Red Alert 3 Hits the Top 10 in Sales

[Sonic 295]

You know some people doesn't like EA and have a hard time to admit accepting EA as their new producers.

Its time to move on that's all. Westwood is gone and still to this day I struggle to understand why people can't let that go. I wish you could all go and meet the guys at EALA. I came away from my own experiences there knowing that they really care about the C&C franchise and RA3 was something special for them to working on. Its 1000 times better meeting people face to face. Anyway, EALA is the home of C&C, it has been for a few years now. And people have simply got to let the team work on the games, share your feedback by all means but constantly crapping on everything they produce doesn't help them or the community.

 

Here at CNCNZ.com after C&C 3 was released we all bitched and argued over the quality of the game and for a period we (the main site staff) hardly had any communication between us due to all the bad tension. It got really bad, so bad that it started spilling over publicly in the forums and on the site. We were even angry with APOC for awhile. For me it was bad and embarrassing "out of character" experience. But we moved on and resolved all our differences. Once RA3 was announced it was at that time I decided to simply let EALA create the game the way they wanted to, and to be honest its the best approach.

 

Perhaps I don't take the game to seriously as some of you guys do, or maybe my expectations aren't as high as yours. But I'm just afraid of it all boiling over again and seeing the same situation we had last year with C&C 3 all over again. I noticed a few signs of this in this very thread.

 

[Silverthorn 0]

Well, Sonic, agreeable. Although it's time to move on, but things can look different in some people's perspective. Life can move on, which is compulsory. But to the minds of gaming, book series or let's say movie, some people will stick to the past instead. Let's say if the upcoming movie "The Hobbit" for example, and if not directed by Peter Jackson but another great director (let's say who did Chronicles of Narnia : Lion, Witch & Wardrobe), they'll be some hardcore Lord of the Rings fans criticize over the same thing just like how RA3 turned out. So that means it's hard to move on, especially when it's entertainment. Life yes, but entertainment, not sure.

 

So far, like gotta say, it's hard to admit, no matter if the person took the game seriously or not. It'll remain as a plausible mystery.

 

The Rhino tank was never iconic to me. The Mammoth however was, and go figure, WW took it out with TS, whilst EA added both the Apoc and the Mammoth to their games.

 

As for TWs shortcomings, I'm the last one to deny that, but we're talking about RA3, which is a much better game.

 

As for the box arts, I'm not saying that the soldier heads weren't a good idea, but if EA would have kept that up, it would have been kind of cheating. At least this way everyone knows immediately which game comes from which studio.

 

Well hagren, the Rhino is not an icon. Yes I know, Westwood did it was serious enough, they did gamble their way of removing the RA1 Heavy Tank and replace it with the single-cannon Rhino. The gamble is a success. But to RA3 on the other hand is not, the gamble is a failure, although I understand the Hammer Tank can be a good name, but one problem is the model, in my point of view, it's not heavily armored. That's why I criticize of why EA made the model like that. From out of the 3 MBTs, the Guardian is the heavily armored one (In point of view, NOT gameplay).

 

And well, although C&C maybe owned by EA today & they want to present themselves differently. But honestly, I'm not sure if the covers will go well in the future. Hardcore C&C fans like us are in adult age by now and we're not dead yet, so most of us prefer Westwood's cover arts. Let's say after a century, EA can use their own style already. But today, no, that's why many hardcore C&C fans like myself prefer the older cover more than EA's current covers which sucks over our dead bodies (Especially their famous "Copy & Paste" & meaningless black areas, I'm a design student, I know what these means).

Edited November 19, 2008 by Silverthorn

[hagren 0]

I'm personally not saying I hate it. I'm saying it misses a lot of the quality. Mission design, while the best in any EA C&C, is still rather low quality. There's a "click 2 win" button in most missions... and you are even told where things are and how to go about destroying them.. So much so, they poke through the shroud, and you even know the location of every structure the enemy has. This would be OK on Easy, but for medium and hard difficulty... simply ramping up how much the AI is prone to cheating, or chucking forces at you isn't an improvement in difficulty.

 

 

I used the old Westwood games as an example. I could have said, Dark Reign, Dark Reign 2, Total Annihilation, Earth 2140 etc... The reason I pick older Westwood titles is because most (if not all) people have played them. Any other game may not sit well as an example. And so it goes back to my previous point above... the other games I mentioned. They had a difficulty which is based around clever mission design, and the older games chuck you in the deep end. You know your objective... but you have to find your own way to complete them. That's what RTS is about... RTS isn't putting arrows over your objective with a target shouting "Destroy me!!!" I mean, where has the strategy gone from these games... It's like developers are creating games for dumb people these days.

 

 

That's great and all.... But RA2 and Yuri's revenge did a lot of things better. The Game speed was horrible... but still...

 

 

Hand up, I'll admit Co-op is a great feature, and it offers a lot in the way of new Gameplay dynamics and features. But I don't wish to see it in the next C&C. An AI co-commander was OK, but the old style formula of fighting on your own felt great. If co-op is involved, then devs need to find a way to incorporate that into campaigns without giving us solo-game players the chance to fight alongside useless AI.

 

However, the 3 faction thing is becoming so cliche it's as bad as the "click-2-win" mechanic. What happened to 2 faction wars. They were better. This article I've written... it's exactly along these lines, and I've basically said what I find wrong with RA3... save posting it on the site, I'll post it in the RA3 section later..

I'd hardly fault EALA for that. Compare an RPG of these days and one from the nineties, the differences shriek to the heavens. I don't have anything against the arrows, btw- many don't have the time or patience to look around for their objectives, so imho it's good they have the feature. What I agree on, however, is that they should keep the shroud around those objectives, else it's just a bombardement mission. There are enough imaginative and enjoyable missions though, and while the Scrin failed, the three-side concept worked with RA3. Or wouldn't you agree that the Japanese are great?

[Saracen 16]

The Japanese are great. I've enjoyed playing as them. I've enjoyed playing the whole game. But 3 factions is starting to tire a little, everybody's been doing it since Starcraft... and any more than 3 seemingly is doing a Relic with Dawn of War.... despite the quality in that, the factions were all pants.

 

The fact of the matter is really, I've played almost every RTS from the extremely Rubbish, to the downright awesome. This helps me form a critical view on all Strategy games, not just C&C. It may come across as negative, but I'm trying to be constructive about it.. I'm critical about all games. And Sod Westwood, I couldn't care about them anymore... they're gone... if they were any good I'm sure there would have been more conservative efforts to keep the studio afloat like Maxis.

[hagren 0]

Imho that's the point; there's nothing wrong with three or more sides IF they get the side differences and units right. With the Scrin they did not, but the Empire turned out kick-ass.