If your reading this review, first of all, you should know that i have something against EA, and since EA made C&C 3 without and help from the old Westwood employees, i was pretty damn sceptical of the game, even though I've been palying CNC games since i was a wee lad of 6. I have made my tours of the Tiberium dawn to the battle fields of Urban America and back to Moscow in RA and RA 2. Basically i've played them all and as such, i heavily base this opinion back onto them. I am also a very sentimental person, and do like old things that have worked, so bear that in mind also. As such, this review is VERY critical.
Bottom line is, CNC 3 made me want to play all the other CNC games. (Except Regenegade (F) and Generals (F-).
Lets start with what i loved most of the CNC games. The cinematics. If anyone remembers the old cinematics featuring Kane and the very fun to watch, Stalin, you can see the acting has gone from decent, to stupid funny (RA 2), to semi serious (Tiberum Sun) to disaster, CNC 3.
I can only explain my hatred for the acting in CNC as it trying to be way to serious. I felt that it wasn't intimate anymore, and not in a homosexual kind of way. Before it was a one on one thing, or something that involved you and only a few other important characters, (Einstine, Tanya, etc) CNC 3, yes does involve only a few characters that you speak too, but their performance is lack lusting, stupid and unconvincing. Even Kane whom i always admired to be able to pull the job off failed to impress. The new General, whatever his name is pathetic in trying to pull of a CNC act. They should have stuck to General Soloman. Other acting quirps, the dude that is your filed breifer when you play NOD, god he annoys me, like some stupid hill billy. They have turned punk ass and have removed and lost the style they once had. The sets for the cinematics are also stupid and cheesy and very much lose the dramatic tension that could have been there (I say this as i study theatre). And finally, their becoming lazy. If anyone remembers, during the old school days of CNC, when you lost there was a cinematic. Wheres it gone? Now it just comes up with, "Do you wish to restart" or something along those lines. Pfft.
But wow, the dissapointment from Kane really pisses me off.
OK, so lets talk about the game itself. If this game had no affliation with the CNC world, i guess it would be a pretty below average game already. Something along sides of a C grading.
As mention in many other reviews, the pathfinding is absolute crap. Bloody harvester keep on going to tiberium fields near the enemy base when theres one on the other side of your base. Infantry are also pretty stupid by walking into the Tiberium fields. When one actually does engage with the enemy, its dissapointing. The simple and humble rifle infantry has gone from "Hey their kinda cool" (Tiberium Sun) to "Wtf, are those just sticks on them?" (Generals) to now, "Wow they look like absolute douche bags". The modelling is serious in need of some decent artists and so do nearly every other infantry. Why do Nod also only have Militant forces ?! I feel that EA decided "Oh, lets make them look differnt, and uglier even though they are the excact same unit as GDI". The missle squads also look like **** and so do the engineers and the saboturs for Nod. Sniper teams suck from what i can tell and arent like what they should be like in RA 2 or like the commando in CNC.
So thats infantry, Vehicles i have to say, are not bad looking. The preadator tank is pretty shoddy though, and annoys me, and so does the pit bull which is swear is taken from Generals. The mammoth tank makes a nice comeback, but its such a small thing. Nod's vehicles are pretty meh, why do they change the name of Recon bike to Attack bike? Again, stupid and pointless. Might as well make a new unit altogether you lazy *****, EA. The flying units i have to say are also pretty damn gay. The Orca are kind of passive and have failed to retain that CNC soul in it.
Which leads me to one very big jib about structures,
My god the buildings are ABSOLUTE COW DUNG. Anyone remember the MCV and the construction yard? The MCV has turned into some stupid looking insect like vehicle and what is up with the Airfield and Barrack bascially looking alike? There has been so many times ive been confused on which structure is which (Until there are Orcas on the airfield). And what is up with the hand of nod and that random orange ball. Again, stupid and pointless. And no Obelisk of light?! GASP. HERESY i say, the Obelisk of light was one of the most symbolic structures of Nod. Instead we're replaced with some stupid 'strucutre' of 3 towers all connected to some central building. Nod base defences are pretty shocking too. You think in the future we would have gone pass the use of bullets for anti air weapoonry and start using missiles. Why are there stupid looking watch towers that look like it can be run over? What happened to being able to construct simple concrete walls or the very cool fire storm wall? What have you done EA?!?!!?!?
So, gameplay. Hmm, well i have to say its what i expect from any RTS, nothing special. Which i might add is totally fine. I always thought as an RTS, the CNC chain (Except for generals which is absolute ****) always delivered fast pace action, simple fun, bing, bang ,boom. Somehow i feel CNC 3 is feeling a bit slow and if i may say, laggy. You dont really feel like your advancing much and its just a bit of a bore. Some creativity please. But you say. "Piracer, they have been creative, things look differnt and you can do fancy new moves". True, but, substanitally, i see there is no improvement, but infact, went back further into the dung pits. Like i said, i rather play CNC 1 instead of this.
Which leads me to one of the biggest issues i have with CNC 3. Left click movement is gone. What the hell. Again, this might seem trivial too many of you out there, but I was a person that grew up on CNC and its left click. It was something again, i felt that made it differnt to other RTS such as Warcraft of AoE. Why did they succumb to the right click!?!!? Grrr. Honestly, when i played the demo and i realised it was right click, i knew it was gonna be crap.
So, thats the end of my review, i hope its been useful.
One final thing i might add thats been annoying me is all the good reviews that this game has had. A 90% from PC Gamer? Christ, i bet you EA bribed them into getting that rating. Anyway, dont buy CNC like i did, download it if you want to play it.
