Yesterday Electronic Arts announced that they are continuing the story from Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars with an expansion pack. Development is already underway on the expansion titled Command & Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath and is expected to be released in in the Spring of 2008 for PC and Xbox 360.
"This expansion has an impressive new single player campaign, a new global strategic layer that adds depth to the familiar Command & Conquer style gameplay, and several fun, all-new toys that range from versatile combat soldiers to giant armoured walkers," said Mike Verdu, VP and Executive Producer at EA Los Angeles (EALA).
"Command & Conquer 3: Kane’s Wrath also features a new strategic layer to gameplay that allows players to establish bases, build customized armies, and attack their enemies on a global scale – and then dive into the frenzied tactical combat where their skills as a commander will make the difference in battle. The game also introduces six new sub-factions and a wealth of new units, structures, and powers to the armies of the Global Defence Initiative, the Brotherhood of Nod, and the enigmatic alien Scrin."
"A new global strategic layer" makes me think of the excellent Dawn of War expansion The Dark Crusade. I like those big Risk-map affairs like The Dark Crusade and The War of the Ring mode in Battle for Middle-Earth II where there is some persistance with your army between battles but what eventually happens - at least when I play them - is that I build an unstoppable juggernaut that crushes everything later in the game. Since you can take elements of your army with you from battle to battle it's best to just rush with your standing army early in each battle and not even worry about building anything. Maybe the C&C3 expansion will have a way of dealing with that. Hopefully it's better than the "global strategic layer" that was in earlier C&C games where you just picked which battle to engage on a map but it had no relevance in the grand scheme of things.
The EA press release went on to say, "The single player campaign will allow players to experience a new story that spans 20 years – from the rebirth of the Brotherhood of Nod after the Second Tiberium War through the dramatic events of the Third Tiberium War and beyond. The story is told through a new set of high-definition live action video sequences starring a celebrity cast. Joe Kucan, the original actor who portrayed the character Kane in Command & Conquer games over the last decade, will reprise his role as the megalomaniacal leader of the Brotherhood of Nod. Other details of the cast have yet to be announced."
It sounds like they haven't locked down the TV all-stars from Tiberium Wars but certainly intend to try. I'm not sure that the FMV sequences are as important to the game as EA makes it out, but there is a certain guilty pleasure to them. I gave Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars a pretty favorable review so I'm looking forward to some more frenzy-paced RTS action.
Comments (11)
Kane's Wrath? that sounds like the Wrath of Khan(the second Star Trek movie)
But hey I think it'll be cool, I've always liked C&C
Posted by Mart | August 17, 2007 10:55 AM
Posted on August 17, 2007 10:55
3 WORDS :
S U P R E M E C O M M A N D E R RIPOFF
Posted by Md | August 17, 2007 2:28 PM
Posted on August 17, 2007 14:28
although i do admit, supreme commander is lots of fun and enjoyment, for you saying tis a ripoff, you must be a noob to computer games. the C&C series has been going on since the early 90's, so im pretty sure they know how to do strategy games. No, supreme commander has it own faults to you know.. not everyone has a L33t $5000 machine to run the game. at a lan party, 8 of use, with i do admit fairly decent gaming machines, was barely able to run the game via LAN do to the horrrible lag. ON GIGABIT!. its just too much for computers to run atm. single play, all the computers run it great. C&C3 however, ran all 8 players and their battles flawlessly and never ONCE has it crashed, or ever lagged, besides the horde of 60 mammoth tanks i steamroll over my oponents... =P. so dont say its a SC ripoff, if anything, SC copied off C&C on a few things, cuz i swear, C&C has copied anything off SC.
Posted by justin | August 17, 2007 3:33 PM
Posted on August 17, 2007 15:33
So everything the original game should have been (which, as is, brought little to the genre), but they kept off so they could charge your for it in an expansion pack.
Posted by scader | August 17, 2007 3:58 PM
Posted on August 17, 2007 15:58
LOL like supreme commander's total design isnt a ripoff of the RTS KING that is C&C.
This design has been implemented in other games long before SupremeCommander existed or was even a thought in developers mind. So isnt SC just as big of a ripoff.
The old dog (RTS KING) is learning new tricks. Try not to hate. Noob
Posted by Sandman | August 17, 2007 4:01 PM
Posted on August 17, 2007 16:01
justin, don't forget that SC2 has at least a couple of units that looks suspiciously like units in C&C3 ;)
Posted by Calyth | August 17, 2007 5:21 PM
Posted on August 17, 2007 17:21
I don't know why you guys call supcom a ripoff but I find it pretty cool..the idea of fighting a war in large scale is cool also add to that the idea of fighting in long distance where the player really should think about even the smallest of details like transporting units to long distances and setting up outposts instead of the traditional building and killing...but Im not really a fan of futuristic war so I like Company of Heroes more..I also play C&C3 too and the past C&C franchise games.. but this C&C3 doesn't satisfy me comparing it to past gen Red Alert 2 and Zero Hour...maybe Im not really a fan of the tiberium series heheheh
but I got to admit that supcom needs one high end machine to run smoothly on high details...plus playing on LAN would give more headache as you need even faster rigs to do so
Posted by dl | August 18, 2007 10:54 AM
Posted on August 18, 2007 10:54
Ohhhh.... Isn't that nice? Another borefest from EA. CnC3 was a step backwards from Generals in everything but graphics (which saw only minor improvements). I could not finish the CnC3 campaign, you know why? I got bored and went back to playing Medieval 2. Do not even compare SupCom to CnC3, they are two different games: CnC3 gameplay is from the Stone Age while SupCom is trying to keep up with the modern developments in RTS. I wont even download the demo for this let alone buy the game because it is not worth my time or the download quota let alone my money.
This is just another example of EA screwing over the gamer using fan loyalty to push inferior product. It is right up there with the in game ads in BF2142 which are there supposedly to help pay for game development. What game development? It is a glorified BF2 mod.
Anyway, I am rambling. Don't think this will get posted, a little too confrontational for Tom's, plus attacking the One Holy Grail: CnC.
Posted by rk | August 19, 2007 5:11 PM
Posted on August 19, 2007 17:11
Just to clarrify things.
1) CnC is based on Dune II, and was developed by westood not EA.
1b) The team that made CnC left EA and created Petroglyph which made Star wars: Empire at war.
2) SC is based on Total Anhilation (TA) which were both developed by Chris Taylor.
2b) TA was the first 3D RTS.
2c) TA was the first RTS with customizable "mech" units (that I know of)
3) CnC TS was the first CnC game to start incoporating features from TA. CnC3 just extends on those features.
So really, most of them are based on Dune II (not CnC), but many features also come from TA. i.e. SC is not a rip off CnC3, but is based on Dune II, and features from TA (which SC is based on). So logically, CnC3 and SC are similar. They are based on the same games :)
Posted by Chris | August 19, 2007 10:45 PM
Posted on August 19, 2007 22:45
Well I must be wrong about the developer. Regardless, the game is an insult to an RTS gaming community. It introduces nothing new in terms of gameplay, in fact it is inferior to its predecessor in that department. Its only excuse for existence is the fact that it continues the CnC story line with campy cutscenes which feel old, used and abused.
This game should carry a "CnC diehard fans only" tag and should serve as an example of what not to do when developing new RTS titles.
While what I said above applies to original CnC 3, I do not expect any major improvements in the expansion, with the features mentioned in the preview it seems that the title is playing "Catch-up" to other games, not introducing anything new.
Posted by rk | August 22, 2007 7:58 AM
Posted on August 22, 2007 07:58
to be honest, I was disapointed in CnC 3, but not to the point were i hated it.
I loved the:
customizable ai (first ivs seen go pass easy, normal, and hard)
still quick paced
the new build que were you can have many buildings as well as units going at the same time
finally updated the harvester program (besides RA2)
3D ( finally geting out of the stone age 2D screen which and serious flaws, like hiding tanks behind buildings )
Tech system outside building structures ( imagin losing rail guns for your tanks after your tech lab blows up )
But i hated:
Land -Air blance ( srcin airships and nod vemons own gdi everytime )
easy garrison building clearing ( the buildings in themselves are weak and can be cleaned out in a second by flamethowers, buzzers which can appear anywhere, and geranders )
Maps ( RA2 had awsome maps like hammer and stickle, but we lost them to mirrior image maps, we also have far less maps to play on than RA2 )
Firestrom gen ( wut happened gdi, i loved that superwall. )
Walls ( why did they remove this? some ppl build huge amounts of walls in RA2 and in Tiberain Sun, though many ppl dont use it 4 online manily because it wasted time. If they could find a way to auto wall and area all around your base, It would be Awsome!!!)
Posted by Cronone | October 29, 2007 6:12 PM
Posted on October 29, 2007 18:12