All between 80% and 90%! Average 86%. Whoa.
I haven’t played it yet, but I will. I think it’s worth pointing out that if you wait long enough between sequels, people call your generic RTS “comfort food RTS” instead of a cash grab.
Devs take note!
;)
May 8th for 360? Damn…
The scores are all pretty good, but the reviews I’ve read all make the game sound like graphics update + UI improvements + fanservice = 90%!
Summed up by Tom Chick:
The secret is that there isn’t any secret, or special twist, or unique hook, or innovation. It’s formulaic and unambitious, content to revisit the formula Westwood introduced back when they were competing with Blizzard as the only RTS game-makers in town.
Woo, my heart is pounding.
Right. The review scores are oddly optimistic considering the meh tone of the review text.
Editors at work perhaps?
Based on that, it’s a pass. I played out that RTS years ago.
I think I’ll hold off on buying it for now, still playing Coh and trying to learn Supcom. Also it sounds like multiplayer is going to be rush focused much like generals .
Whereas for me it makes it a must-buy.
I don’t see any contradiction here, and I totally get what Tom is saying in his review. Painkiller had a similar appeal. It was pretty much the epitome of “generic shooter.” It was good because it didn’t pretend to be anything else, and excelled at what it was.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with refining and polishing a solid concept. Blizzard has built a gaming mini-empire doing that very thing. And I’d have been perfectly happy to buy a new “Baldur’s Gate, slightly updated” every year for decades.
I just think there should be an automatic 10% “lack of creativity” penalty for what end up being essentially graphics updates and expansion packs. 90% seems a bit of a high score for an unambitious sequel.
mini?
Dragon Quest VIII on the PS2 hardly innovated anything; to me, it felt like an old-school RPG where the enemies line up on one side and the heroes line up on the other and you go on a wonderful journey with interesting people to save a princess and learn about your own past.
I played the hell out of that game, putting in ninety hours. I did it again a year later. Innovation is all well and good, but sometimes all that’s needed is a simple and fun game.
As long as Command & Conquer 3 isn’t so big on babysitting your gatherers like Age of Empires III was, I’m interested. I enjoy a good stock-standard RTS, and I’ve got Company of Heroes and Rise of Legends for my somewhat-innovative RTSes right now.
And this folks, is why games are not art.
That’s not a bad thing, is it?
Well, if you want to paint an entire genre with one comment, sure. But I enjoy taking time out from reading Shakespeare or the Dalai Lama to read some Sherlock Holmes or whatever Timothy Zahn’s put out. I can listen to the Police or Snow Patrol just as much as Bach or Holst.
I can play Okami, or the rich plot and characters in Final Fantasy XIII, or Wind Waker, and then go play Dragon Quest VIII or Madden 2007 or Tekken 5.
It’s not like we can’t do both.
I’m not going to get into what score is right (most are in the 80s, btw) but CnC3 is not an unambitious sequel. It’s plenty ambitious, but not in the way of gameplay innovations. To be fair, very few games are. Just like there are excellent formula pictures, there are excellent formula games. This is a very good formula game designed around quick skirmishes and mastering counter-units.
CnC3 takes its own native frantic formula and adds in the best stuff it can crib from other games. Better UI and superpowers mostly. And the graphics upgrade is nothing to sneeze at. Reviewers shouldn’t give a game credit if it looks better than average titles in the same genre? (I think there are some problems with the art design in the game, myself, mostly centered on how some of the units are uninspired in appearance and others look too similar to each other. But things blow up good.)
Troy
Maybe is ambitiously unambitious.
Here’s the deal… if this wasn’t C&C 3, it would be getting mediocre to less reviews.
But because it IS C&C, it’s getting passes. On what amounts minimal UI updates and some other changes (a third race that plays VERY similar to other two) that don’t affect a lot.
Weeee…
Company of Heroes and Supreme Commander tell me we’re well past the C&C of old. Hell, Kohan, Rise of Nations, etc, etc, etc, etc all tell me that.
Nostalgia seems to be getting this game glowing reviews. But will this game last even as long as Crackdown in terms of time played?
shrugs I’m glad people are having fun with it, but it’s not the game getting these glowing reviews. Hell, most of the reviews don’t seem to justify the scores they are being given.
I’ll pass.
The C&C franchise has always frustrated me. It sells well, but it actually tends to be a pretty crappy game with little or no innovation. But it sells well while games like CoH don’t =(
I don’t get what’s wrong with a good old-fashioned throwback game once in a while.