Uprising First Impressions

[Luk3us 63]

So post up your thoughts on Uprising, now that its out.

 

If you want to post spoilers feel free, but please leave a note before hand or use the spoiler tag.

 

 

 

So far I've only played the first Soviet mission, which was iffy, and looked into the commander's challenge, that should be interesting, tiny dogs FTW! hahahha

[hagren 0]

So far it seems to be an agonizingly difficult game, yet highly diversified at the same time. The map design, music and atmosphere is again top-notch, only the performance and pathfinding issues annoy me. I hope for some detail changes with a patch

[Luk3us 63]

So I managed to beat the Soviets and Allies campaigns now. The soviet 3rd to last mission was really too easy. The last one was a bit tougher, though slightly annoying with that stupid time stop crap...

 

The Allied campaign was great, till I realize it was flawed thanks to the stupidly epically OP gunship thingey, just build 6 of them, and 4 Apollos in any of the missions and its GG.... But still fun, specially on the last level, LOL!

[Inferno 22]

Might get a chance to play it tomorrow, been kinda busy

[ghost_zero 0]

Actually, I think the Yuriko campaign (Tale of Yuriko) was pretty interesting to play and also story-related.

However, it was way too short - only three missions and the end of the end mission was to be expected (you could say it was more than a bit cliche). Not to mention that

I understand why Izumi does, what she did but actually I think she should at least have been more thankful which would be way more logic - of course, she doesn't have to like Yuriko though. Also why the hell was Shimata (hopefully written correctly) able to talk to Yuriko through their minds? After all he doesn't have such abilities. The same goes for Izumi: Her powers were completely blocked.

Though I actually still don't get the complete meaning of the end video, my guess is

That Yuriko wanted to destroy the town but then decide to live a normal life without her powers..?

Also: what happened to all those clones? Are they still out there and if so, are they as powerful as Yuriko or not?

 

One interesting point/question:

Izumi says to Yuriko that she was the stronger one. However, I wonder if she really was the stronger one (regarding their powers) or if Shimata might found out that Yuriko's powers are stronger but not as good "trained" yet. Of course, this would be even more the question if Izumi is the older sister.

 

 

And also: Though it was interesting. I think it still explained to less about her. I mean we stil ldon't know from where she comes, nor why she has those abilities.

 

 

Regarding the other campaigns: I am not very far yet - actually I only started the Soviet so far. However, I watched the intro videos and I have to say that only the Soviet one sounds really interesting (because of Futuretech), the others sound kinda boring.

 

 

 

One not story-related point though: I also think that this DLC/Addon should have been made to require the original game files - like it was with Tiberian Sun that time. It would surely have decreased the download size.

[hagren 0]

Yeah, the Soviet campaign is the most interesting, perhaps even more interesting than the main game

I love the dark undertones of it.

[ghost_zero 0]

I now played through the Soviet too but I think it didn't explain much about Futuretech itself.

Btw. are the other campaigns 4 missions like the Soviet too? If so, I think that the addon is a bit overpriced. With a normal addon I get way more normally and it doesn't cost so much more (and I even get it on DVD).

 

EDIT:

Btw. I like the new menu theme - I think it is new, at least I don't remember to have heard it in RA3 - (though you don't have the one I mean every time, but I believe every time you start the game). Of course, that one wouldn't fit for the normal RA3 but only fits because of the Tale of Yuriko campaign but I still like it - is that one from Frank Klepacki too?

Regarding this I have a question too: Is it possible to extract the soundtrack of RA3 Uprising because from what I know there is no CD available for it..?

Edited March 15, 2009 by ghost_zero

[hagren 0]

It's quite difficult to extract the files, all track are separated into several specially encoded files.

 

The campaigns are shorter, 3 for each. But bear in mind that these missions take much longer and that you've got 50 with the CC.

 

I'm not sure wheter the main menu track is from Frank, only "Perserverance" was officially announced as such. They said however that the other two he made were battle tracks so I doubt it.

[Mighty BOB! 5]

As far as I know, EA is still using their "EAlayer3" derivative of mp3 for RA3/Uprising, so it is impossible to extract any music.

[ghost_zero 0]

That I found out too but you still should be able to extract them in EALayer3 codec. In the end it would be useless though as that codec still can't be played.

However, I can't even find the files. The only information I found was that you first have to extract the manifest files and then use those to access the sound/music files. However, as EALayer3 still can't be converted - and I believe in RA3 Uprising the format of the manifest was changed too as the program that should work crashed when loading the manifest (but maybe I would have needed to extract more files first). I hope EALayer3 will be convertable to a useable codec soon However, I guess it will take a while for it to work but I think it will be sometime - probably.

 

FROM HERE ON THE POST MIGHT CONTAIN A FEW SPOILERS IN SOME LINES:

 

@hagren:

With CC you mean the Challenge "Mode"? Haven't played that one yet, actually I am not even sure what that is exactly. Is it something like World Domination or how that mode was called in Tiberium Wars?

Also: I don't think that the missions are that much longer. OK, they are all longer than the first missions in RA3, but still I don't think that they are longer than the last missions in RA3, if they are even that long.

Though I think that it is nice, I still don't think that it is worth that much money. You can't even use the new units in multiplayer.

Also: What will be the next addon? Releasing those units for multiplay?

 

I think it would have been way better if they had done a full AddOn instead. That way they could have even done a bit better/longer/more explaining story and the price/performance ratio would be better too (at least for the customers).

I mean: Though e.g. Yuriko's tale should let you know about her past, you don't actually find out much about her past (actually, most of it is played after RA3 with no real references to before - I would have liked it to find out before she got improsened and also what she does after the end of those missions).

The soviet missions should have revealed more about Futuretech - at least from the news we got - but we still don't really know what they are up to. Actually, we don't even found out what they wanted to use the Sigma Harmonizer for. Even if they could have stopped time on whole countries for eternity, it would be pretty much useless.

The only thing I am certain is that the company's leader knew about the harmonizer, even though she said she didn't. Also I wonder who develped that device. Currently I could only think of two who would be able to do so and that would be Einstein and the Russian who built the time machine but I guess both wouldn't create a device like this (especially the Russian not, after seeing what happened after the time travel).

 

Just my opinion though.

Edited March 16, 2009 by ghost_zero

[Luk3us 63]

Played about an hour or so into the commanders challenge, its starts out pretty easy, but its getting a bit more difficult now. Getting the par times first time through is kinda iffy sometimes.

 

Played a bit of the Yuriko campaign, can't say I really like the whole control one random much... Dunno if I'll bother with the rest.

[Inferno 22]

The only annoying thing about the Yuriko campaign is the lack of radar

[Luk3us 63]

You'd think they'd of just attached a little radar device to her chest or something.

[Inferno 22]

Or maybe a psychic radar

[ghost_zero 0]

I have another thing to add. Uprising still misses the possibility that I like from previous C&C games (before Generals) and that was to switch the music/soundtrack during gameplay to the one you want or is this possible and I couldn't find it ?

 

Btw. not directly Uprising related but is in Red Alert 3 a possibility to display FPS without an external program? (Meaning is there a console where you can type in something like show fps?)

[Luk3us 63]

I don't think so. You'll need something like fraps to do it.

 

By the way its capped at 30FPS.

[Gben 20]

Weeell... I just finally finished all four mini-campaigns on hard last night. Yuriko's last bit was the hardest. I really did enjoy her dungeon crawl. I think every C&C game should have this component included... a commando mission with powerups. I think this was executed quite well. The radar wasn't an issue for me, and as they said, just press esc for the map. A technical issue was the power shortcuts. I'm so used to numerical key #1 meaning my main battle group. I keep prematurely press the power when I just wanted to select Yuriko.

 

I was quite disappointed with the use of Yuriko's sister as a plot device for the story in the first place. The ending was clichéd, but I think a mirror match is reasonable. It needed *some* sort of end-of-level boss. Note to self: the other factions need some mind-control-immune units that are weak against everything else like the Allies robot tanks in Yuri's Revenge, terror drones or a variation of the hunter-killer from TibSun keyed to psychic readings only. Must add that to future expansion.

 

I liked the Yuriko exterior mission which involves her taking a base apart, Rambo style. It's a good concept.

 

I *really* enjoyed the first soviet mission. I thought it was the best mission I've played in RA3 uprising. But I thought everything else was boring.

 

I *really* was disappointed in the heavy use of the Tatsu as tactical lead for the Allies campaign... There are plenty of Allied characters, even Giles should have had a bigger role in briefings. I get the occupied territory stuff, but Tatsu shouldn't be leading the briefings.

 

I much prefer less tactical briefing from big guys, but I expect the President level characters to provide story progression.

I expect the intelligence level officers to provide mission intel. So I think they got this right....

 

(oops have to go.... end part 1)