Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars Review

The game is quite polished and treats players to an impressive range of colorful special effects, maintaining a solid frame-rate even on modest rigs (like the one I was playing on - Athlon 64 3000+, Radeon 9800 XT and 1 GB of RAM). Audio quality measures up to EA's earlier work. Next to a cool soundtrack and a diversity of vocal responses for each unit, it was interesting to watch real-life actors playing out the dialogue during numerous FMV sequences.

Smoke em out!

Buzz off, alien scum!

The multiplayer can engulf you in a thrilling 8-player match, playable via LAN or Internet. We rather enjoyed the game's Battlecast mode, through which players may broadcast their matches online and even designate a commentator. Customization options for matches and maps are somewhat scarce though. It's possible to tweak a handful of parameters such as the inclusion of random crates, the amount of starting credits and so on.

Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars sticks to RTS standards, but without making the whole experience feel stale or corny. Mark my words, C&C 3 is a real-time strategy well worth your time. Set in an appealing universe, it manages to reel you in with superb design and, naturally, first-rate production value. The single-player campaign is immense fun and lengthy enough even for hardcore strategy gamers. For a company that took the phrase "milking the cash cow" to infinite heights, EA sure as hell knows how to make the most out of a long-term franchise. Because of all these advantages, it's a shame the game doesn't bring any fresh elements or ideas to a considerably hackneyed genre. Still, believe it or not, that won't stop you from enjoying it.

To cut a long story short, you can say what you want about the king of franchise milkage, but the fact remains that this is yet another noteworthy addition to the Command and Conquer license. With enough content to entangle you into an exciting single-player campaign and a satisfying multiplayer experience, C&C 3 is a strategy game I'd advise you all to pick up.

Just to remind you, Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars is also making its way to the Xbox 360, as part of EA's continued effort to bring its strategy games to next-generation consoles. Expect the game to ship in May 2007. We'll have to wait another month to see how that one turns out.