and slowly hunting down their remnants to end a mission.
Kane's Wrath is the last classic base building style RTS in the Command and Conquer series, right before Command and Conquer 4 decided to throw the baby, the bathwater, hell the whole bathtub right out the window. A quick 13 mission campaign played exclusively from the point of view of the global terrorist organization NOD and their leader Kane (no GDI or Scrin campaign at all). The game's story stretches from after the events of C&C 2 Tiberium Sun and its expansion Firestorm, through C&C 3's main campaign, and lastly as a sort of epilogue to the main game's campaign.
The classic campy live action segments between missions are present in full force, though a bit tighter in focus now on account of this being an expansion. It introduces a faction system for both GDI and NOD which introduces a number of fun new (or old) units to use. Otherwise its the same fun old Command and Conquer formula everyone knows and loves: soft counters, more emergent gamplay than the more tournament focused RTS games, generally more focused on being fun than being ultra balanced between factions.
Like C&C 3 the game's campaign does suffer from some post MP patch balancing issues, which result in some absurd difficulty spikes in random missions throughout the game, but not nearly as badly as the original campaign which varied between cake walk and nightmare difficulties. The missions are not always well constructed, sometimes requiring some amount of trial and error and essentially foresight to see how different mission triggers would change the ultimate objective. Like many RTS campaigns, there was definitely some amount of save scumming involved, but ultimately as you use the old muscle you begin to remember to wait before completing and objective and heavily building up forces between setting off mission triggers.
I find my love of RTS games returning slowly but surely. They were out of my rotation for more immediately satisfying and less potentially frustrating genres, but its really is hard to get that feeling of satisfaction/rush from dismantling the enemy and slowly hunting down their remnants to end a mission.
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