Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars [PC]

It's loud, it's raucous, it's colorful, and it's full of stuff just gleefully blowing up. It's Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars, the latest in real time strategy games and a return to the C&C universe that's been out of fashion since Tiberium Sun in 1999 (despite the C&C moniker, the Generals with its Chinese, Americans, and Arabs is something else entirely). Based on a look at a near final version, it's a return to form that's clearly the polar opposite of cerebral studied games like Supreme Commander or Age of Empires III. Are you ready for some fast frantic fluid sci-fi action?

How about a star-studded movie to go along with all that stuff blowing up? C&C3 will include live action footage interspersed among the three campaigns. Over the course of 38 missions divided into three campaigns, you'll follow the story of the Scrin, a faction of alien party crashers arriving from just outside the orbit of Neptune to come between the Global Defense Initiative and their rivals, the Brotherhood of Nod.

The cast includes luminaries from Battlestar Galactica, Lost, and Star Wars. Plus Michael "Sam Fisher" Ironsides. These folks should give you a good idea of the target audience. We were shown a montage of scenes that closed with a tight shot on Billy Dee Williams' face as he gives an impassioned speech that ends with the erstwhile Lando Calrissian looking into the camera and imploring you to "do the right thing, commander". No nodding, no winking, no cheese. It's all in earnest, as befits a C&C.

"What do you think?" asks producer Amer Ajami. Live action footage has been out of vogue since, well, Tiberium Sun boasted Michael ("He was in The Terminator!") Biehn and James ("He's freakin' Darth Vader!") Earl Jones. Is this big production a risk, or a slam dunk? Ajami feels the live action storytelling "definitely captures that C&C feel". And no self-respecting C&C fan can see Joe Kucan sneering into the camera as Kane without recalling the good ol' days before Generals and Red Alert.

Each faction has its own campaign with its own perspective on events. After you play the GDI or Nod campaign, you'll unlock the Scrin campaign. "There's a deep mythology around the story," says executive producer Mike Verdu, pointing out that the aliens were referenced by name in Tiberium Sun. "We'll address a lot of the mysteries. We'll answer a lot of questions, but we'll also create some new ones."

There are a lot of touches that will be familiar to C&C fans, but that might be a bit disconcerting to other RTS players. For instance, placing your structures is an odd two-step procedure with some down time between the steps. You order a building, and then go about your business. After a time, the building will be available to be plopped down on the map. No muss, no fuss, no peasants or builders. Just the delay between ordering it and placing it. These discrete steps are a C&C convention from way back that you won't find in other RTSs.