On February 21 2017 01:14 LegalLord wrote: My problem with Generals is this. In terms of multiplayer, it's fun. Though I myself wasn't interested in multiplayer when it was alive, I could absolutely see that it had the potential for multiplayer success.
But it wasn't C&C. It was a game that had the C&C title but was a generic war game with a well-considered, but ultimately derivative, set of features taken from other games. Like I could definitely see that it took inspiration from Starcraft, which is a fine thing to do (Starcraft is a great game) but it also failed to establish its own identity.
In terms of a C&C game that actually made for decent competitive play, C&C3 and RA2 had the best luck. They had some semblance of balance and could be played competitively. I had fun with them. They were never made well enough to survive as well as Brood War did, though. It's a shame because they absolutely had that potential.
I like the MCV/heavy resource gatherer scenario. While in Starcraft the two are combined and weak, in C&C/RA they aren't weak, but they are bulky and slow, and ore miners have to wander out of the safety of the base. Though I do like the crane in C&C3, which was absolutely a fantastic addition for more versatile base building powers.
honestly, i heard the argument that "generals wasnt true c&c because of no MCV" all the time, and i think it's bullshit.
I loved Generals and Zero Hour, and I put many hours into playing through the vanilla versions as well as tons of various mods that were made for the game. That said, I do agree with the idea that giving it the C&C prefix was a mistake. Its plot had absolutely no connection to the overall storyline of the previous C&C games, which were all still arguably connected in the same universe back then (with the cancelled Renegade 2 trying to bridge the gap between RA2 and Tiberian Dawn). On top of that, the gameplay mechanics of course veered far away from the traditional MCV+sidebar UI+resource fields mechanics that were prominent in the past four games. The closest thing it had in common to the other C&C games was the modern-ish era combat with tons of tanks and some experimental weapons.
So in the end we got this fun game that inherited the C&C title without inheriting any of its lore or traditional gameplay mechanics.
On February 19 2017 02:30 LegalLord wrote: Speaking of C&C FPS, has anyone here ever played Red Alert: A Path Beyond? It was a mod on Renegade with RA units. Was kind of fun, as a gimmick at least.
I played it regularly way back in like 2007. I really enjoyed it, but I was sorely lacking for cheap, decent FPS games back then. It has been a while since I've last played it though. I liked it better than the regular C&C Renegade, and it's a shame that more FPS games don't adopt similar RTS mechanics. Starcraft: Ghost's multiplayer might've been really interesting for that, but at least we have Planetside 2 to possibly scratch that itch (though I haven't played it yet).
I'm surprised that you found RA1 to be that much more refined than Tiberian Dawn. Both were fairly identical with game mechanics, with RA1 managing to expand on that with naval combat, a larger scale, and some other interesting new mechanics like shroud generators and spies. I personally enjoyed the Tiberian Dawn story more since it had a lot of underlying themes that were interesting commentary on the 90's. RA1's story was mostly just a straight Cold War scenario, and most of the future C&C games delved too much into the sci-fi realm with their plots and settings. Tiberian Dawn hit just the right notes for contemporary commentary.
Also, while Empire at War may have not been the most stellar RTS in some areas, I would suggest trying out the Thrawn's Revenge mod if you ever want to get back into it. It adds a huge breadth of content from the EU, increases the scale of space battles, and manages to still feel refined and optimized.
I felt like RA was basically Dawn with a better set of cinematics and storytelling, fewer glitchy features (can't send multiple units to a repair depot), better planned missions, and just in general felt smoother while playing. Tanya was much better than the commando for one.
Empire at War was a game everybody loved to mod. Probably because it had such great cinematics and potential for galactic conquest campaigns. Thrawn's Revenge was a cool one. Another one I really liked was Republic at War.
I've played all of the Red Alert Series, Warcraft 3, Stacraft BW and Starcraft 2, and all of the SupCom (didn't know where to get the original TA).
Apart from that, I felt like the boom of RTS during the nineties and 2000s maked certain technology and concepts lost. Honorable mentions(which I played) includes Homeworld (completely 3D and realistic resource gathering) and Earth 21xx (multi layered map and tunnels, ammunition management) series.
In comparison Red Alert and command and conquer seemed to have really simple logistics, starcraft is somewhere in the middle, where as TA/Supcom is all about managing logistics on a huge scale. In Earth 21xx series every unit has a fuel/ ammo meter and you have to manage by building depots and that restricted how you maneuver. Of course if I'm just enjoying the silliness and explosions from RA2 I would not want to worry about if my troops run out of fuel.
From what I remember the Core Contingency missions were much better. I spent the vast majority of my time in skirmish games though. Also, I didn't have a stable internet connection sufficient for playing online games until about 2007. The first game I ever played more than a few rounds of online was StarCraft 2, during the beta.
It's just as Odowan says, the game is all about logistics and resource-gathering. It's about ripping down a forest and looting corpses. From everything I've heard it doesn't have the balance to be competitively interesting but I have to admit I did find the concept interesting. Every unit is just so damn unwieldly that the units that aren't particularly buggy are highly useful, even if they don't hit very hard (e.g. Flash). Especially with the ships.
I just got through Mission 7, the harbor defense one. Damn, that one is so annoying. Well, at least just the last part with the 5 warlord group. Everything kept dying if I approached it, and the only way that was beatable was by abusing the AI until they divided themselves and opened their warlords to getting sniped and/or walked on land where I had enough spammy units to kill it.
i never felt the need to approach anything with ships use radar and click the red dots on the minimap, ships have insane range and the only movement you have to worry about is to evade return fire use fast ships if they're out of radar range
this reminds me of warzone 2100, criminally underrated game with interesting long range mechanics
I suppose the real problem is how goddamn inefficient everything is. I could do so much more with the cash equivalent of a Crus in Flash/Rocko/Jethro units, assuming a land approach is possible. All the units behave really stupidly (an odd complaint for a Brood War player, but IMO it's worse here) and it seems like the best units are just those that suffer least from these random inefficiencies.
EPT
