Dom Robinson reviews

Distributed by
EA Games

Previous Command and Conquer games never quite did it for me. Point your mouse, click and watch little men fry as you send a pack of recruits and tanks off to do your bidding... No thanks. I just want to strap-on an M16 or a rocket launcher and blow the fuck out of the enemy, Quake-style, so I was well-chuffed to find this release to be the kind of variant I should be interested in - and testing out the Ion cannon, which creates an electrical storm and kicks serious ass, was simply bliss. The plot? There is one, but it doesn't really matter because when I did start a game proper, after the training ground, I just waded on in without a care in the world roaming into no man's land, shooting at the bad guys and roaring as I went. Felt quite good for a while too. And as I said.. for just a while; and earlier, it "should" be a game-type that I'm interested in, but this falls far short of the mark, for the simple fact that it wouldn't have looked out of place around early-mid 1998 before Half Life was released, but in April 2002 it's way past its sell-by date.

The problems begin as soon as you start the game, even with the default settings for expecting moderate-quality graphics, since the screen often slows down if too much is going on and since I'm running a Pentium III 600Mhz with 384Mb of RAM, this is enough above the minimum spec of the game and, thus, I am baffled as to why the programming is so lazy that this should happen. Disappointment also reins in the smeary textures as you get up close to an embankment, for example. When I first saw a demo of the Voodoo 3 chipset, a while before I bought one, I was impressed with the textures viewed as the 'player' moved towards a wall in an Egyptian tomb and the definition improved the closer it got. However, someone clearly dropped the ball on this one because such passion hasn't been programmed into the landscapes and you may as well not bother taking a closer look because you'll wonder why you bothered. Thanks to Mike Warren for his input on the above which is as follows: "I read your review of this. I think I know why it's so slow. It's because they arent using the OpenGL and/or DirectX functions correctly. How do I know? Because I have a pair of those 3D shutter glasses. (which are astoundingly good on games that use OpenGL/DirectX properly, e.g. Medal of Honour). This game, however, when viewed in 3D you see the problem immediately. The 3D placement of objects is incorrect, e.g. the roof of a house appears to float in front of the house. You don't see this in normal 2D viewing. The result of not using OpenGL/DirectX properly is the whole thing slows down, because, I suspect, the CPU is doing stuff that the 3D graphics card should be doing."

Also, in the game proper it's often too easy to kill baddies and we see a return to grotesque-looking people in the over-long FMV sequences. The sound is nothing to write home about for most of the time and, in the training section, the sound effects of the various weapons disappeared without trace, without warning and without explanation(!) Also, after testing them on the firing range and taking the Hum-Vee and a tank out for a spin, I was instructed to return to my senior, Logan, for further training. I approached him. He stood there. He ignored me. I clicked on him. Hell, I even dropped a bloody Ion cannon in front of him and set it off, but after the resultant explosion he still didn't bat and eye-lid. I cancelled the training session and headed into a game proper. Now I know why the guy on the front cover is so angry. You'll feel the same way paying full price for a game that, had it been released in the time it feels like it was, would have long since been re-released in budget form. You can also play online with this game, but if it slows down badly enough when playing with yourself, why bother with the extra lag?

GRAPHICS SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC PLAYABILITY ORIGINALITY ENJOYMENT	0
OVERALL

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2002.

This game was played on a PC with the following spec:
Intel PIII 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM (133 Mhz), Voodoo 3 3000 AGP, Soundblaster Live! 1024.