12.7 hours played
Written 19 days ago
Only rating the single player campaign
“Tiberium Twilight” is the last instalment of the famous Command & Conquer real time strategy series. Officially dubbed “C&C 4”, it’s actually number 9 if counting all the main games bearing the title (including the first-person shooter “Renegade” and excluding add-ons). Looking back at a long history and tradition of fast-paced base building, resource gathering and amassing big armies, at least in the 2D isometric games, the latest ones were trying to bring more of the “rock-paper-scissors” mechanics into the gameplay, with C&C Generals Zero Hour and Tiberium Twilight as the highest form of it. That also meant reducing or even eliminating the base-building and resource-gathering components. Generally speaking, C&C 4 is hence somewhat of the last (yet in my view unfinished) step in a journey to adjust the series to a different play style with a potential reboot that was being discussed around the time of the release in 2010. The latter was dropped quickly after the commercial failure of C&C 4 and the demise of RTS in general.
The plot of the game continues and concludes the alternate future time line in which the world was dominated by two factions, Nod and GDI, picking up right after “C&C 3 - Tiberium Wars” quite well. Otherwise, unfortunately, the game itself feels incomplete and unbalanced on several accounts as well as falling short again on long-needed improvements on year-old problems such as a limited graphics engine and very low unit AI. Additionally, all the fans of the series who have loved the game especially because of the traditional mechanics might have their issues because of the new play styles.
After about 13 hours of play time in a normal approach, here’s my pros/cons list:
Pros:
+ seamlessly continues story after C&C3 and its add-on
+ high quality cutscenes and good quality actors
+ last and final appearance of Kane
+ interesting conclusion of the timeline, Tiberium infestation, the Nod cult and the legendary figure of Kane
+ great graphics
+ new strategic elements of mobile bases (= crawlers)
+ mutant area mission level design well done and detailed
+ interesting story in general
+ 3 tactics styles to choose from (offensive, defensive, support)
+ great unit detail
+ generally kept look & feel of C&C series
Cons:
- Game mechanics feel like they were geared towards teams of up to 3 players cooperating in multiplayer matches against others, especially since some units and tactical advantages are missing when playing as single player
- Kane by now definitely had many more lives than a cat
- Apart from Kane, his cult and Tiberium conclusion, the plot remains shallow and rather bland
- Stone papers scissors mechanics not working in single player missions due to missing variety in units available by only being able to choose 1 tactic at a time, limiting options drastically
- Level-up to unlock higher units in most cases unobtainable and hence a player would choose a different approach --> balancing issue
- Stealing big units from the enemy NPC can become main tactic in winning the single player campaign
- Command points (= max unit number) limitation very low in single player missions to be able to stand a good chance against the enemy early on in many cases --> balancing issue
- Missing option to tilt crawler unfinished game element
- Many missions are trail & error of each of the 3 tactical choices --> balancing issue
- Unfair nuclear rocket behaviour in last GDI mission --> balancing issue
- Super overpowered Arcus GDI enemy unit in last Nod mission making it nearly unbeatable --> balancing issue
- Very unfair Nod pre-order bonus mission “Night Moves” --> balancing issue
- Game is missing explanation what the advantage is to capture some buildings on the map, players need to find out by themselves
- Graphics engine is fixed to 30 fps due to necessary internal game speed regulation
- AI of units still super low which requires lots of micromanagement (they can’t even pick the enemy which they are the strongest against or move in formations without blocking each other all the time)
- Micromanagement of units decreases real tactical orders and behaviours to be expected of a modern RTS
- AI still has wayfinding issues on the map
- Funny enough, despite resource gathering and base building eliminated, very slow gameplay compared to predecessors
- Campaign missions very boring and uninspired which is very sad compared to the very fun, varied missions of Red Alert 3
- Tedious campaign missions, especially because of re-spawning crawlers (= mobile bases)
- Soundtrack without any C&C characteristics, sounds more like a mix of Star Wars, Indiana Jones and psychedelic Japanese singing
- Missing detailed explanation of 3 tactics, including differences in units etc.
- Graphic bugs appeared several times through whole missions
- Some game crashes still happened
- Annoying double login forced on player before game start and just before the main menu without option to save login information
- Story ending of Kane somewhere between stupid (GDI part) and well done (general conclusion)
- The protagonist’s wife is such a silly damsel in distress, unlike all the other strong women in earlier instalments
Conclusion:
Although C&C 4 wraps up the Tiberium timeline quite well, the plot is very shallow and boring. The new mechanics introduced appear to be unfinished and badly balanced, making many missions very tedious and sometimes even highly frustrating. I generally liked the look & feel of the game and was eager to try out a new tactical approach to the game play, but the downsides tainted my experience quite a lot. Hence, I can only recommend the game to anyone who wants to know about the conclusion of the series from a plot standpoint. From an RTS perspective, the game is rather disappointing, especially after an amazing Red Alert 3.
Rating: 4/10 points
