C&C4 Review

Despite the enforced unit cap, you can amass sizeable armies.

Weirdly, however, if you're not a C&C obsessive, you'll probably enjoy Tiberian Twilight quite a bit. It's accessible, visceral, and looks lovely (if a tad too cartooney for its own good). EA LA may have pissed off thousands of hardcore fans in its attempt to revolutionise the genre, but in doing so it's rid the tried and trusted C&C formula of many of its more intimidating mechanics. Having your base rushed only minutes after a match begins, for example, doesn't happen, simply because there's no point. One) you don't have a base in the traditional sense, and two) control nodes are the name of the game. Tiberian Twilight's perfectly enjoyable in this regard: quick fire, intense competitive multiplayer matches in which everyone feels like they're contributing to the cause, no matter how many commands they can input per 60 seconds, are the norm. Five-on-five matches are a spectacular joy - a relentless array of earth-shattering explosions, pew pew lasers, and heart-thumping music. Having to nab different-coloured Tiberium crystals and bring them back to your deploy zone to upgrade your units lends multiplayer a fun capture the flag feel, and there can be no dismissing the ease with which you can quickly adapt to your opponent's strategy and coordinate control point assaults. Simply, multiplayer's great.

None of this matters to the hardcore, who are already complaining about what's become of their beloved series. They accuse EA of pandering to the casual gamer and dumbing down the core C&C experience so violently that the end result isn't a C&C game at all. This isn't the case, but there is some truth to what they say. Without base building, without Tiberium, without Harvesters, without more Mammoth Tanks than your graphics card can hope to render, C&C's torch burns less brightly. Think of Command and Conquer as an old couple who've been married for decades. Suddenly, Command dies, leaving Conquer to live on irreparably changed. For those who fondly remember geeking out to C&C's FMVs and reading the game's manual from cover to cover, there is a sadness over the loss of something important here.

Even the live action cinematics have taken a turn for the worse. I understand they're supposed to be grittier than the hilariously over-the-top, boobalicious cutscenes of old, but the seriousness only serves to make dour the impressive gloss. Terrible acting works when it's part of the charm. Take away the charm, and all you have left is terrible acting.

My criticism of this more progressive C&C is at odds with my belief that the RTS developers should follow Relic Entertainment's good work with Company of Heroes and Dawn of War and evolve the genre. C&C3.5 is not the answer, but neither is C&C4. Lead designer Sam Bass has spoken of the disconnect between the developer's vision and fan demands. He has revealed the game's origin as a skunkworks project from a small team allowed to experiment free from the concerns of anyone's bottom line. The story goes that after C&C3 sold well, the call from on high to create a sequel was sounded. Rather than just do C&C3 again, reasoned the team, it would be better to try and bring this new style of play into the Tiberian universe. C&C4 is the result, and I applaud the effort. But I question the wisdom of running with an experiment for the last game in this most celebrated of sagas.

Ultimately, C&C4 is a curiosity, one that succeeds in moving the RTS genre forward and is at times brilliant fun, but it fails as a fitting finale to one of the most loved science fiction tales in gaming. In 1995, Westwood popularised the RTS genre with a landmark title. It seems unlikely that history will judge Tiberian Twilight quite so fondly.