Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight Review

I have always played RTS games and while growing up I had a choice of quite a few to play, whether it was the great Age of Empires series or the Settlers series and of course how could I forget the Command and Conquer series. I don't know why but I've always enjoyed them, building your bases and getting your troops ready for a full scale attack. If FPS games are for gamers who like fast pace and action, then RTS games are for the planners of this world. There was always this element of planning and the fact that if things were not done correctly down to the last second you would either win or lose the battle, that's what made the game special to me.

So now EA have decided to mix things up and for this final chapter in this series (so they say) and they have changed how we should look at RTS games.

Like I've said RTS games have always been about building a base and defending it while your army goes off and tries to destroy the enemies base. However in this game you no longer have a base to build instead your whole base moves with your army as you move around the map. This new base is a Crawler which allows you to produce units or small defensive structures or even call in support depending on which type of the Crawlers you have selected to use. You see there isn't just one type that the player can use. Some times one of the three that you can use will be better on a certain map, During game you can also switch between these three different types of crawler which you have available to you. These are Offensive, Defensive and a Support Crawler.  

The Offence Class is focused on a tank-based, attacking style of play. This is all about the offensive and making sure you have a lot of momentum to attack and take out the enemy.
The Defence Class is focused on having you to build a few base defences such as turrets they also are the only class to have access to super-weapons.
The Support Class is focused on Air units and specialised vehicles to allow you to move around the environment. Also the support class has special powers in which to assist teammates.

Even with all of the choices you have it, still feels limited. This is perhaps due to the fact that you cant really have a lot of units in the battle at one time and this not only affects your strategies, but also how dramatic the battles look. Its kind of hard to jump into a system like this after playing previous Command and Conquer titles. To cope with the fact that there is no resource collecting in the game, players now take over way points which allow them to have more of an advantage across the map. This obviously allows the map to swing back and forth depending on how well you are coping with holding way points and trying to take over new ones. I have to say that at times the AI Crawlers just seem to keep moving and spawning enemies left right and centre in different places not allowing you to pin them down and make a firm defensive. I almost feel cheated in a sense that after I have wiped out an entire army, just to see the Crawler pick themselves up and move to a different location on the map to start all over again.  

Seem confusing? Well at first it was very much like buying your first car. You know it has an engine and a steering wheel yet everything else feels a little out of place. However the Storyline is brilliant and really does well to wrap up the final parts of the saga that has been progressing through-out this series of games. The game is split in between a prologue which is set 15 years after the Tiberium Wars, this is where the story starts and NOD Commander, Kane, the main baddie of the series, unexpectedly meets with the GDI, the main good guys, to try and propose a solution to how to contain the Tiberium which has been slowly been taking over the world since the last game. The game then jumps ahead 15 years later once this system has been put into place and how the factions themselves have been reacting to the system.

While you are playing through the campaign you will have a chance to gain experience to allow you to upgrade and unlock some of the more advanced units that appear through out the game. While it will take you most of the campaign to unlock the bigger and better units. I feel that most of these will be used in the Skirmish mode as well as the online play of the game. I must admit though I did feel a bit disappointed by the fact that I have to go and play the game to unlock the best units rather than have them all at once, this also means that if a friend of yours just wants to play you online they will be outnumbered and out gunned by not having the more advanced units. I would also like to point out that there isn't any naval battles at all, everything is either on land or in the air, and while C&C games haven't had this before, after the success and great ideas which happened with the naval system in Red Alert 3 it would of been nice for it to be included into the game.

The cinematics are true in the Command and Conquer sense. They are all done in a good style that has your normal sci-fi fan looking at them intently. Everything works out well and they really add to the storyline through out the whole of the game. All the voice acting is spot on and nothing seem forced or wooden in the whole of the cinematics.

The graphics are good but nothing to write home about, everything seems pretty much the same as some of the prior Command and Conquer games. The style has remained pretty much the same, there is a nice zoom rate on the game which allows you to see the whole battlefield. I just can't help feeling that due to the lack of buildings and units that you can have on the battlefield that everything feels a little barren; gone are the days of 40 or 50 units moving across a map looking so cool and awesome whilst you descend on the enemies base. The in-game UI has been updated and seems to have taken a leaf out of a lot of the other RTS titles out there as well as incorporating the style like the Command and Conquer Generals UI.

Also while we a looking at the negative about the game I must say that the new DRM system in this game is basically a joke. Unless you haven't heard about this you cannot play the game unless you are connected to the Internet. While this may not seem like a major problem as most people have the Internet at home, the problems it would cause if you are running this game on a laptop or even if you are one of the people who haven't got an Internet connection. The other issue I have found is that there is no LAN mode so you cannot directly link up with a friend over your network, instead you have to both be connected to the Internet to play a game.

With all the changes its quiet hard to think this is the same game that we have all known and loved. However the game itself is good and once you get past some of the flaws it is enjoyable to play. However, I wont be saying this is the best RTS game at the moment either, it was a nice idea but it feels like this has just been a swing and a miss.