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Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars

User Rating:

ESRB: Animated Blood,Language - Mild,Violence
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Genre(s): Strategy
Home Page: http://www.commandandconquer.com

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By: Antti Summala Apr 13, 2007

Final thoughts

Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars is a great game, but with some caveats. So much of the experience hinges on the great visuals and audio that playing the game on anything less than full graphics detail is a major detraction. For that full detail, you need a reasonably powerful system - I can't understand why EA chose not to publish a recommended system specification for the game. Just like any other high-definition entertainment today, you need to invest a fairly large amount of money to be able to enjoy C&C3 fully.

Levels load quickly, so you won't be staring at this screen for too long. Get the movie reference?

The other caveat is that C&C3 sticks religiously to its legacy. I love it when a game takes me completely by surprise, and C&C3 is the absolute opposite of that. Everything is even, standard quality - even if that standard is very high - enough to feel a bit dull at times. However, this type of game design is a perfect fit for multiplayer, where social and competitive aspects of the game compensate for repetitive gameplay.

Summary of YouGamers Hardware Testing

The publisher of this game state the following specifications for their minimum and recommended requirements:

Component	Publisher's Minimum	Publisher's Recommended
Processor	2 GHz	Not specified
Memory	512 MB
Graphics Card	NVIDIA GeForce 4 Ti or ATI Radeon 8500
Graphics Card Example	Not specified
Free Disk Space	6 GB (12 GB for installation over EA Link)
Net Link	Not specified

To learn more about how YouGamers performs its hardware testing, click here. Through our extensive gameplay and hardware testing across the full spectrum of PC configurations, YouGamers suggests that one should use the following guidelines for an appropriate minimum and recommended setup:

Component	YouGamers Minimum	YouGamers Recommended
Processor	AMD Athlon 64 3000+ / Intel Pentium 4 2.6 GHz	AMD Athlon X2 4000+ / Intel Core 2 Duo E6300
Memory	768 MB	1024 MB
Graphics Card	ATI Radeon X1300 128MB / NVIDIA GeForce 6600 128MB	ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB / NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GT 256MB
Free Disk Space	6 GB (12 GB for installation over EA Link)	6 GB (12 GB for installation over EA Link)
Net Link	Broadband (DSL/cable) for updates, net play	Broadband (DSL/cable) for updates, net play

Scores

To learn more about our scoring methodology, please click here.

Gameplay	87	C&C3 lacks some of the ambition and innovation seen in other recent RTS games, but makes up for it in sheer quality and polish. The single-player campaigns take you for an enjoyable if somewhat repetitive ride but the multiplayer is low-brow RTS at its best: easy to get into and addictive in its simplicity.
Graphics	90	Good artwork and design hide the limitations of C&C3's aged rendering engine. Some shader effects, such as distortion, are overused.
Audio	95	Great, polished audio and adrenaline-inducing music. Even though it's an RTS, C&C3 features useful positional audio.
Technology	82	High definition cutscene videos and flawless widescreen support show the C&C3 team's dedication to take advantage of current technology. The game's AI is very limited, unfortunately, and C&C3 brings very little new to the actual gameplay. Its multiplayer interface is nearly flawless though.

OVERALL

Well worth the wait. The lack of new features is a little disappointing - C&C3 is careful not to fix or break anything in a working formula. A worthy addition to one of the great franchises in PC gaming.

If you want to comment on this review or discuss the game further, please head over to our discussion board - click right here (registration not needed).

Patch info

C&C3 received four patches relatively soon after release. The most recent patch, v.1.04, weighs in at 46 MB and fixes several multiplayer-related issues. Game balancing and the single player game are only slightly tweaked, but downloading and installing the patch is highly recommended. Use the Autopatcher function of C&C3 Control Center to get the most recent patch, unless you downloaded your copy over EA Link.

EA Link: The online nightmare

Command & Conquer 3 is the first major title to appear on Electronic Arts' new download service, EA Link. This is what EA's webpage and the EA Link software itself say about the company's newly renamed and revamped download service: "No need to leave your seat, no more waiting in lines - now you can get your favorite PC games downloaded directly to your computer today! EA Link lets you start playing now by giving you a secure yet simple way to download our PC games and patches, as well as other exclusive content like trailers and wallpapers. EA Link is what PC gamers have been waiting for!?

Great stuff, huh? This is relevant, because many gamers pre-ordered the game on the download service in hopes of getting it a little bit sooner. I did, and my experience with EA Link has been nothing short of horrendous. Although download speeds are no longer a problem as they used to be with the previous EA Downloader service, several issues appeared that simply force me to plead: do not buy C&C3 over EA Link, and avoid using the service until these issues are solved.

Issue 1: no patch slipstreaming. Even after four patches have been issued for C&C3, EA Link still sends you the unpatched version 1.00 of the game.

Issue 2: faulty autopatching. C&C3's (apparently excellent, but I wouldn't know) autopatcher does not work with copies downloaded over EA Link. Instead of giving you a "simple way to download [...] patches”, EA Link cripples the game's patching feature and forces you to brave the treacherous waters of the Internet to search and download the patch from EA's FTP site or a mirror link. It also took a good while for EA to acknowledge this problem and make patches available for download.

Issue 3: online authentication. Copies of C&C3 downloaded over EA Link refuse to run unless you can connect to the Internet and authenticate yourself.

Please note that C&C3's network game authentication is separate from EA Link, and the developers have been quick to address early problems some players experienced with the game's multiplayer. Mike Verdu made a personal apology to the community for the problems, which is at the date of writing still visible in C&C3's multiplayer game lobby. This is an indication of how committed the C&C3 team is to provide a great multiplayer experience, despite early bugs and the EA Link disaster.