Posted by
William on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 5:19:23 PM
There are three computer game series that I really enjoy playing. Two are by Blizzard Entertainment: Starcraft and Diablo. The others are the Command and Conquer games by EA (originated by Westwood Studios).
Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars is designed to run on high-end computers. (There is also an Xbox 360 version available.) My oldest son has 256 MB of RAM on his machine and the demo (1.1 GB) won’t even install on his computer. It needs at least a gig of RAM on XP and more on Vista.
Officially the program is only supported on 32-bit operating systems of Windows XP or Vista but it works great on my 64-bit Vista Home Premium. The only catch is that I needed to download the newest game patch to get it to run. When I start the game, it seems to have trouble finding the game DVD but once I click on Retry it runs great. The program never has crashed. Some gaming websites have indicated that the game has trouble with its AutoSave feature so saving the game is a good idea.
My only complaint is that some missions are difficult because they must be approached in a certain way or you meet with a quick and untimely death at higher levels. The walkthrough has been very valuable in this regard.
After you play all GDI (Global Defense Initiative) and NOD missions then you get to play the Scrin. The Scrin are aliens that are drawn to the Tiberium and fight all humans to control this resource. They appear in the middle of each storyline that you battle. There are about 15 missions for GDI and NOD and four as the Scrin. It seems that you are being setup for one or more expansion packs at the end of the game.
Each mission has both core objectives and optional ones as well. Many of the optional portions of the mission are designed to make life easier the get through that level. After playing the game for a while, read the guide that can with the game DVD and you might find more information to help you through the game.
The graphics in the game are great. The units and texture of the maps is highly detailed. If you have a mouse with scroll capability, you can zoom in and out on the action. The cut scenes have some familiar faces from Star Wars, House, and Battlestar Galactica just to name a few.
The weapons consist of air and ground forces. The navy is poorly represented in this game. As NOD, I have destroyed two aircraft carriers tied to the pier. The troops, tanks and other weapons are fun to use. Some you have seen in previous C & C games and some are new. The NOD Avatars are fun. They are killer robots the size of buildings that can acquire technology from other NOD vehicles and shoot lasers. The Scrin have a similar weapon and some wicked flying aircraft carriers. The carriers remind me of the Protoss carriers in Starcraft.
I give the game high marks and recommend that you buy it.