Command and Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight is the last game in the Tiberiun storyline of Command and conquer, 15 years after Command and Conquer: Tiberian Dawn revolutionized Real time strategy gaming.
Taking huge steps away from what made the series so popular, EA decided to remove resource management and base building, leaving only a single deployable unit called a “Crawler” which can build units. There is no Tiberium to harvest — your Crawler just makes units out of thin air. The defining gameplay of Command and Conquer had been changed radically.
The focus had turned to “domination”, where players try to capture key positions on maps — exactly like Modern Warfare 2.While a smart move to attract the first person shooter crowd, the game lost the a lot of its strategic choices. There is no way of harassing the enemy’s economy — you just send your crawler to the capture point most in threat and fight him there face to face.
Command & Conquer 4 breaks up each faction into 3 distinct classes. There is assault class, which is vehicle-focused. Defense class allows you to build infantry and defensive structures,while support class gives you the air units and support powers.
This change is aimed at simplifying the game for people new to RTS. The depth of strategy have been shallowed by the removal of base-building, which may let Veteran players feel uneasy. It is a respectable effort to attract new players, especially with the jaggernaut Starcraft II which will likely draw away the hardcore crowd coming in just a few months.
The single player brings back the messiah Kane, leader of a terrorist para-military organization called Nod, in an uneasy alliance with the GDI (your usual good guys fighting for freedom) to cure the world of Tiberium, a toxic substance which is threatening humans with extinction. The single player will let you choose to choose your allegiance to GDI or Kane after the training missions, branching into 2 separate campaigns. It’s not anything which have not been done before.
The missions are varied enough to prevent repetition, and it’s pretty interesting in some stages. But it quickly becomes trial and error, as certain missions cater for certain classes. Players will find themselves blazing through missions after their first failed attempt when they just change classes.
Lastly, they introduced level progression. You start out with pea shooters and slowly unlock more units as you keep playing.While intresting, this system brings many unfortunate byproducts- nearly no one is playing online, probably grinding AIs in an attempt to unlock everything before they fight other humans.
While it is sounds like a great way to revolutionize Real Time Strategy games, stripping so many parts out of the tested proven formula which made command and conquer did not make it sleeker, but made it slower. EA deserves a applaud for taking such a bold move. If they would try it once more, they may actually find themselves revolutionizing Real time strategy games. But for now- C&C4 is mediocre.