Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight Review

16 Mar 2010 at 15:06:13 by Chris Hollis
Systems used to review this title: (PC)

Westwood Studios may be long gone but that hasn't stopped EA embracing one of the most popular strategy franchises ever created. It's now 2010 and it's hard to believe we are on the fourth game of the C&C strategy series. The previous titles had mixed responses, all solid RTS games but they never really broke any new ground in the genre.

Enter Command & Conquer 4, a game that hasn't had much hype considering the history and popularity of the franchise. EA has stepped up to the plate with this new C&C attempting to offer a new gameplay experience and it's definitely not quite what you'd expect.

Fans of the series will be chomping at the bit to find out what actually happens to the C&C world in what is being dubbed as the finale to the C&C universe that will reveal the fate of the planet Earth, Nod, Tiberium, GDI and of course the one and only baldy funny man: Kane. As I don't want to spoil what actually happens in the plot, I'll do my best to avoid all spoilers in the review.

There are the numerous differences between the previous C&C titles and this new addition so expect the unexpected. If you loved building massive bases and piling out tons of units then you can throw away your strategies, this game is quite different. Gone is the need to build established bases; you now have one single main building structure that builds all your units. Called the MCV Mark VII, this building structure is actually a mobile ‘Crawler' and can be moved around. This essentially changes the way you have to approach the game.

To make things a little more complicated there are three different types of MCV that define you role in the game, whether playing multiplayer or single player. Right at the start of each mission you're offered the choice of either selecting to play as an offensive, defensive or support class and each different class of MCV can build different types of units. To mix things up even more you can never be wiped out; if your MCV is destroyed you simply have the option to drop in a new one. These drops are limited in the single player campaign depending on the mission, but in multiplayer you can always get back into the action by dropping in a new MCV.

During the review session we wanted to see how important the different classes actually were depending on the mission because, in most cases, it is possible to complete a mission using any of the classes. The one class that struggled was the support class which is primarily made up of airborne units with weak ground support. This highlighted that the game appears to be well balanced when taking part in the single player campaigns.

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