Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight introduces the beginning of the end of series with a final swan song of new and improved features of the title that heavily borrow off ultimately better and stronger titles. However C&C4 does bring a new and interesting story to the series in a style that none have previously done as well as brilliant visual detail, as well as a clean and slick menu system to the RTS genre. This isn’t the game C&C you know, it has evolved into a better C&C game but a worse RTS title.

Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight brings the end of the series along with a few changes to the RTS formula, changing things many normally associate with the Command and Conquer games. Instead Tiberian Twilight follows Relic’s entry into the RTS genre, mostly Company of Heroes mixed in with some Dawn of War 2, allowing you to choose what sort of class you want your ‘hero’ to be, just replace hero with MCV (Mobile Construction Vehicle) or as the game now calls them ‘Crawlers’.
You can choose Assault, Defence or Support, which depending on which class you chose, allows you to create units in that category.

 

Assault has Tanks, Defence has troops (as well as defence towers), and Support has planes (and special abilities). Each of these has a limit of use, you can only have a certain number of units on the battle, with bigger and better troops/vehicles costing more points, and this also applies to defensive buildings. From a multiplayer perspective this works well as it stops players spamming or rushing their enemies’ base, but from the single player it just is frustrating to face all the enemies on the screen that can quickly overwhelm you because of your limited number of troops.
What I worked out however, it’s best to set down your Crawler to next to the enemies’ Crawler and spam as many troops as you can, as there really isn’t any cost to you for doing this, this will then destroy their crawler and you can just rinse and repeat. The games graphics have also vastly improved, and somewhat remind me of the look of Tiberian Sun, with great character/vehicle models, although unlike Company of Heroes you can’t zoom in to see the detail, the game presents a bigger scope with bigger units similar to Supreme Commanders. This often makes them feel to big, which ends up making you feel like you need to zoom out a bit to get a better look at them and all of your units.

However there are excellent visual effects upon building/vehicles/the ground exploding and a smooth clear frame rate as well as excellent visual and audio cues telling you what needs to be done and where with the use of a slick and clean, almost minimalist, look to all the menus including the in-game and play menus.
It’s really hard trying to explain this about C&C4 as everything works and feels responsive, but getting back to the start menu it’s probably like nothing I’ve seen before, as soon as you login through the game you’re immediately also within a gaming lobby allowing you to speak to other players and instantly join them in an multiplayer match. It’s also slick and easy to use, maybe not from the first use as it’s something completely new.
What is left here isn’t the ultimate end of the series, instead it leaves a few things open, probably for that expansion pack 6 months down the road, sure the game ends and it leaves you with on canonical ending, a massive departure for the series, it just feels a lot of things truly were left unanswered. From Kane’s appearance in C&C Red Alert (1) to how he has actually lived for so long and why he can’t die.

The production values have greatly increased for everything, the story is mostly affected by this presenting a story, a heck of a lot stronger and different than the previous C&C titles. This is probably down to the story being far shorter than any of the previous and all that money for the production hasn’t been wasted on “big” actors.
The live action scenes have now probably reached B-movie class with good set design, brilliant lighting and some pretty good acting from all the cast, especially Joe Kucan (playing Kane).

The game presents a whole new look and feel to the C&C series, which makes the game feel more like a reboot than an end to a favourite series of mine since first playing C&C Red Alert, which is a little disappointing at this point as I feel the developers need to be asked a question; Why change the series now, when it’s the end?
The gameplay of the previous titles worked fine, for a single player experience, so why now end the title on a gameplay system that limits the player, by splitting elements into different classes. I know this system now simplifies things for the general/new audience that may have never played C&C until now but why then is the story clearly for the long time fan.

Ultimately as a C&C game almost everything, bar the gameplay, is brilliant and is as it should be, the gameplay from a long time C&C fan is quite disappointing as it heavily borrows from other titles.
However I must say for anyone who likes RTS’ in general, I seriously recommend this title has it has a good strong, engaging story as well as solid gameplay that holds up strong against any other RTS title. For the C&C fans out there, I would still recommend this title as it has everything C&C fans want just disappointing gameplay from their perspective.

A final bow to the certain from Kain with good gameplay, a must for any RTS player but a little disappointing for any long time C&C fan, along with a truly unique story that however feels like it’s building up for an expansion.

Story: 8
A new unique story perspective for an RTS title, especially for a C&C game.A final bow to the certain from Kain with good gameplay, a must for any RTS player but a little disappointing for any long time C&C fan, along with a truly unique story that however feels like it’s building up for an expansion.

Sound: 6
The sound effects are distinct but the soundtrack is lacking still with nice music just nothing that helps define the title over the top of the explosions within the game.

Presentation: 9
Again, something new and unique to the C&C series as well as the RTS genre with the new menu system and floorless visual effects and excellent detailing on the environment and vehicles.

Overall: 7.6/10

By Darren Arquette Posted Monday, March 22nd, 2010 9:00 am