izigame.me

“All I can ask is for you to do the right thing commander. Just... do the right thing.”
~Director Boyle

At the end of 2000s, EA destroyed pretty much everything there was about Command & Conquer. It was almost like they were on a mission or something. They've shut down Westwood, they've canceled their Tiberian Twilight (AKA C&C3: Incursion, a direct sequel to Tiberian Sun) and even after the franchise was given to other people under their wing, they didn't stop. Sure, what Mark Skaggs and his team did in C&C Generals was anything but C&C we all used to know, but it was still a solid project. Yet EA scrapped the sequel, turned it into an f2p game and then, after literally everybody hated the idea, canceled the whole thing for good. End of the story. Which left EA in a very Finding Nemo situation. Remember that “Now what?” scene? Well, that's pretty much what happened to EA. They've wasted quite a lot of money, yet they ended up with nothing. Original makers were no more, the old series was dead and the “reboot” canceled. It was time for them to stop for a moment and actually think 'bout what to do next. Guess what? They actually did that for a change. Think.
While Generals game was praised by many for its gameplay, many others refused to accept it for being too different from the original series and not following the original story / canon. Decision #1: a new game in the series is going to go back to the roots. In other words, EA was about to revive Westwood's C&C3. Westwood already had lots of plans for their sequel, like that alien race called Scrin (we've already seen their ships in the TS and the Renegade) so naturally, we've got that. Still, just pretending that Generals never happened would have feel like going back to the stone age. Therefore, decision #2: a new game, while going old school, will keep lots of the elements from Generals.
There was a problem, though. Westwood's C&C3 was supposed to be the end of the road. Remember how Tiberium was slowly taking over the planet in the TS? The Incursion was supposed to be the end of that story, but W3D engine (renamed to SAGE by EA after they were done with Westwood) didn't support the Tiberium growth. Decision #3: to keep as many people who worked with games on SAGE before (Generals, Battle for Middle Earth). They'll figure something out. Don't let them do their way with the cutscenes, though. Nobody liked what they did with those and pretty much every review went hard on Generals for that. So, decision #4: let's make some old-school cutscenes, but make them expensive like never before to avoid cheesiness. Finally. Multiplayer. Nobody liked Westwood Online service. Everybody loved GameSpy in Generals. Decision #5: to make multiplayer based on GameSpy service and push into that territory as hard as possible. That's it. That was the idea. And after that? After that it was all up to EA Los Angeles (former LA division of DreamWorks Interactive), which finally became somewhat stable after all the acquisition chaos. Well. Ladies, gentlemen, everybody else, please welcome, Tiberium Wars.
The first thing I've noticed back in the days was how similar it was to Incursion. Not content-wise (I'll return to that later), but visually. Not like we had lots of pictures from Westwood's canceled game, but still, judging by what we did have, TW was exactly that. It looked like what old-school fans waited for the whole time, the original concepts were still recognizable, etc. It felt good. Really good. Sure, lots of the original ideas were scrapped (originally, Westwood planned four playable factions – GDI, Nod, CABAL and Scrin, while Tiberium Wars only has two – good ol' GDI and Nod with tiny four missions long bonus campaign for Scrin, which you unlock by beating both others), but still, it was way better than nothing.
And you know what? Seeing the old gameplay to return felt good too. Not because it was old, obviously, everything needs to evolve, but because it felt... C&C. If you know what I mean. Generals? If something, it felt more like something from BLIZZARD. No Dune-like harvesters, builder units that can build anywhere on the map... Tiberium Wars? It brought all the familiar stuff back. We're building with our yards again, we can't build too far away from our buildings, harvesters are back... In other words, it is C&C. Which, again, doesn't mean it forgot about Generals. There'll be those points we'll be able to capture for bonus income, the abilities, while not revolving around experience anymore, are still kinda presented in a way (they've kinda combined those with those powerful attacks from the original C&C), etc. Also, they didn't forget about Red Alert 2. Not only infantry will be able to occupy the civilian buildings, we'll also get real places like the White House and the Buckingham Palace. Lots of bonus objectives were added too, which adds to replayability.
Unfortunately, the new guys? They didn't really figure anything out about the Tiberium. And as the result? The whole idea got scrapped. Which was a huge mistake. Why? Well, because it makes things... weird. Instead of a sequel, C&C3 feels more like a remake of the Tiberian Sun. Something that takes place in the alternative universe, in which nothing from it happened. And you know what? The story only makes things worse. Remember Kane having an injured face after his temple was destroyed at the end of the very first game? Well, he's all healthy now. Why? I dunno. Technically, there was a strong hint at the end of TS' expansion to suggest he's a clone now, but nothing like that is told officially here. Instead, we've got a bunch of boring talks and copy/pasted stuff from previous games. Blah-blah-blah GDI needs to protect the planet, blah-blah-blah Kane shoots traitors (remember Seth? There's a female version of him now)... Boring. Hollywood cast helps, though. There's Billy Dee Williams from Star Wars and Batman, there's Michael Ironside from Top Gun, there's Jennifer Morrison from House... Heck, GDI campaign even has two different endings! Still, boring story is boring. And the fact that it ends with the cliffhanger only makes things worse.
They did try with the multiplayer, though. They really did. Heck, they tried to turn C&C3 into sport by introducing us to so-called BattleCast. A service that used to let us schedule games and watch them like our usual sport broadcasts. Note the “used to” part, though, because obviously, multiplayer here is long gone too. That's just what EA does. They make online-oriented games and then quickly shut the services down. Just because.
Still, C&C3 was a thing. Was it perfect? No. Aside from boring story, I could mention things like speed settings being gone for good (which was one of my biggest complaints about Generals, I just can't enjoy RTS games when they're too slow, and C&C3 sure is too) and some campaign missions that didn't give us enough freedom and as the result felt more like a puzzle with only one correct solution. But it was a thing. Finally, after taking over, EA established a solid new place for the series. They did something right for a change. C&C3 was like a new start. A thing to make us believe that future was bright. Was it, though? Well, that's the story for another day.