To add to the game’s lifespan all of these missions can be played on three different difficulties and they also all contain a selection of optional secondary objectives. The first few hours of gameplay kicks things off very well as you play as the GDI and defend both the Pentagon and the White House, take on an army with just a single commando and defend an abandoned base before escorting an APC through line after line of hostiles before you can build a new base to once again get a foothold in the area.
There is also a nice collection of around 35 missions on show in the game, with all of them thankfully having a different feel and list of objectives than the one seen before. There is still tank rushing – love it or hate it – and there is still a nice selection of cheesy FMVs with a few memorable quotes throughout. If you think back to the mess that was the Playstation, Saturn and N64 ports of the original C&C games this is an infinitely huge step up in quality.Įven though the game may control differently it still has same old Command & Conquer gameplay at it heart. All in all, and even though it is less than perfect, this is probably the best way to approach an RTS game on a console.
Explaining these controls in words all sounds quite complicated, and in all honesty it still is when playing, but it does start to become second nature after you spend a while with the game. Personally I kept this setting to a minimum due to these problems. Unfortunately, this is usually more a hindrance than a help as it can sometimes snap to the wrong unit when not wanted. To try and solve this EA have added an option called ‘Unit Magnetism’ in the menu which is an aid that will let the cursor snap onto certain units when close to them. Unfortunately due to the new controls, selecting a single unit out of the masses in the middle of a heated battle is much harder than it need be – in fact the smaller the unit the more problems caused. The RT and A combo can also be used to given certain units orders and select certain stances for them. You can then select the unit(s) you want to build using the d-pad and the A button. For example if you go to your barracks and press A and then RT a menu will open up with all the units you can build. RT and A are then used for giving commands and building units and creating you base. For example if you hold down LT and then press A all units that are on the screen will be selected, then you press A again on what ever unit you want them to attach to, or where you want them to go on the map. Managing units on the battlefield sees you using different combinations of the shoulder bumpers and face buttons on the 360 pad to navigate a selection of context sensitive menus.
Nevertheless, even long time aficionados of the series may have a few fumbles before they feel at home while using them. Thankfully, even though they are a bit of a departure of the norm they still feel C&Cesque. Right from the get go it is immediately noticeable that the biggest change for the 360 edition of Tiberium Wars is undoubtedly the controls. As such I have had very little contact with the PC version, only notching up an hour or two’s worth of gameplay when a mate of mine was looking the other way and I managed to get my hands on his snazzy new rig. Personally I have always chosen to play the C&C games solely on PC, in fact I still play different games from the series to this day, but having not upgraded my PC since way back in 2004 most of my graphically-intensive gaming these days is done on a console. In fact a quick glance at a box that always seems to be close by my computer tells me that it has been well over a decade since I first began to play the fabled franchise. The C&C series has been going on many, many years now.