GDI + Nod + Scrin = thrice the fun!

With objective markers, talking heads and these spy camera shots cued in to guide you, you'll know exactly what to do in each mission

The game contains three single-player campaigns, one of which is unlocked when the other two are completed. The plots are interlocked, and they portray the world-spanning Third Tiberium War from different angles. Both GDI and Nod campaigns are available for play immediately, although the game suggests playing the GDI campaign first, as it contains tutorial missions to get you up to speed with the different units and tactics of C&C3. I was happy to find that tutorial-style missions only appear in one of the campaigns, because no player should have to sit through three servings of the same basic training (which was the case with Supreme Commander). C&C3 has a nice, separate tutorial as well, so adjusting the learning curve for even just the GDI campaign was a little redundant.

The existence of a third faction, the Scrin, was made public some time before C&C3 was launched. The Scrin make an appearance as enemies in both GDI and Nod campaigns. Having them as a playable faction in multiplayer and skirmish modes also made sense, but a bonus Scrin campaign shows that the C&C3 team was willing to go the extra mile and create enough content for a complete package. Without spoiling the plot, I think it's safe to say that you can expect a climactic ending that still leaves the door open for expansions or yet another sequel. But we're talking about Command & Conquer here, so that's only to be expected. My only gripe with the campaigns is that they are strictly linear: the player can make one decision that branches the plot, but that's very late in the GDI campaign. The game creates an illusion of choice by letting you select between missions, but you'll still have to complete all the missions to move the plot forward.

It's fun to recreate your favorite scenes from Starship Troopers

As units gain experience, their firepower and endurance increases

While they're easy to forget about in multiplayer games, C&C3's new and improved unit tactics are great for task force-style single player missions and multiplayer games with limited resources. Tactics come to play when you cannot afford to lose too many units, and happily the game has several such missions. The extreme case is commando missions, where you disable the enemy's anti-aircraft capability, blow up an aircraft carrier and generally wreak havoc with a single special forces unit. The commando missions follow exactly the same pattern as those in the original Command & Conquer. The first mission where the commando is featured makes him (GDI's gruff soldier) or her (Nod's whimsical killer) seem invulnerable, while later missions make the odds a lot steeper by putting your commando up against vehicles and infantry in almost insurmountable numbers. Full of puzzles and very delicate and careful gameplay, the commando missions are almost like a mini-game within C&C3.

As long as your system is up to snuff, C&C3's gameplay is very fast and fluid. Units react to commands immediately, and pathfinding calculations are done en route. The pathfinding AI isn't the best we've seen though: maps with choke points cause major problems, with units choosing the long route and sometimes even getting stuck. Nothing's more annoying than when your marching forces get confused because of a hill or some other map feature, get scattered, and the enemy then picks off the stragglers piecemeal. If you don't constantly babysit your infantry, they will keep walking into deadly Tiberium fields and wither away. Likewise, even Tiberium-proofed infantry still triggers a misleading "Tiberium exposure detected" message. All in all, you can never stop looking after your precious units, and you should definitely set frequent waypoints whenever moving units over long distances.