Napalm Riot

Old grudge of mine, but this game already loses points for being part of the Command and Conquer series under Electronic Arts. I will never forgive EA for buying out Westwood, my favorite gaming company until they vanished overnight.

Anyhow Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars was a nice 'blast from the past' sort of experience, whereas I found Command and Conquer Generals to be an utter joke. The original release of that game lacked a storyline to the campaign mode. Regardless, I enjoyed the old Command & Conquer/Red Alert play style imbued in this game. However, I found EA didn't push the boundaries on this game, as if they just packaged what Westwood built an empire on and changed the story around. Another gripe with the game is the lack of the Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun feel. You know, the mechanized units and the heavy armored infantry units. It pretty much felt like a Red Alert propelled 100 years in the future, not the futuristic barren wasteland planet Earth depicted in previous C&C games.

The graphics were ok. In all my years of playing C&C/RA aside from the early games, I don't see much progress in graphics, aside from the improvements that should be expected... It's like I'm saying we didn't see anything except expected inflation if you want to compare it to economics. It was dull. The cinematics were jokes too, love low budget projects... And wow, come to think of it now, the Nod field agent is Sawyer from Lost! Hah! I started watching Lost after I beat this game.

The sounds are just like any other C&C game and for this reason, like the reasons in the paragraph above, I found nothing innovated except what would be expected.

The controls were good. I'm a clicker with C&C games but I started assigning squads to my units and that really helped coordinate smoother attacks and it helped me move units who moved at different speeds from one another. Aside from that saving grace, nothing too amazing here.

The story was just like that of any other C&C installment. Nod attack, GDI defend, GDI tries to kill Kane, GDI thinks Kane dies, Kane is still alive. Surprise? The story was cliche and lacking. What else is there to say? It's EA, they forgot a storyline in Generals, why should we expect anything better than half-assed in any later games?

despite my gripes the game is still fun. I really just enjoyed going back to a RTS type game that honestly, I haven't played since RA2:YR. It was a nice little game, nostalgic, but that's all it was. It didn't imbue the series with new vigor, that died when Westwood died.

Replay value... Low. It's my EA gripe, but all in all, once again I'm going to cite my nostalgia argument. Sure i enjoyed it feeling like the old games, but there was nothing new to hook me into to playing it other anything else that's currently out.