Command & Conquer: Generals
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| Command & Conquer: Generals | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | EA Pacific (PC), Aspyr Media (Mac OS) |
| Publisher(s) | EA Games (PC), MacSoft (Mac OS) |
| Engine | Strategy Action Game Engine (SAGE) |
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows, Apple Macintosh |
| Release |  February 10, 2003 February 14, 2003 |
| Genre(s) | Real-time strategy |
| Mode(s) | Single player Multiplayer |
Command & Conquer: Generals is a real-time strategy game in the Command & Conquer series. Generals utilizes the SAGE (Strategy Action Game Engine) engine. This proprietary engine is an extended version of the Command & Conquer: Renegade 3D engine.
Generals was released onto the Microsoft Windows platform in 2003, and a Mac OS version was released in 2004, marking the return of the Command & Conquer series to that platform.
Plot
Generals takes place in the near future. Players are given a choice of three factions to play rather than the two in the early parts of the Tiberium and Red Alert series. In Generals, the United States and China are the world's two superpowers, and are the targets of the Global Liberation Army, a large, well-organized Middle Eastern terrorist organization with the arsenal/hardware of an irregular military force accompanied by the fanaticism of al-Qaida. Both the United States and China are depicted as allies in the series, and frequently co-operate with each other throughout the storyline against the Global Liberation Army, which is depicted as an omnipresent, borderless organization with unclear goals beyond opposition to and expulsion of both China and the United States. The three factions are thus engaged in a war similar to that of the real-life War on Terror.
The player can play any of the three sides in any order, with each side's campaign consisting of seven missions. For the storyline to make sense, the proper order to play is China first, then the GLA, then the USA. In this order, China retaliates for a devastating GLA nuclear attack on Beijing, eventually completely crushing the GLA cell masterminding all Pacific rim operations. (Events such as the destruction of the Three Gorges Dam and the use of China's nuclear arsenal are part of this campaign.) The GLA campaign then begins, with the organization trying to recover from its recent setback at the hands of the Chinese, by raising funds and instigating attacks against their American and Chinese antagonists, eventually culminating in the overtaking of the Baikonur Cosmodrome for the firing of a Soyuz launch vehicle bearing a biological MIRV at a nondescript city. At this point the American campaign begins, in which the USA engages the GLA across several locales, including Baghdad and the Caspian Sea, before defeating a rogue Chinese general supporting the terrorists and tracking them back to their base of operations in Akmola, Kazakhstan.
The Generals story is continued in the expansion pack Command & Conquer: Generals - Zero Hour.
Though bearing the name of Command and Conquer, the story bears no relationship to the storylines of the Tiberium and Red Alert series.
Gameplay
Command and Conquer Generals operates like most other real-time strategy games, in that the player must construct a base, acquire resources, build various combat and support units, and defeat their opponent(s). Various unit types can be constructed, ranging from infantry to vehicles and air units. The player may control the United States of America, the People's Republic of China, or the Global Liberation Army, and each side has its unique characteristics and abilities. All sides share some similarities, such as training infantry at a barracks, building armored vehicles at a factory, and possessing "high tech" buildings needed to build more advanced units. All sides possess a means to acquire additional resources and funding, and all sides possess a unique superweapon.
The game's interface is similar to that of real-time strategy games such as Warcraft or Starcraft. The player selects buildings to bring up build orders and purchase upgrades, and can select individual units to activate their special abilities.
Structures are built by selecting dedicated builder units and placing the structure anywhere on the map.
As with other real-time strategy games, the various units have advantages and disadvantages against other units, and the player is encouraged to mix unit types in order to succeed and fight tactically with various unit abilities in order to win. For example, infantry units are very vulnerable in the open, but when garrissoned inside buildings they become very powerful against enemy vehicles. Light vehicles and dedicated anti-infantry/anti-air units are vulnerable to tanks, which themselves are vulnerable to missile-equipped infantry and aircraft.
As the game progresses and the player defeats enemy units in battle, the player will gain "experience" points, which are used to purchase "Generals Abilities," unique abilities that range from enhancing units and unlocking new unit types to powerful airstrikes, one-shot enhancements to units, or targetable "spawn points" to drop or create groups of units anywhere on the map.
As individual units attack and defeat enemy units or capture buildings, they gain "veterancy" and become more powerful, much like the General commanding them. Higher-ranking units attack faster, have more health, and can self-repair.
Factions
Each of the three factions has a play style in accordance with their real-world counterparts.
USA
The United States is the most technologically-advanced faction, and fights with a combination of powerful ground units and a large, versatile fleet of aircraft. USA forces rely on skill, mobility, and high technology to defeat the raw firepower of China and the guerilla tactics of the GLA. USA ground vehicles can construct unmanned drones to support and repair them in combat, and American troops and vehicles make extensive use of laser technology to guide weapons and defend against attack. American infantry have a number of special abilities, and include long-ranged snipers and a powerful commando named Colonel Burton with a number of abilities revolving around demolition and stealth. The USA also fields the largest air fleet in the game, including attack helicopters, fighter planes, and stealth bombers. American Generals' abilities revolve around air power, including air strikes by A-10 Warthogs and fuel air bombs.
The USA has a major disadvantage, however, in that it has the slowest resource gathering in the game, and its high-tech units are very expensive. This forces a USA player to construct a smaller, more specialized army than a Chinese or GLA player, and work to minimize losses. Chinese and GLA opponents can easily swarm a small American army and overwhelm it.
China
The People's Republic relies largely on brute force and sheer numbers, culminating in a variety of powerful and heavily armored tanks, and has limited air power. China's playstyle emphasizes direct assaults and sheer power to defeat American technology and GLA stealth. Chinese troops and tanks gain special bonuses when in groups, and make extensive use of propaganda to support their troops. China has a wide range of vehicle types, including several specialized tanks and artillery units. Chinese forces also make heavy use of gatling, nuclear, and napalm weaponry to destroy the enemy. China also utilizes advanced electronic warfare technology, including elite hackers and electromagnetic pulse weapons.
China has a major disadvantage in that its army is slow to move, despite its firepower. It has few fast attack units, forcing it to make large, ponderous assaults with heavy units, a disadvantage that can be countered by the GLA's speed or the USA's air power. It also has a very weak defense which forces the player to build more of an army for defending their base.
Global Liberation Army
Being economically and technologically disadvantaged, the GLA has comparatively weak (though highly mobile) ground vehicles and no air force, prompting the use of guerrilla tactics such as mining, suicide bombing, hijacking, and ambushing. The GLA has a larger array of infantry types and vehicles to make up for this disadvantage, and has the widest range of stealth options. The GLA also has a very powerful economy, capable of salvaging wreckage, gaining cash bounties on destroyed enemy units, and building multiple "black market" structures to bring in large amounts of money over time. The GLA's upgrades make it very powerful when fully equipped, transforming a relatively weak group of units into a respectable threat. The GLA's toxic weapons, suicide units, and stealth and surprise abilities enable it to hit enemies from unexpected directions, and its powerful economy, combined with cheap, fast units, enables it to flood opponents with sheer numbers.
The GLA's primary disadvantage is that, in terms of firepower, range, and durability, its units are outmatched by Chinese and American units, and it has a complete lack of air power. This forces a GLA player to outmaneuver or outnumber opponents, as in an even, direct confrontation the GLA will lose to superior Chinese firepower and American technology.
World builder
Generals also includes a map editor named World Builder for the PC edition only. The World Builder includes features such as:
- A terraforming tool.
- An intelligent road system, able to detect when the player wants an intersection.
- A tool to scatter flora around the map.
- Waypoints and area triggers that the AI can use. Waypoints also determine starting points for the players on a skirmish map.
- A scripting system that was meant for the missions in the single-player campaign. This scripting system has many capabilities.
Soundtrack
Generals presents players with a separate musical score for each faction. The United States' theme music consists of epic, militaristic scores composed by Bill Brown. China's musical themes feature apocalyptic, orchestral scores combined with East Asian instrumentation. The GLA faction's theme soundtrack can be described as a combination of Middle Eastern sounds coupled with heavy metal music, similar to the music in the Somalian sequences in Black Hawk Down.
Comparisons to real life weaponry
Command & Conquer Generals features many units that exist in real life, but many of these units vary from their real-world counterparts. For example, there are differences between airborne munitions used in the game and their real-life counterparts, including the usage of carpet bombing, fuel air bombs and MOAB weapons.
Tanks and mechanized vehicles generally utilize real-world references, but vary from their real-world counterparts in some respects. For example, while the main battle tanks of each army are generally accurate, China's Battlemaster Tank is modeled after the obsolete Soviet-made T-55. The USA's Paladin tank (modeled after an M1 Abrams) features a laser-based point defense system to shoot down incoming missiles, similar to the TROPHY Active Protection System system, which uses flak-like projectiles instead of laser beams. In-game, American Humvees feature firing ports to allow infantry to engage the enemy, but lack these in real-life.
Some other vehicles are completely fictitious, such as the Tomahawk Missile Launcher, the Aurora Bomber, the Overlord Tank, and the Microwave Tank. Other units, such as the RAH-66 Comanche, are in fact protoypes for projects that were cancelled subsequent to Generals' release.
Infantry forces show some discrepancies with real-life soldiers. For example, the USA Army Ranger is shown carrying an M-16 assault rifle with a mounted M203 grenade launcher, which is used to fire flashbang grenades, despite the fact that flashbangs are not fired via the M203's barrel. GLA soldiers carry rocket propelled grenade launchers, which do not have the ability to track targets as they do in-game. Chinese infantry are pictured wielding the Type 81 assault rifle in their individual image, but their graphics show them carrying bolt-action rifles with mounted bayonets, which were long ago phased out by most armies.
Of the superweapons, nuclear weapons and Scud missiles exist in real life, but the damage inflicted by these weapons has been altered for game balance. It should be noted that Generals, being solely a game designed to provide entertainment, as opposed to a simulation, is expected and required to sacrifice realism as described above in order to provide game balance and other gameplay issues in order to create a properly entertaining and challenging experience.
Reception
Generals received mostly positive reviews. Based on 34 reviews, Metacritic gives it a score of 84/100.[1] Generals has also received the E3 2002 Game Critics Awards Best Strategy Game award.
China Controversy
Despite the generally positive spin on China in the series, the Generals series is banned in China because the first chinese mission shows a terrorist attack on a army parade in Tiananmen Square. Throughout the Chinese campaign, the player is occasionally made to utilize heavy-handed tactics such as leveling the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre after it becomes a GLA base and destroying the Three Gorges Dam to release a flood on GLA forces. Chinese forces also use nuclear weaponry in-game, albeit restricted to the lower tactical nuclear weapon yield range.
German Controversy
In the beginning of 2003, a regular localized German version was released in Germany. Due to the upcoming Iraq war, the Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien (Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons) put the game on index two months after the initial release, stating that the game would give underage people the ability to play the upcoming war in Iraq, before the real war had even begun. The sale and marketing of the game were prohibited throughout the Federal Republic of Germany. Later, in the same year, EA released a new version called "Command & Conquer: Generäle", which did not incorporate real world factions or any relation to terrorism. For example, the suicide bomber unit was transformed into a rolling bomb and all other infantry were changed into "cyborgs" similar to earlier releases of the Command & Conquer franchise.
Command & Conquer Controversy
Although Generals is officially listed as a Command & Conquer game many fans of the Command & Conquer series were upset over various changes implemented for the game.
Since Generals was such a departure from the Command & Conquer universe (both the Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert storylines), there were mixed reactions amongst fans to the developers' use of the words "Command & Conquer" in the title of Generals, due in large part to Generals lacking the distinctive C & C style of gameplay. For example, in every other Command & Conquer RTS game released, players have had full motion video briefings (although there are still briefings), which tie the game's missions and plot together. The interface for construction of all structures and units has been a tabbed scrollbar to the extreme right of the screen (as opposed to the Warcraft style of producing different units at their respective buildings), there has been no "peon" or "worker" unit (a unit needed to build other structures), and all plot lines are centered either between the Allies and Soviets (Red Alert), or GDI and Nod (C&C). Generals also departs from conventional Command and Conquer themes: The GDI, the Brotherhood of Nod, and the tiberium resource are not present in this game. This game is not part of the 'Red Alert' storyline either, which features an alternate timeline and conflict between the Soviet and Allied forces. It is an entirely separate, original game world.
The game mechanics display an influence from other RTS games, such as Blizzard Entertainment's StarCraft and the more recent Warcraft III. The control bar is now at the bottom and several units have special action buttons (cfr. The Warcraft series 'magic spells'). Many units' attack and defense can also be upgraded in specific buildings, much like in Blizzard's RTS games. There are no engineers, but buildings can be captured by upgraded infantry. Unlike in the previous C&C games, the game allows players to build as many superweapons as they have the funds for; however the game has an option to limit a player to one superweapon of each type in skirmish and multiplayer mode. In addition, the musical score is single-track ambient music for each side, instead of the multiple-track soundtrack of all previous Command & Conquer games, and was the first game of the series not to feature the music of Frank Klepacki. As a result of these changes, there are debates among fans as to whether Generals is a true Command & Conquer game.
See also
- Command & Conquer: Generals - Zero Hour
- Command & Conquer: The First Decade
- Act of War: Direct Action