CnC Generals/ZH De Luxe Edition- Pleasantly Surprised!

[Count Toten 0]

I recently purchased a copy of Generals/ZH out of interest and to make a comparison with AoW Direct Action and to my surprise found myself really enjoying it.

 

When it first came out I was put off by a lot of criticism and some poor reviews. I've only just started the USA campaign and am into the 3rd mission and from what I've seen so far am quietly impressed, the visuals are detailed and realistic with a lot of care going into them, the units are nicely modelled- I can see what some critics were getting at with the weapons the Rangers are wielding- lookiing like planks of of wood but this is a minor drawback when the soldiers themselves are fairly lifelike and some of them have a life of there own and is only visible when fully zoomed in. I wonder why the developers let this pass in an otherwise almost faultless game.

 

The game itself runs smoothly and the AI employs intelligent pathfinding with units anticipating bottlenecks and not stacking up on themselves. The code is well written and the system is not stressed. Unlike AoW were the code is just about adequate to run the game on a mid to high end system thats well maintained, even with these prerequisites the game will involuntarily crash to the desktop if a unit is summoned to go were a path is not written or gets stuck - its even worse in High Treason were I found in addition the mercenary involvement too overpriced for their contribution and the plot scenario too confusing. The Naval pathfinding is on a par with Red Alert with ships taking short cuts over islands and ramming each other if you don't micromanage them.

 

I've seen a few gripes on this forum about running this game but if you take a peek at the AoW forum and the fun and games some of these guys are having running it on top end systems you will consider yourselves lucky.

 

So - so far so good and I'm looking forward to playing ZH as by all thats on the SP it seems to be even better than Generals - though more difficult

 

Oh well it will be good practise for "Company of Heroes" when it comes out later this year.

[Guest General_F]

Okay.... thas amazing.

[relentless 0]

zero hours greatest single player strength wasn't the single player compaign, it was the challenge mode. If you want to see why the game really shines try it out on medium or above skill level.

[F15pilotX 4]

pff...multiplayer was better than either of those :wink:

[Mother Of All Bombs 0]

I came reading this thread because I thhought there was something different about the deluxe version. Now I'm disappointed, lol. It depends what kind of player you are but usually generals challenge is fun. I personally prefer the skirmish mode to play against 7 other armies is fun.

[Count Toten 0]

There is one difference in buying it now -about £40

 

The other is the gamer has access to a lot of info, game improvements, patches and mods

 

I'm making it a policy now to wait a while when new games are released to test the reaction to them

 

One recent case in point " War on Terror" released by Deep Silver beautifully modelled but requiring very high specs which they were reluctant to impart and a hopelessly frustrating gameplay best avoided if a major load of disappointment be averted. That and the fact they surripticiously wrap Starforce with it