Reviews by Kyle Ellis

Being an avid FPS PC gamer I enjoy new games as much as the next gamer. When I heard Crysis was coming out my trigger finger got itchy. As I opened my shiny new copy and installed it I was drooling from the user manual. Now happily I already have a computer that can virtually launch missiles from a galaxy far far away. I powered up Crysis and set everything on high. In a few words... HOLY SH!t!!! Not only are the graphics unbelievably clean and clear but the fading and the blur techniques are phenomenal. The AI in this game is very smart to the point of problem solving smart. Never before have I had a computer game AI hand me my a$$ while playing a game, but this one did. With its breathtaking graphics, in game weapon modding and multiple different options to accomplish goals, this is by far the best FPS I have ever played. It far exceeds Call of Duty 4 and even it's predecessor Far Cry. The final act of the game in single player opens you up to some alien bad guys are tough and in high supply. As a side note...don't play this game at the final portion in a dark room with the lights out and no one else around. There's lots of things that go boom and bump in the night.

Though it was designed for use with GPU's that support DX10 it looks very nice on DX9. I've tried both, and playing this game with dual Nvidia GeForce 8800 Ultras at 768MB each is breathtaking.

I had very high hopes for C&C4 as many a long-term C&C fan did. It was after all the game that was supposed to tie up a 15-year long story arc that had engrossed many millions of players. The game itself is actually of very poor quality - you only need to read the reviews on Amazon. Suffice to say the entire prior fan base has been ignored with changes to the game mechanics that change the very nature of the game to the degree where it ceases to be a C&C game. However the biggest surprise is just how poor it is and how badly designed from the offset.

The game forces you to use a tiny unit-capped army of fewer units even than that you would use in say Company of Heroes (about ten or so), and then designs the game around a number of controllable checkpoints that cannot be held as the player has to go to find more control points to raise their technology level. This creates seemingly endless, monotonous games that are nothing more than constant back-and-forthing between the same points on the map. This is made worse by the fact that there is a requirement to be online and connected to EA's servers the entire duration of your game which includes to save games. As server connections are intermittent this makes for a hugely frustrating series of games where you do the same thing repetitively and then suffer a catastrophic loss of your position because EA's servers have gone down or are suffering from a bad connection. Furthermore EA have discontinued support for a number of games that have only been out for a year or 18 months or so and so there is every reason to believe that once many people have bought this game EA will simply pull the plug on their servers once they become uneconomical at which point we have to assume you will no longer be able to play the game that you purchased.

Little effort has been expended on a single player story - no plot lines have been taken from prior games so there is little continuity and there is an air of 'that'll do' about the sets and acting (apart from Joe Kucan - sublime as always as Kane - his last lines are delivered with pathos and quiet empathy that actually add to the depth of the megolomaniac character). The stories are both not only well below the quality of the admittedly camp but thoroughly enjoyable stories of previous games but both campaigns can be played through in a few hours. The overall impression the player gets is that the single player experience was simply of no interest to the designers.This grates because for 6 months the hype machine has emphasised time and again that this is the 'grand conclusion' to a story arc.

This mindset applies to the game-play and graphics - the machines seem far too large and cartoon-like - far from the hi-res models of earlier games to the degree where you feel that you are playing a beta of a game and that perhaps real unit models will be released later. Combined with the game-play which seems to have been designed to draw out maximum effort and time spent playing from the player for minimal design effort on the part of the design team this reduces the quality of game-play almost to nothing. This is actually a very common multi player design aspect called a time-sink where the player is forced to do repetitive tasks in order to artificially lengthen the playing duration. As annoying as this is in multi player it is dull as dishwater in single player. There simply isn't any fun to be had here.

Some comments suggest that the main target audience of this game is multi-player but this simply isn't the case - this isn't what the publishers have been hyping for months and it is only now that the game has received a drumming that there seems to be a 're-trenchment' to try and re-define the game as being aimed at multi-player. The multi-player experience will be identical to single-player only with even less reason to play. Certainly there are games that do the squad thing 1000% better than C&C4 and the gamer is unlikely to think that sharing a evening going back and forth between the same three checkpoints for an hour constitutes 'fun'.

Finally the gaming community has noticed that there has been from launch a sudden arrival of a number of unusually positive reviews from individuals, often with no history on the site, that radically contrast the vast, vast, vast majority of independent reviews and marks/grades. On each major review website there seems to be one standout extremely positive review usually marking the game at some outrageously high mark such as 10/10 or 100% with glowing recommendations but from only this single reviewer. This seems to suggest a coherent attempt by party or parties unknown globally to 'stem the tide' of the negative response to the game in a very sinister and underhand fashion. This extends as far as Amazon in the UK which censored negative reviews in the first week of the game's launch. Take a look at each major review site and there will be perhaps 100 negative 1/10 reviews yet with one standalone review marking 10/10 and saying it's the greatest game ever. This extremely obvious form of manipulation is extremely underhand and just serves to bring down the reputation of the publisher/developer further.

All in all a tragic end to a classic series that many people have waited literally more than a decade to see the completion of. To be dismissed as merely 'the old guys' and to have this dire quality sub-standard game passed off as a true successor to the C&C franchise is insulting to the loyalty of the previous gamers and the intelligence of the new.

Out of all of the strategy games I have played, Command and Conquer Generals: Zero Hour. It ranks above others simply because it keeps you hooked for hours with its breathtaking graphics and interesting units and special abilities, like the nuclear missile, SPECTRE gunship, and the Helix helicopter. This game isn't for beginners to the strategy realm, though, because the difficulty is difficult indeed. Say if you play on a hard difficulty, you will have to keep up your base's defenses and constantly attack theirs. Speaking of attacking, take advantage of your units capabilities and also don't put them to waste. Example: don't send infantry to attack a base without tanks backing them up. Now I can't say much about online multi-player capabilities, but I am sure it is awesome indeed. If you are looking for an engaging strategy game, look no further, because Command and Conquer Generals: Zero Hour is a force to be reckoned with.

C&C 3 Tiberium Wars is a Wonderfully Colefull and Playable Game. The Graphics will have even the best graphics cards working out. The Only let down for me was after spending hours and hours playing the missions, The Endings Were Crap! Uttter Crap. I worked my way through all the NOD Storyline and after hundreds of attempts completed Kanes Tower Just to find out there is no ending and no explanation for half the story... Its a Bit Poo EA! :o( EA Seem to have a habit of not finishing projects completely. But To Do This To C&C Is sacrilegious. Poor Show! I have to say I have sent an email to EA asking them for my money and the last 4 weeks of my life back.

This is one of the greatest games i've ever played. When you turn on the game, you see a movie about Albert Einstein who travels back in time and removes Adolf Hitler out of history. Because of this change, not Germany, but the Soviet Union caused World War II.

You can play the game as the Allies or as the Soviets. Or when you choose the option "SKIRMISH", you can play as Russia, Great Britian, Germany, and other countries.

Well, it is an entertaining and good game. And I also think general Von Esling was good, and the other actors were good too. Only some of the effects were a little bit dated.

My rating: 8/10.