Command & Conquer: Generals Preview

After being dumped back to the lobby I found another game starting up and joined, this time as the Chinese. This round went much better for me as I was more familiar with the interface and I reminded myself to build better defenses before venturing out. After getting things squared away at my base, I started heading out in search of another supply dump I had spotted on the mini map and began guiding my tanks through small urban area with roads and several buildings. My tanks started taking fire. I was trying to locate the enemy when I realized the fire was coming from INSIDE one of the buildings! That's right, one of my opponent's had moved a squad of his ground troops inside and occupied the buildings leading to the supply dump. It was a great ambush and made me laugh in surprise. Then I blew the Hell out of the building until it went up in flames and his soldiers had to bail out. After dispatching his troops, I figured, if loading a building with troops worked for him, it could work for me. So I built a bunch of ground troops and moved them into the buildings surrounding my new supply dump. I was feeling pretty secure as I drove off several attempts by the other guys to take the supply dump back. That is, until a Chinook helicopter came thump-thumping over my building and 6 zip lines came out. US Rangers came out of the helicopter, down the lines and into the building where they quickly dealt with my troops. It was all down hill from there. A huge beam of light came stabbing out of the sky back at my base and wiped out my war factory and barracks. Then the enemy planes came in and cleaned up what was left behind. I was back in the lobby and a developer was grinning at me over his monitor at another table. Again, I had to laugh. I was having a blast.

If you have a healthy retirement plan, don’t choose this holiday resort. It appears to be full.

The conventional C&C traffic jam.

I decided I had to try to GLA. I jumped into another game and started getting familiar with the new units and buildings. The first thing I had to get used to was that the GLA does not have power plants. All of their fire defenses are human powered. Vehicles are purchased through a black market building and look like something out of the road warrior, with pickup trucks and modified vans that trundle around the map. The nastiest trick I was able to use with the GLA was making use of their tunnel network. You build on of these at your base and then can build more anywhere else on the map. Putting troops into the network allows you to bring them out, instantly, anywhere else that you have another tunnel network. Putting one at the back of an enemy's base allowed me to catch him by surprise and capture several of his buildings which I quickly sold off. TAKE THAT!!! He rallied and destroyed my tunnel network behind his base but he made a small mistake. The tunnel network, when destroyed leaves behind a small hole that if not further attacked will begin rebuilding itself into another tunnel network after a few minutes. These guys are like cockroaches. I did not do very well with the GLA, but one of the developers reassured me they are the hardest, yet most rewarding group to play.

We were able to play for three hours before everything was wrapped up for the night. The only problems I saw were a few synching issues that actually caused us to get kicked out of the game and back to the lobby. Also there were issues with the A.I. Soldiers would sometimes stand idly by as enemy units passed within arm's reach. Both of these should be resolved in short time we were told.

Before the evening ended, I also took a look at the map/mission editor. It's a power utility that allows the user to create maps, but it also comes with a script editor and access to all the scripts that were used to create the single player missions, so you can create your own campaigns. It's another great addition to a product that appears to promise a great multiplayer experience. I left the EA campus with a warm feeling knowing that the Saturday all night LAN fests were not long away. Now, how to break it to the wife?

Factions and their perks:

The US force, specializes in high tech military hardware and gadgets

The Chinese war machine which relies on brute force to overwhelm others

The Global Liberation Army (The GLA), a terrorist force that uses a combination of low-tech units, biological warfare, and subterfuge to wreck havoc on the other side.