This new C&C will not be staying true to the classics as it reaches for a new generation of strategy gamers, touting when it comes to the hardcore market “we've served them pretty well”. This is a bit odd being that it has always been a simple mainstream RTS. It eliminates the need to build, with only the ‘Defense Class Crawler’ able to (oh yes, I said Crawler – not MCV, I'll get to that later), and your trusty Tiberium Harvester is no more – replaced with a new resource management involving controlling “Tiberium Control Network Nodes”
The story in this one is Nod and GDI have started to work together when Kane offers his help to GDI when Tiberium looks like it will destroy all life soon (there is a short teaser that shows that). The conflict you are involved in will be based around the extremists on both sides that don't trust this peace, and you just know Kane has an agenda. Obviously not too much has been released about this but it was said that you might struggle to work out who is ‘friend’ and ‘foe’ in this apparently “grittier” (i hate this buzz word) story line. The cutscene videos are to have less of their usual ‘campyness’ and are trying to be “dark and gritty”. They are to be shot so your POV is more of an observer rather than being referred to as a person that the actors can see and fain interaction with.
Instead of the iconic MCVs, you are now in charge of one of three class crawlers with the engineer being the only unit they have in common. The crawlers seem similar to command in Supreme Commander, but are weak and need to be defended. These crawlers will respawn if you die with minimal penalties. The classes are: +Offensive class crawlers – focus on ground units and troops during there deployment. +Defense class crawlers – build structures and protective emplacements, such as turrets and shields, to repel enemy forces +Support class crawlers – focus on aerial units as well as powers to buff its forces
There will be a persistent experience system to unlock units over all game types – skirmish, campaign and multiplayer. This sounds to be a replacement of the old system where units are unlocked after completion of a mission or during a mission. This is intended to help along the inexperienced players so they learn the basic units before being given an expansive tech tree. The units that get unlocked will apparently not give the players with more experience any advantage. All this will be organized by EA big brother or some other online service with the internet needed (?at all times?) “As of right now, you need to be online all the time to play C&C 4. This is primarily due to our ‘player progression’ feature so everything can be tracked.” (quote from official blog http://ve3d.ign.com/…t-Connection).
As you can see by the one screen shot with the HUD, there is no traditional vertical HUD. We now get a “horizontal HUD designed to focus the player's attention towards the action on the field” as seen in screenshots. I don't know about this ‘focus attention anywhere’, with widescreen monitors taking over the market (over half the monitors on the site are widescreen and all monitors over 22 inch are widescreen).
Victory in this new world well be obtained buy controlling all “Tiberium Control Network nodes” for a set amount of time. These nodes were a result of the GDI/Nod alliance and either generates power or terraforms the earth. They double as a new resource management system, which draws comparison to a “modeled on Battlefield's ticket system” it sounds similar to the Dawn of Wars requisition points generated by controlling Strategic Points/Critical Locations
I suppose growing up with C&C and War Craft 2 (I'm not old enough to remember one), but I'm not a hardcore gamer and get thrashed in online multiplayer and have always been happy with singleplayer campaigns. Also living in rural NZ, multiplayer has never been much of an option. I'm going to miss a lot of the original games charm. I loved C&C 1 and 2, Red Alert 1 and 2, and even though like alot of old school fans, I don't hate C&C Generals (but I do feel there is no need for the C&C prefix on that game). I think EA soiled the franchise with the third installment of both C&C and Red Alert ,so was not very excited to hear that they would be trying again. This game sounds to me to be too much like Dawn of War II and I hated that game. I felt thoroughly let down after the first one, which i liked. The game play style sounds like an RPG territory game with summoners. The new storyline sparks some interest, the persistent experience system sounds interesting if it would only not require persistent internet connection, I can even live with the new HUD, but when they change the resource management, victory conditions, remove the MCV and most buildings, and then the campy videos – I just don't know why they even bother having the Command & Conquer prefix on there at all. Because the franchise means so much to me I'll keep and eye out for this but after C&C 3 I am not going to be so quick to pick this one up.