Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars (PC, 2007)
Graphics-7.5 Sound-7 Control-7 Challenge-7.5 Story-5.5
Level Design-7.5 Frustration-7.5/8*/8.5** Fun-7.5 Originality-5
Overall Score-7
*Some baseless/limited base missions
**Final Nod mission
+
Some interface improvements (very detailed hotkey customization, building and training hotkeys, rotatable and zoomable camera (3D graphics like Generals), brings back the HUD tabs from RA2, can build/train from more than one building of the same type at once, can rotate buildings while placing them, ctrl+r to rally all units in the currently-selected production queue while in battle - no need to select individual buildings ant RMB click)
One new faction (Scrin (aliens) - radiation resistant, pretty distinct units, use tiberium directly to upgrade their units; they get a bonus campaign which is harder and much shorter at 4 missions)
Can make vehicles move backwards while shooting (some have better front armor which adds another tactical nuance) and make units move in formation so that slower units don't fall behind (hold both buttons; can't make them keep holding a formation like in AoE 2 however)
Units automatically place themselves to make use of cover when placed near it
Some interesting new units and buildings (crane - build two buildings at once, rig vehicle - can be deployed as a temporary base for repairs and two turrets (can also repair this base like other buildings), surveyor/emissary trucks let you set up expansions relatively quickly, firehawk planes can switch their weapons from AA to AG and back at an airfield+can teleport w/ an upgrade, subway hub and entrances (neutral) - like a nydus canal for infantry, zone troopers (jetpack-powered jumps - DoW assault squad (and RA2 had rocketeers which could fly), radiation resistant and can't be run over (tesla troopers), can call for air transport (commando can also jump and call for air transport)), shadows/shadow team (infantry) - hangglider flight+explosives, juggernaut - walker+artillery with snipers as marksmen (Nod have an equivalent in the reflected beam cannon shots using a venom plane), hallucinogenic grenades (confessor squad leader upgrade), booby trap (saboteur ability), EMP AoE attacks)
1-2+ bonus objectives per mission (up to 5 or so at times, generally affects the difficulty of the current mission) - sadly these don't affect the next mission's resources like in TS nor the overall campaign progression
Garrison neutral buildings (RA2)
Pretty nice lighting and flamethrower effects, particle and smoke effects and pretty satisfying explosions
Units gain exp and level up (Tiberian Sun; rewards more skillful play and caring about your troops) - 3 levels in total and at the highest they start regenerating HP
Power toggle command is back (turn off or on activity on individual buildings to temporarily save power - Tiberian Sun; used in a pretty interesting way in one mission here) and ore silos are back
Difficulty options (easy-hard - can change it before each mission)
Power plants and silos don't count towards destroying an enemy base (faster cleanup)
Some interesting new mechanics/features (5+ air transport ships gained just from building an airfield which can be called upon manually for each unit, can revert your construction yards into MCVs, Scrin infantry and mutant marauders can heal from tiberium, tiberium spike (neutral additional stream of income building similar to Dawn of War or Herzog Zwei) and expansion point (like a stationary, neutral surveyor - RA2) - discourages turtling, )
Keeps the non-interruptive cutscenes during missions (transmissions from story relevant chars in the top right of the GUI, engineers can capture wreckages of some units to repair and take them over)
Optional tutorial (decent but again doesn't go into some fundamental things it should've like waypoints and rally points)
Some lore (intelligence) added as you play the campaign however it would've been better pacing-wise to introduce it after the mission
Nice post-game graphs in skirmish mode
The bunker cutscenes before and during the ground zero mission (funny)
Can make units spread out more by adding large buildings to their control group (good for air units)
Two different GDI endings depending on your choice during each final mission (no alternate Nod ending though)
Pretty good variety (similar to TS) and length (17 missions per main side)
Alternate solutions to some (most?) main objectives (C&C1)
Some hidden/off the main path items (money, exp, units, stat upgrade, healing; C&C1) - no map reveal, paratroopers, temporary invincibility, cloaking or nuke/ion blast here but also no negative items
+/-
Mostly linear - you sometimes get a choice between two missions on the map screen though doing one before the other doesn't seem to have any consequence here (TS did it a bit better)
Save anywhere (unlimited nameable slots?)
Infantry units are now trained as squads instead of individuals (besides engineers and commandos) - Dawn of War
Too many cutscene interruptions during the campaign (they are skippable though and you can double check objectives in the menu)
Flamethrower infantry (black hand) is OP vs buildings and commandos are OP in general (in SP)
Units tend to die pretty quickly unless up against something they're strong against or if they've gained levels/promotions
Can't scatter an infantry squad with the scatter command - it moves away from its initial position instead
The enemy AI seems to have more money than you in most missions, Resources generally seem more scarce than in TS
Harvesters collect fewer resources per run since patch 1.09 (prior to it they'd collect 2400 credits (Blue tib 4800) whereas on the latest patch it's 1400 and 2800 respectively) - this was meant to rebalance MP but also affects SP and only affects TW, not Kane's Wrath. Can be modded to restore the values
One of the Scrinn aerial units rips off the carrier from SC (in turn the mothership design was kinda ripped off by SC2)
No tiberian fiends or visceroid critters?
Disk throwers were reverted to grenadiers
Engineers now take over buildings in perfect condition again (can also be used to repair bridges) - TS
The cutscenes are more entertaining and true to the classic style again, but not on par with Red Alert 1
No ion storms (TS)
FoW is back (explored territory doesn't stay fully visible, just the terrain)
No mode where experienced units carry over to the next mission
No hospitals (RA2 neutral building) and no spy satellite (RA2, Generals)
Harvesters can't call for air transport (Dune 2)
No escort unit command (ctrl+alt+lmb)? - RA2
The latest patch also made Nod harder since you can't build two obelisks at once with one crane (it was nerfed so the second defensive structure tab only lets you build a silo and disruption tower)
No crumbling cliffsides and breakable ice opening up shortcuts here (in SP anyway; TS)?
-
Some control/interface issues (no game speed options while in-game and can't adjust it at all during SP (some missions can get a bit overwhelming since units tend to die quickly, be built quickly and resources are drained pretty quickly), can't double click to make crawling infantry start running again here, no "select all on screen" key here - only "select all units" (Q) and select all of a certain type (after clicking on a unit first, W), some pathfinding issues that can get frustrating when trying to be stealthy or make unified attacks (or make precise movement like grabbing one of a group of crates with one unit, in the downtown mission it was near impossible to get all crates on the height in the middle with a shadow squad due to its large hit box - also has to do with the crate's hit box as on another mission a group of units would just place themselves near a crate when directly clicking on it), no subtitles, still can't queue up buildings (only units) however the separate tab for different types helps a bit, can't build from 2+ buildings of the same type at once (also can't control group them), game is too anal about where you can place buildings and strikes/drops - often looks like there's room and flat ground when there isn't, slightly slow to open pause menu, game defaulted to 800x600 res for me, can't use alt+f4 to quickly exit the game, H hotkey goes to the enemy base if you have no HQ, can't use the repair vehicle command to make a vehicle move close to the war factory in one go (have to first order the damaged vehicle near the factory), no info on a unit telling you if it's anti-air or not?, juggernauts are too slow to react to commands at times, have to wait for 8-10 seconds before you can restart or reload after failing a mission (mission failed animation), )
Sometimes uneven difficulty (GDI: tough croatia (defense+escort) mission - weirdly it instead becomes too easy after establishing your base and taking out a couple of waves of enemies, alexandria is kinda tough, easy first commando mission and nuclear silo mission (the latter starts off decent but doesn't escalate), easy and short stuttgart and munich (alien invasion, baseless/limited base) missions; Nod: very tough final mission early on (easier in earlier patches and if cheesing it by capturing the alien crane+spamming obelisks), easy second nod mission followed by a fairly tough baseless mission, easy outback nod mission, randomly easy or hard nod australia city wall mission (if the aliens decide to attack you early on with 3 tripods and a warship you're kinda screwed), easy northern italy nod mission, some mid tier vehicles are too unresponsive and expensive+die too quickly to be viable in the hardest missions such as flame tanks in the final nod mission)
Some unit AI issues (vehicles tend not to react if shot at from outside of their firing range in guard mode (APCs shot by garrisoned troops don't react even in aggressive stance and this seems to be the case if units are shot at by Scrin artillery (devastator warships) too), harvesters don't retreat if attacked on their own and far away from a base, in one mission I could take out one tank at a time without triggering its allies nearby)
Annoying full screen in-game cutscenes during gameplay (camera shake and zooming in and out, can be skipped but not turned off and they're pretty frequent)+twitchy arrow in the hud during GDI intro cutscene
A bit harder to tell the difference between some units, Rally points blend in with the backgrounds at times
Some trial & error (reinforcement dropships can take a bad path towards their target and get shot down by the enemy, sudden enemy or allied reinforcements (carpet bombing in the nod traitor mission), game doesn't explain how to build surveyors (a side objective in one GDI mission is to deploy one, they're under the turrets tab apparently) - needed to create expansions without an MCV, can't lose 2/4 engineers in the albania mission+you're not warned before capturing a couple of Nod buildings+it's really annoying how enemy units in the east can come from out of the fog of war and be locked on to attacking them so that you had to know they were there or you'll probably lose an engineer (the enemy can do the same with subway stations - seems they're aware of them without scouting them out), no warning before subsequent missile attacks in the final GDI mission, invisible timer on wreckages before they disappear)
Can't keep playing after finishing a mission
Unskippable bootup logo
Repeated alarm sfx during some missions
No cheats
The game could've introduced mutant infantry units better in the campaign (like in TS). They also kinda suck here
The using the ion cannon on the temple part of the GDI campaign is pretty dumb (a scientist being captured is a good excuse how?) and the shot cutscene is too over the top
No medic unit (GDI infantry can still heal and even revive individuals at an armory) - Scrin has war factory repair drones (their infantry is partly mechanical) and corrupters
Mostly forgettable OST (well produced but feels like more of a movie score)
Kinda rigid GDI Berne mission (pretty much have to get the ion cannon here because of their shields+large force and not being able to get in range of the main objective)
Can't sell vehicles here (could do it in RA1, RA2 pre-patch, TS, TD via the service depot)
No acknowledgement from the game if you take out the aliens before the GDI in the downtown mission
It gets kinda tedious to keep control units in order and stick to any tactic or strategy in hard and intense missions since units die and are built so quickly that any current groups quickly become "outdated"
Pretty bad Nod ending
Bugs:
-Zone troopers, snipers and some others units occasionally don't respond to move commands until you reissue them
-Encountered a bug during the croatia mission where a harvester would get stuck outside the refinery, not being able to move and blocking the way for my other harvesters so I had to destroy it
-Harvesters would also get semi-stuck several times during the stiletto mission
-...and AGAIN during the final Nod mission (seemed like moving vehicles near them would make it worse)
-Groups of vehicles sometimes get stuck on each other or split up in really dumb ways, getting themselves killed. They can also be slow to react to commands which can really tip the scales since units die so quickly
-Planes can sometimes glitch out and just circle around the target repeatedly
-At one point two shadow squads used explosives on one building
-Encountered a bug during the Nod slovenia mission where I couldn't build turrets (after loading a save it suddenly worked)
-In the operation stiletto mission there was a bug that made going to the last event (such as unit sighted) with space didn't work and would take me to the enemy's HQ instead
-Glitched out (or fake?) crate in the italian hills Nod mission
Notes:
-Patch 1.09 notes: https://cnc.fandom.com/wiki/Tiberium_Wars_patch_1.09
-Didn't beat the Scrin campaign
Level Design-7.5 Frustration-7.5/8*/8.5** Fun-7.5 Originality-5
Overall Score-7
*Some baseless/limited base missions
**Final Nod mission
+
Some interface improvements (very detailed hotkey customization, building and training hotkeys, rotatable and zoomable camera (3D graphics like Generals), brings back the HUD tabs from RA2, can build/train from more than one building of the same type at once, can rotate buildings while placing them, ctrl+r to rally all units in the currently-selected production queue while in battle - no need to select individual buildings ant RMB click)
One new faction (Scrin (aliens) - radiation resistant, pretty distinct units, use tiberium directly to upgrade their units; they get a bonus campaign which is harder and much shorter at 4 missions)
Can make vehicles move backwards while shooting (some have better front armor which adds another tactical nuance) and make units move in formation so that slower units don't fall behind (hold both buttons; can't make them keep holding a formation like in AoE 2 however)
Units automatically place themselves to make use of cover when placed near it
Some interesting new units and buildings (crane - build two buildings at once, rig vehicle - can be deployed as a temporary base for repairs and two turrets (can also repair this base like other buildings), surveyor/emissary trucks let you set up expansions relatively quickly, firehawk planes can switch their weapons from AA to AG and back at an airfield+can teleport w/ an upgrade, subway hub and entrances (neutral) - like a nydus canal for infantry, zone troopers (jetpack-powered jumps - DoW assault squad (and RA2 had rocketeers which could fly), radiation resistant and can't be run over (tesla troopers), can call for air transport (commando can also jump and call for air transport)), shadows/shadow team (infantry) - hangglider flight+explosives, juggernaut - walker+artillery with snipers as marksmen (Nod have an equivalent in the reflected beam cannon shots using a venom plane), hallucinogenic grenades (confessor squad leader upgrade), booby trap (saboteur ability), EMP AoE attacks)
1-2+ bonus objectives per mission (up to 5 or so at times, generally affects the difficulty of the current mission) - sadly these don't affect the next mission's resources like in TS nor the overall campaign progression
Garrison neutral buildings (RA2)
Pretty nice lighting and flamethrower effects, particle and smoke effects and pretty satisfying explosions
Units gain exp and level up (Tiberian Sun; rewards more skillful play and caring about your troops) - 3 levels in total and at the highest they start regenerating HP
Power toggle command is back (turn off or on activity on individual buildings to temporarily save power - Tiberian Sun; used in a pretty interesting way in one mission here) and ore silos are back
Difficulty options (easy-hard - can change it before each mission)
Power plants and silos don't count towards destroying an enemy base (faster cleanup)
Some interesting new mechanics/features (5+ air transport ships gained just from building an airfield which can be called upon manually for each unit, can revert your construction yards into MCVs, Scrin infantry and mutant marauders can heal from tiberium, tiberium spike (neutral additional stream of income building similar to Dawn of War or Herzog Zwei) and expansion point (like a stationary, neutral surveyor - RA2) - discourages turtling, )
Keeps the non-interruptive cutscenes during missions (transmissions from story relevant chars in the top right of the GUI, engineers can capture wreckages of some units to repair and take them over)
Optional tutorial (decent but again doesn't go into some fundamental things it should've like waypoints and rally points)
Some lore (intelligence) added as you play the campaign however it would've been better pacing-wise to introduce it after the mission
Nice post-game graphs in skirmish mode
The bunker cutscenes before and during the ground zero mission (funny)
Can make units spread out more by adding large buildings to their control group (good for air units)
Two different GDI endings depending on your choice during each final mission (no alternate Nod ending though)
Pretty good variety (similar to TS) and length (17 missions per main side)
Alternate solutions to some (most?) main objectives (C&C1)
Some hidden/off the main path items (money, exp, units, stat upgrade, healing; C&C1) - no map reveal, paratroopers, temporary invincibility, cloaking or nuke/ion blast here but also no negative items
+/-
Mostly linear - you sometimes get a choice between two missions on the map screen though doing one before the other doesn't seem to have any consequence here (TS did it a bit better)
Save anywhere (unlimited nameable slots?)
Infantry units are now trained as squads instead of individuals (besides engineers and commandos) - Dawn of War
Too many cutscene interruptions during the campaign (they are skippable though and you can double check objectives in the menu)
Flamethrower infantry (black hand) is OP vs buildings and commandos are OP in general (in SP)
Units tend to die pretty quickly unless up against something they're strong against or if they've gained levels/promotions
Can't scatter an infantry squad with the scatter command - it moves away from its initial position instead
The enemy AI seems to have more money than you in most missions, Resources generally seem more scarce than in TS
Harvesters collect fewer resources per run since patch 1.09 (prior to it they'd collect 2400 credits (Blue tib 4800) whereas on the latest patch it's 1400 and 2800 respectively) - this was meant to rebalance MP but also affects SP and only affects TW, not Kane's Wrath. Can be modded to restore the values
One of the Scrinn aerial units rips off the carrier from SC (in turn the mothership design was kinda ripped off by SC2)
No tiberian fiends or visceroid critters?
Disk throwers were reverted to grenadiers
Engineers now take over buildings in perfect condition again (can also be used to repair bridges) - TS
The cutscenes are more entertaining and true to the classic style again, but not on par with Red Alert 1
No ion storms (TS)
FoW is back (explored territory doesn't stay fully visible, just the terrain)
No mode where experienced units carry over to the next mission
No hospitals (RA2 neutral building) and no spy satellite (RA2, Generals)
Harvesters can't call for air transport (Dune 2)
No escort unit command (ctrl+alt+lmb)? - RA2
The latest patch also made Nod harder since you can't build two obelisks at once with one crane (it was nerfed so the second defensive structure tab only lets you build a silo and disruption tower)
No crumbling cliffsides and breakable ice opening up shortcuts here (in SP anyway; TS)?
-
Some control/interface issues (no game speed options while in-game and can't adjust it at all during SP (some missions can get a bit overwhelming since units tend to die quickly, be built quickly and resources are drained pretty quickly), can't double click to make crawling infantry start running again here, no "select all on screen" key here - only "select all units" (Q) and select all of a certain type (after clicking on a unit first, W), some pathfinding issues that can get frustrating when trying to be stealthy or make unified attacks (or make precise movement like grabbing one of a group of crates with one unit, in the downtown mission it was near impossible to get all crates on the height in the middle with a shadow squad due to its large hit box - also has to do with the crate's hit box as on another mission a group of units would just place themselves near a crate when directly clicking on it), no subtitles, still can't queue up buildings (only units) however the separate tab for different types helps a bit, can't build from 2+ buildings of the same type at once (also can't control group them), game is too anal about where you can place buildings and strikes/drops - often looks like there's room and flat ground when there isn't, slightly slow to open pause menu, game defaulted to 800x600 res for me, can't use alt+f4 to quickly exit the game, H hotkey goes to the enemy base if you have no HQ, can't use the repair vehicle command to make a vehicle move close to the war factory in one go (have to first order the damaged vehicle near the factory), no info on a unit telling you if it's anti-air or not?, juggernauts are too slow to react to commands at times, have to wait for 8-10 seconds before you can restart or reload after failing a mission (mission failed animation), )
Sometimes uneven difficulty (GDI: tough croatia (defense+escort) mission - weirdly it instead becomes too easy after establishing your base and taking out a couple of waves of enemies, alexandria is kinda tough, easy first commando mission and nuclear silo mission (the latter starts off decent but doesn't escalate), easy and short stuttgart and munich (alien invasion, baseless/limited base) missions; Nod: very tough final mission early on (easier in earlier patches and if cheesing it by capturing the alien crane+spamming obelisks), easy second nod mission followed by a fairly tough baseless mission, easy outback nod mission, randomly easy or hard nod australia city wall mission (if the aliens decide to attack you early on with 3 tripods and a warship you're kinda screwed), easy northern italy nod mission, some mid tier vehicles are too unresponsive and expensive+die too quickly to be viable in the hardest missions such as flame tanks in the final nod mission)
Some unit AI issues (vehicles tend not to react if shot at from outside of their firing range in guard mode (APCs shot by garrisoned troops don't react even in aggressive stance and this seems to be the case if units are shot at by Scrin artillery (devastator warships) too), harvesters don't retreat if attacked on their own and far away from a base, in one mission I could take out one tank at a time without triggering its allies nearby)
Annoying full screen in-game cutscenes during gameplay (camera shake and zooming in and out, can be skipped but not turned off and they're pretty frequent)+twitchy arrow in the hud during GDI intro cutscene
A bit harder to tell the difference between some units, Rally points blend in with the backgrounds at times
Some trial & error (reinforcement dropships can take a bad path towards their target and get shot down by the enemy, sudden enemy or allied reinforcements (carpet bombing in the nod traitor mission), game doesn't explain how to build surveyors (a side objective in one GDI mission is to deploy one, they're under the turrets tab apparently) - needed to create expansions without an MCV, can't lose 2/4 engineers in the albania mission+you're not warned before capturing a couple of Nod buildings+it's really annoying how enemy units in the east can come from out of the fog of war and be locked on to attacking them so that you had to know they were there or you'll probably lose an engineer (the enemy can do the same with subway stations - seems they're aware of them without scouting them out), no warning before subsequent missile attacks in the final GDI mission, invisible timer on wreckages before they disappear)
Can't keep playing after finishing a mission
Unskippable bootup logo
Repeated alarm sfx during some missions
No cheats
The game could've introduced mutant infantry units better in the campaign (like in TS). They also kinda suck here
The using the ion cannon on the temple part of the GDI campaign is pretty dumb (a scientist being captured is a good excuse how?) and the shot cutscene is too over the top
No medic unit (GDI infantry can still heal and even revive individuals at an armory) - Scrin has war factory repair drones (their infantry is partly mechanical) and corrupters
Mostly forgettable OST (well produced but feels like more of a movie score)
Kinda rigid GDI Berne mission (pretty much have to get the ion cannon here because of their shields+large force and not being able to get in range of the main objective)
Can't sell vehicles here (could do it in RA1, RA2 pre-patch, TS, TD via the service depot)
No acknowledgement from the game if you take out the aliens before the GDI in the downtown mission
It gets kinda tedious to keep control units in order and stick to any tactic or strategy in hard and intense missions since units die and are built so quickly that any current groups quickly become "outdated"
Pretty bad Nod ending
Bugs:
-Zone troopers, snipers and some others units occasionally don't respond to move commands until you reissue them
-Encountered a bug during the croatia mission where a harvester would get stuck outside the refinery, not being able to move and blocking the way for my other harvesters so I had to destroy it
-Harvesters would also get semi-stuck several times during the stiletto mission
-...and AGAIN during the final Nod mission (seemed like moving vehicles near them would make it worse)
-Groups of vehicles sometimes get stuck on each other or split up in really dumb ways, getting themselves killed. They can also be slow to react to commands which can really tip the scales since units die so quickly
-Planes can sometimes glitch out and just circle around the target repeatedly
-At one point two shadow squads used explosives on one building
-Encountered a bug during the Nod slovenia mission where I couldn't build turrets (after loading a save it suddenly worked)
-In the operation stiletto mission there was a bug that made going to the last event (such as unit sighted) with space didn't work and would take me to the enemy's HQ instead
-Glitched out (or fake?) crate in the italian hills Nod mission
Notes:
-Patch 1.09 notes: https://cnc.fandom.com/wiki/Tiberium_Wars_patch_1.09
-Didn't beat the Scrin campaign