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Dom Robinson reviews
EA Games 
- Windows 98/2000/ME/XP
- Intel Pentium II 400Mhz
- 96Mb RAM
- 4-speed CD-ROM
- 16Mb 3D graphics card
- 700Mb Hard Disk Space
- DirectX 8.0
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 recruitsand tanks off to do your bidding… No thanks. I just want to strap-on anM16 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 shouldbe interested in – and testing out the Ion cannon, which creates an electricalstorm and kicks serious ass, was simply bliss.
The plot? There is one, but it doesn’t really matter because when I did starta game proper, after the training ground, I just waded on in without a care inthe world roaming into no man’s land, shooting at the bad guys and roaring asI went. Felt quite good for a while too.
And as I said.. for just a while; and earlier, it “should” be a game-typethat I’m interested in, but this falls far short of the mark, for the simplefact that it wouldn’t have looked out of place around early-mid 1998 beforeHalf Lifewas 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 settingsfor expecting moderate-quality graphics, since the screen often slows down iftoo much is going on and since I’m running a Pentium III 600Mhz with 384Mb ofRAM, this is enough above the minimum spec of the game and, thus, I am baffledas to why the programming is so lazy that this should happen.
Disappointment also reins in the smeary textures as you get up close to anembankment, for example. When I first saw a demo of the Voodoo 3 chipset, awhile 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 improvedthe closer it got. However, someone clearly dropped the ball on this one becausesuch passion hasn’t been programmed into the landscapes and you may as well notbother taking a closer look because you’ll wonder why you bothered.
Thanks to Mike Warren for his inputon the above which is as follows:
- “I read your review of this. I think I know why it’s so slow. It’s becausethey 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 astoundinglygood on games that use OpenGL/DirectX properly, e.g. Medal of Honour). Thisgame, however, when viewed in 3D you see the problem immediately. The 3Dplacement of objects is incorrect, e.g. the roof of a house appears to floatin front of the house. You don’t see this in normal 2D viewing. The result ofnot using OpenGL/DirectX properly is the whole thing slows down, because, Isuspect, 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 areturn 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 thetraining section, the sound effects of the various weapons disappeared withouttrace, without warning and without explanation(!) Also, after testing them onthe firing range and taking the Hum-Vee and a tank out for a spin, I wasinstructed to return to my senior, Logan, for further training. I approachedhim. He stood there. He ignored me. I clicked on him. Hell, I even dropped abloody Ion cannon in front of him and set it off, but after the resultantexplosion he still didn’t bat and eye-lid. I cancelled the training session andheaded into a game proper.
Now I know why the guy on the front cover is so angry. You’ll feel the sameway paying full price for a game that, had it been released in the time itfeels 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 enoughwhen playing with yourself, why bother with the extra lag?
SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC
PLAYABILITY
ORIGINALITY
ENJOYMENT
0
OVERALLThis game was played on a PC with the following spec:
Intel PIII 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM (133 Mhz), Voodoo 3 3000 AGP, SoundblasterLive! 1024.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.