A heavy reliance on 'the way things were' makes Command and Conquer 3 a tired, old, and uninspiring strategy experience.
It doesn't get much more unfortunate than this. The Command and Conquer strategy series was once at the forefront of strategic gaming on any gamer's mind. PC's across the globe were once littered with Command and Conquer software, from the original, to the Red Alert series. Indeed, the Command and Conquer series once carried the flag of the RTS genre and waved it proudly for all to see.
Those were great times. But these statements are also all in the past-test, because the fact of the matter-the ugly, unfortunate, and undeniable fact of the matter- is that the Command and Conquer Franchise is a shell of its former self.
Well, actually, that wouldn't be entirely true, because the franchise essentially IS its former self, to a T. For some, this may be a good thing, but on the heels of wonderful games like Dawn of War, Company of Heroes, and others like World in Conflict, it is very hard to imagine how. In fact, Command and Conquer 3 sticks so hard to its old pair of dusty revolvers that it isn't surprising that it can barely manage to hit its target with any sort of punch. To break down that silly analogy, the truth is that Command and Conquer just isn't exciting.
The list of things that Command and Conquer does that are still the same as its past self are frankly exhausting:
Collect Tiberium √
Build structures off-screen √
Build and worry about super-weapons constantly √
Mass up the most powerful units √
Protect Harvesters √
Crush enemy √
For some of you, this may all be fine, but for most of us, I suspect not, because the fundamental flaw of Command and Conquer 3, one even worse than the fact that the unit models are uninteresting, and that they relate so truly to the old games, and that the FMV's and Campaigns all have a sense of been-there-done-that… The worst offense of the C&C franchise now, more than all of this, is that there is no REAL strategy.
For a strategy game, this is its largest failure. In this game, most games come down to who has the best and fastest build order, to who manages the most tiberium, or who defended their base the best, but there is really no on-field strategy whatsoever, really. If you have the better units, you should win. If you have the most money, you should win, but there is really no hope, of interesting strategy, where ambushes, or well placed grenades, or well commanded troops, can change the tide of a war.
In fact, when you play a game like Company of Heroes, which has men taking cover, lobbing grenades, going prone, getting pinned down, issuing full-scale retreats, capturing and using enemy heavy weapons, and so on, and so forth, the rock-paper-scissors formula that is the lifeblood of Command and Conquer is truly a pitiful excuse for a strategy game.
You cannot equip your units on the fly, you cannot reinforce them, they do not go prone, take cover, or do anything remotely strategic, other than shoot, use a special ability or two, and that's all.
Again, this is just so, so outdated that it isn't even worth playing… I cannot express this enough.
If you want a real strategy game, that isn't so dull and unstimulated, go somewhere else, because at best, this game is an arcade strategy game, if ever there was one.
Indeed, to my mind, the game, (and it's expansion too) bring absolutely nothing new to the table, and nothing interesting. What's worse, the half-hearted Scrin race (which is so underdeveloped, narratively, that it hurts) acts as an ear-mark to how poor the developers sense of improving the series is.
A lame, hardly explained, and poorly modeled raceof insect-machine-spirit things, does not constitute a huge development for the franchise.
With a poor campaign that features the same base building over and over, along with unimpressive FMV acting sequences, poor unit models, underwhelming concepts and a laughable excuse for in-the-field strategy, Command and Conquer 3 is well, and I mean WELL behind its comepetion in proving a real strategic experience.
This one is for the kids, at best, and a huge disappointment for die-hard strategists.