Whether on ground or in the air, you cannot hide from China's nuclear strike. 14 movies included!
Tal and I hopped into the car and drove to Electronic Arts today. It's something we normally do on Thursdays (garbage rummaging day). After hanging out in front of the company's posh, magnetically locked doors smoking and disturbing people for a few...hours, we folded up our gigantic EA campus maps, got un-lost, and ventured into a certain room where we played a certain game.
Even though we've already taken extensive looks at Command & Conquer Generals in the past, we felt that not capitalizing on today's opportunity would be a sin against humanity. So, instead of further ensuring our rapid and right descent into the depths of Hades, we decided to write-up another preview and tack on more than a dozen new movies! Hell...yes. If you want to skip the written word, head on over to the
I'll forgo the filler and get to some of the new points, as game basics have already been covered in great detail. The funniest thing about today was learning that the general idea behind Generals is gone, in the thrown out the window kind of way. In case you're unaware, the old progression system worked through specialization. Players would be able to pick a general and stick with them, earning access to whatever that specialized general had at his disposal, but at the same time limiting themselves to only that certain type of functionality. Now, instead of this, the game revolves around an experience driven system.
Tossing the generals to the wind, according to Community Manager Chris Rubiyor, was because,
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"...they [players] weren't able to enjoy all there was to enjoy."
The way a sleepy Mark Skaggs explains it (producer boy), the team desperately and futilely tried to work out the original system; then, one foggy Friday night, some of the boys sat down and said screw it, let's just scrap the whole thing and make something new and cool.
Mark backs up the switch,
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"As soon as we started doing it, we knew it was cool."
We're still a bit unclear on the specifics of how leveling up is achieved (obviously killing stuff and retaining units of higher ranks helps), but in principle, as you progress in a match or the game itself, more advanced technologies, upgrades, and special abilities will be made available to you depending on how rapidly you rank up. After you've pretty much built the entire development tree, all will be useable.
In addition to units, structures, and the like, there are eight general powers per faction, each being unique to that faction. We'll be detailing all of the powers in the coming days (likely Monday, but perhaps even tomorrow, depending), but right now a few of the ones that stand out are:
- A10 strike. They don't call it the tank killer for nothing.
- Particle cannon. A streaking laser that slowly moves about a small area of the map annihilating everything in its path is fun, so long as it's not coming for you.
- Spy drone. Reveal the world. Knowledge is power.
- Fuel air bomb. Boom.
- Scud Storm. A barrage of toxin carrying missiles punishes enemy bases with explosives and then saturates the land with a contaminate that hangs in the air, poisoning all foolish enough to walk in its green glow.
- Cash from the dead. Kill some fools, earn some money.
- Ambush. Need a bunch of troops to appear from thin air and cause a ruckus?
- EMP pulse. Knock out electronics. A disabled foe is a dead foe.
- Nuclear strike. When we say nuclear, we mean super nuclear, as in the kind that devastates a whole lot of stuff and leaves the ground smoldering.
- Artillery. Cannons from off map level the competition.
Additionally, several of the special attributes have varying levels of severity. A higher ranked player will be able to access a level three A10 strike, which is far more lethal than a level one, for instance.
Despite their differences, the factions actually aren't nearly as varied as
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Posted: 7 Nov 2002
