After reaching Earth, Number 6 and Number 8 Live!
Command and Conquer 3 is set in a universe where Kevin Spacey succeeds, and the whole planet becomes infected with kryptonite called tiberium. There's so much of the stuff that people decide, "Heck, it's green, let's make it into money…" And as will all money, prolonged exposure to tiberium is harmful for your health, so the richest areas of the planet are also the least habitable.
In general, Earth seems to be in a pretty bad shape. I'm not really sure how life can survive after the oceans have dried out, but GDI faction seems to be doing pretty well for itself, carrying on the democratic traditions of the free world in the least-infested Blue Zones. Of course, in order to do that, they have to build Mammoth tanks to keep the obnoxious poor people out. For the sake of realism, wise folks at EA LA made it so the obnoxious poor people comprise the majority of the population. This unhappy majority lives in semi-habitable Yellow Zones and provides fodder for CnC's second faction, the paramilitareligious Brotherhood of NOD. The alien Scrin, who seem to simply have come to pick up their crunchy green groceries, comprise the third side of the conflict.
The story of this conflict, as everyone knows by now, is told through live-action movie sequences, with a bunch of good television actors lending their services. This, I thought, was fresh and worked very well, although the performances were a bit uneven. NOD campaign, led by the now iconic Joseph Kucan as Kane, aided by Tricia Helfer as General Killian Qatar and a very convincing Josh Holloway as Ajay, comes across as the more spirited one.
The single player campaign, spanning all three factions and consisting of some thirty-odd missions, is the main attraction here. Although the units and gameplay mechanics are pretty standard RTS stuff, providing plenty of fuel for people who like to complain about lack of innovation, the fast pace, smoothness and presentation of the game go a long way towards creating the most important gameplay effect: fun. The main complaint here is that there is just not enough difference between the factions in terms of units beyond the cosmetic one. You have your infantry that's good against infantry but bad against vehicles, you got infantry that's good against vehicles but bad against infantry, you got vehicles that are good against infantry but bad against vehicles and so on and so forth, all pretty uninspired stuff. The only real variety appears when you build superweapons, but you won't be doing that too often. Still, as I said, the single player campaign makes up for these shortcomings with fun factor.
Now, multiplayer is another story. Those who are, like me, spoiled by Battle.net, will find CnC's online setup thoroughly annoying. It's almost impossible – at least at low level – to find a random ladder match, so the newcomers are forced to look for games in the "custom" section, where the appropriate servers, to their credit, are marked with the helpful "noobs only" or "noobs welcome" signs. More often than not, though, even in those you end up facing a more experienced player, who welcomes "noobs" so that he could own them with a Scrin mothership chain reaction. Aside from the wacky "unlimited whatever" maps, there seem to be only three or four maps in operation here, and even though the gameplay is exciting, they get old pretty fast. All in all, I felt there was much strategic potential beyond the few standard tactical choices, but was never compelled to put the time into exploring them.
It also needs to be mentioned that the game runs extremely well on my modest set-up (AMD64-3000, 1.5 G RAM, 6800 GS 256), although the lag shows up in online matches on occasion, especially when there are fifty mammoth tanks battling fifty tripods on the same screen.
Verdict: More than purchase worthy, for the single-player alone, if you're old-fashioned like me and don't consider multiplayer the most important part of a game. If you DO, however, consider multiplayer the most important part of a game, then try it anyway, you may find enjoyment where I wasn't able to.