C&C 4: Tiberian Twilight Review

Okay, so I have bought, played and completed the latest C&C game. Developers purport that it is the last to feature Kane, and wraps up “his story”, but the series will probably continue. Then there is the trailer that shows Kane turning up at GDI HQ (in Manchester of all places, lolol) to broker some sort of truce. Then there are the new game play elements hinted at by developers. Unfortunately, it did not quite pan out as well as most would expect, so much so that large numbers of fans are attempting to boycott EA in order for them to release a “better game” that is “actually C&C”. Oh and if you do not like spoilers, then tough, this review is full of them.

Story
So, it is do or die time for planet earth, we are inches away from complete Armageddon, and all of a sudden Kane appears with a magical solution, the TCN network. Sounds cool, and, with Kane being Kane, we can suspect hidden agendas (which is, of course, band on target). It has been 10 years since the events of Kane’s Wrath, 15 since Tiberium Wars and 32 years after Tiberian Sun, so obviously Kane has had some time to come up with this solution, minus the setbacks of being beaten by GDI three times in a row, over a period of 52 years. However, there are some unhappy Nod delinquents led by some pansy called Gideon who try to throw a spanner in the works wherever possible and a bunch of gung-ho GDI die-hards led by renegade Colonel James who are hell-bent on assassinating Kane. Makes sense, there are always some Looney-tunes when it comes to Armageddon/apocalyptic events that go insane at the most inopportune moment. It is not entirely original, but it works. However, the main problem is that there is zero story progression/character development with either of these two splinter groups. We are thrown straight in with, “oh there is a splinter Nod faction” and a few missions into the GDI campaign, Colonel James just snaps after going on about her lost family. The Campaigns are hideously short for a C&C game, and there was plenty of room for additional missions that could have detailed how these two groups came to be (i.e. Gideon’s rise to power and the loss of James’ family). Instead, they just come across as massive non-sequiturs. Why is Gideon revolting, how, when? When did James’ lose her family, what was the exact nature of those events? Instead, we are thrown a few meaningless scraps of dialogue in between missions with a very loose narrative.

The endings are also very vague and disappointing, they have could have been much better. Instead, all we have are a few minutes of cinematic that explain relatively little, other than, Kane was an Alien all along, which most people already guessed. The plot was good, but EA failed to expand it properly or go into sufficient enough detail. I did, however, thoroughly enjoy the cliffhanger ending, although it seemed a bit out of place if this is the least to feature Kane. Unless there is an expansion pack the explains what happens to Kane after he steps through the Scrin portal. That brings me to my last point of contention: NO SCRIN!!!! They were a really cool addition to C&C 3, so why no Scrin? That too could have boosted the length of the miniscule campaigns. If there is an expansion, the Scrin better make an appearance. All in all, it would like reading a shit novel, Vis a Vis Twilight. Okay, so not nearly as horrifying as that, but essentially it was an amazing story... that had been chopped into pieces, organised really badly and with massive chunks missing.

Score: 2/5

Game Play
Aside from the hideously short campaigns, there are other problems with game play. There is the innovation of the crawler, a mobile base. Okay, so I’m sort of okay with that although I still prefer base building. I did like the fact you can select a ‘class’ and that each class would have different units, but the whole re-spawn your crawler thing made no sense. Obviously, this means you can select a different class, but this defeats the purpose of an RTS. I do not mind being able to switch class, but re-spawning in an RTS? Fail. Then they removed resource acquisition and replaced it with “command points”. You have a set amount of CP, and you cannot exceed, they do not even bother even to explain how to increase this. Sometimes you get given more yet most times, you get given not enough. This is so stupid and so dumb that it defies understanding. The only purpose Tiberium crystals serve, are to get upgrade points. WHAT?! I do not mind a unit cap, but when it is so low that I can only build 6 vehicles and two engineers at a time, then it gets on my nerves. To be honest, EA should have merged the Crawler concept with the base building of previous C&C games, and just kept with the resource gathering. I do not mind the whole upgrade points thing, I do mind that that, coupled with CP, has replaced resource gathering. Makes no sense whatsoever.

The levelling up system is okay, but eventually I came to realise that in actual fact, it is more of a hindrance. In order to get the sufficient level tech to complete later missions, you need to basically destroy as many units as humanly possible. Of course, since there are XP caps, you have to run through the campaigns more than once. Sucks ass. There were so many good innovative things about C&C 4 that it defies reason that EA would have then, instead of complementing them with good old concepts from previous games, just pulled some shit out of their arse that ruins the gaming experience. It only felt like half a game, especially with the incoherent story and tiny campaigns. However, there was enough to keep me generally entertained, so the game play was not as bad as the story, which left me confused and disappointed.

Score: 3/5

Unit Design
Well what can I say here, other than, superb. I loved all the units. EA really outdid themselves here. It is a pity that they did not put as much into the rest of the game, as it would have been a masterpiece if they just spent a little more time working on the game play and story. I was disappointed that the mega units from Kane’s Wrath did not return, such as the M.A.R.V. However, the classic style Mammoth Tank made a comeback, as did the Mk. II variant, renamed the Mastodon. What can I say, other than: WIN!!! Nod finally get their own “super tank” in the form of the Widow, as well as the return of the Avatar war mechs as well as lesser versions known as Centurions. I could probably go on for a long time about how good the units in this game were. As for the Crawlers, I did like them, especially as when you upgraded they could have shields and mounted gun turrets etc. depending on what class you were.

Score: 5/5

As far as games go, it was not as bad as critics made out. It suffered, however, due to the legacy of the Command and Conquer series, and it just failed to live up to previous installments. If EA made a few changes, and added back in some of the classic features of C&C such as resource gathering and base building, then it truly would have been amazing.