As many others have pointed out, this lacks what is accepted to be trademarks of Westwood's popular Command & Conquer franchise... the building system, video sequences and a solid story. However, that aside, this isn't a bad game. Rather than following in the footsteps of every RTS game that preceded it within the series, this takes a gamble, wanders of the beaten path. The results of this are hit-and-miss. Features that were missed earlier(such as a "move *and* attack" command... *finally*!) are implemented, game-play is changed around some... however, there are shortcomings and bugs, if not very many of the latter. The new interface is essentially that of other RTS titles(don't get me wrong, the engine is all-new), and this, unfortunately, puts some focus on aspects of these games that others(with this other interface) did better which still haven't been attended to, basically all falling into the category of overview... compared to the excellent overview of StarCraft and the Age of Empires games... titles released several years before this. The graphics are one of the best things about the game... and clearly, the developers realized this: they put footage of it all over the game. Every video sequence is presented in it, it's in the(surprisingly effective) intro, heck, it's even the background in the main menu. The effects are considerably more realistic-looking than in earlier efforts, with smoke, fire, the works. The game does require a bit of power to run well, but the graphics are worth it. The zoom feature was perhaps not the greatest addition, even if it is cool enough that you can get a close-up view... it shows too well where corners were cut in creating the graphics. The game-play is often very exciting and intense, and definitely entertaining. The difficulty is perhaps slightly uneven, but good. The three sides are remarkable in how even they are(though it should be noted that the way they are set up is essentially an idea from earlier RTS titles, including StarCraft), and all have some interesting stuff to play around with, as well as an arsenal that makes them formidable foes, and satisfying to play as. GLA, or Global Liberation Army("one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter"), commonly referred to as the terrorists, are the fastest, cheapest, weakest and least technologically advanced. They draw their strength from numbers and celerity. USA(which, incidentally, is also the only "clean" one, no chemical/biological warfare) is the strongest, technologically superior, but also most expensive. China is a "happy medium". Any RTS player will find a side to prefer. There are quite a few units available to all three sides, in spite of further increase in efficiency... engineers are removed, it's now the sides' main infantry unit that can take over buildings, and it's no longer instantaneous, to give a quick example. There are buildings and characteristics that are unique to their respective sides... the GLA, being sneaky and tricky, have tunnel networks, the Chinese, being morally ambiguous, have hackers to acquire further funds(all three sides have an alternate method of continually achieving supplies, so even if you fight long enough to use up all the natural resources, you can still gain more), and the US, having clear air superiority, can call in air-strikes, paratroopers and a nasty drop called The Fuel Air Bomb. All three have abilities and a special unit(which is cloaked, but can be detected, when using abilities or if the enemy has a unit that uncloaks their enemies) that fit their profile... GLA has a sniper, who(in addition to sniping infantry) can kill the driver of any enemy vehicle, the Chinese have an unarmed agent who, using her lap-top, can steal from the enemies and disable their vehicles one at a time, and the US have a battle-hardened colonel, equipped with a knife, explosives and a machine-gun(essentially a Commando/Tanya, but oh well, those *are* pretty rockin'). The special abilities(as well as some units) are accessed by earning higher ranks, granting you points to "buy" them. Successful battle raises your rank, so the better you do, the better you get, the more you'll have access to. Multi-player is quite good, and the setup is very user-friendly. Single player is divided into three campaigns, one per side. There are 21 levels in total, which, sadly, means only 7 per side. Conquer the entire world in just seven missions? The briefings are entirely audio-based, but the voice-work is pretty good. Sound in general is another area where the game does well. All the effects and unit responses/comments sound right. The music is a dramatic score, which works well. The level design is good, but for only having seven missions per side, few of them are terribly memorable(though there are some interesting scenarios, such as providing cover-fire for retreating US troops, and all three sides get a reasonably satisfying finale). The air-borne combat is made more open, particularly when playing as the US, which has access to three different types of planes, a transport helicopter and an attack chopper(and that's in addition to the special abilities). This introduces some interesting stuff that works really well; repelling from a helicopter, having one unit per side which can effectively empty a building garrisoned by enemy units, a limitless source of funds for each side, allowing units to upgrade/expand and allowing more different infantry units to garrison inside bunkers/buildings. Obviously, this has some potentially politically and morally provocative material, and I won't claim that I got through the GLA campaign without feelings of unease... but that debate should be had in the appropriate forum. This is, after all, a review. All in all... it's a pretty good game, and holds new things for RTS games, but the bugs and the features that just ought to be there are a tad obvious. I recommend this to any fan of RTS titles who is interested in the concept and the promise of better graphics, but faithful fans of C&C may want to be sure before they try it. 7/10
9 Reviews
Fun but does not match up to the originals
gelziabar17 November 2006
The greatest shortcoming of this series is perhaps the lack of an in-depth story and associated cinematics that were in the past, part and parcel of all Command and Conquer games. The interface is also annoying and very slow. The load times are pathetic even on faster computers. But the game itself is excellent and includes not two, but 3 sides. The levels are however, a tad repetitive and not very creative. There are plenty of units and associated gib effects to make up for that though. The America and China campaigns are too easy on normal skill and only during multiplayer is there a real challenge that will force you to think more strategically. I think this game could have been much better if Westwood had more time on their hands.
Sweet graphics, great gameplay, but lacking story
overdrive_maniac10 May 2003
I saw the graphics for this game on some TV show, and being a huge fan of the Command and Conquer games, went to pick it up. First off, the visuals are stunning. Almost every detail is taken care of, from explosions to guys flying out of vehichles as they blow up. The weapons and units rock, and the super weapons... aw yeah. Who can't love nukes with such cool graphics, dropping crazy blue anthrax on a base and watching their troops melt and die, or dropping a fuel air boom with a blast radius that could wipe out L.A.?
The whole general promotion idea is pretty cool, picking up advancements as you get better in the game. The gameplay is easy, but not boring, so begginers and advanced players can both enjoy. The in mission cut scenes are INCREADIBLE, watching a dam collapse, or a laser cutting through ranks of tanks.
The only problem with this game is the lack of continual story that is normally present in C&C games. No cool general played by a movie star, no hot girl briefing you... I missed these aspects, but with all the great action, the game made up for it. If you even REMOTELY like these type of games, you have to pick this one up!
The whole general promotion idea is pretty cool, picking up advancements as you get better in the game. The gameplay is easy, but not boring, so begginers and advanced players can both enjoy. The in mission cut scenes are INCREADIBLE, watching a dam collapse, or a laser cutting through ranks of tanks.
The only problem with this game is the lack of continual story that is normally present in C&C games. No cool general played by a movie star, no hot girl briefing you... I missed these aspects, but with all the great action, the game made up for it. If you even REMOTELY like these type of games, you have to pick this one up!
My favorite video game
nickenchuggets25 December 2021
Warning: Spoilers
If I had to choose just one video game to play for the rest of my life and I wasn't allowed to play anything else, I would choose Generals. For the past 15 or so years, this game has been a huge source of enjoyment for me, due to its huge amount various units, buildings, usable strategies, and playable factions. Probably the best aspect about Generals is the huge amount of community content available for the game. People in the community make modifications for it in order to alter the way it plays, add new teams and vehicles, among other things. Because of this, I will not be talking about mods such as Shockwave or Rise of the Reds in this review. They're too different. I consider those things to be completely separate games in their own right. As for the base game itself (with no add ons), the first thing Command and Conquer fans probably noticed about Generals when playing it for the first time in 2003 is how radically different it is from previous games in this series. Whereas the previous C&C games got almost universal praise among fans, Generals was seen as something of a mixed bag. Previous installments such as Red Alerts 1 and 2 and Tiberian Sun had a varied, but well established formula: the Red Alert subseries of Command and Conquer focused on an alternate timeline where Einstein travels back in time and kills Hitler before he even has a chance to rise to power, therefore getting rid of world war 2 up until a certain point, where the USSR suddenly becomes aggressive and decides to take over europe. The Tiberian games focused on an entirely separate timeline from Red Alert, set in the near future (2030s) where a highly dangerous and toxic chemical substance called Tiberium crash lands on earth and starts spreading rapidly. A powerful military organization called the GDI (Global Defense Initiative) fights the Brotherhood of Nod in the depressing environment of a dying planet earth, and Nod, under their leader, Kane, tries to use the spread of Tiberium to their advantage to basically destroy the world. These two games have surprisingly depressing and dark storylines, but both the Red Alert and Tiberium games were always rooted in fiction. You can tell the actors involved had a lot of fun with them, and the games aren't really meant to be taken seriously. After all, in Red Alert 2, the Russians gain access to ridiculous weapons like armored blimps and giant squids that are mind-controlled to attack enemy warships. Getting back to Generals, lots of people who were fans of Command and Conquer didn't even like the game back then, seeing as how it is so drastically different from its predecessors. Generals is the first Command and Conquer game to go fully 3 dimensional, whereas all the games up to this one were 2D isometric. Not only this, but the premise of the game itself drew heavy criticism from Tiberium and Red Alert fans, as not only did Generals not look like a C&C game, it didn't feel like one either. The game follows a storyline that is much closer to real life than its predecessors. The silly, nonsensical attitude of the older games is gone. Generals is about two global superpowers (the US and China) and their attempted efforts to root out and destroy the Global Liberation Army: a terrorist organization backed by a huge but unknown network of funders. The GLA is a ruthless and violent faction. They bear the least sophisticated equipment in the game, and most of their vehicles and weapons are old, decrepit, and abandoned by the armies they used to serve. Because the GLA is badly suited for head on, one-on-one battles, they tend to favor sneaky and underhanded tactics such as stealth, fast speed, and hitting their opponents from where they're not expecting. As the USA and Chinese battle their way across central Asia and the Middle East, the GLA fights them all the way and always has more surprises ready for them. After seeing how close to real life Generals' story mode is, it's not really surprising that many people at the time didn't like the game. The game's plot hit a little too close to home for 2003, due to the then imminent war in Iraq, and the GLA bearing a strong resemblance to al-Qaeda. Due to its similarities to real life conflicts and terrorist groups, the game was banned in several countries, including germany. This doesn't detract from the huge amount of fun you will have playing it, however. As mentioned before, Generals has 3 teams vying for supremacy over the battlefields: the USA, China, and the GLA. Each team has different strategies and tactics that make them unique and more interesting to play as. Surprisingly, my favorite team is probably China as they get the heaviest, most powerful tanks and armored vehicles. The downside is that they're slow and expensive, but the costs can be made more reasonable by purchasing vehicles like gatling tanks, which easily shred hostile planes and helicopters. China also possesses the strongest artillery units in the game, namely, the nuke cannon, a huge but thinly armored field gun that lobs extremely powerful atomic shells over long ranges. China also makes extensive use of EMP technology, allowing them to call in planes to drop electromagnetic bombs anywhere in order to freeze entire vehicle formations in their tracks. The US team is arguably the strongest overall, and gets a lot of "click to destroy" abilities that can level an enemy base in seconds, such as the fuel air bomb, a-10 airstrike, and spectre gunship; a large plane that circles an area of the map and pummels everything below it with machine guns and explosive rounds. America also possesses lots of units that are as powerful as they are versatile. The humble Humvee is a weakly armored jeep mounted with a machine gun, but becomes one of the most unfair units in the game when loaded with a squad of missile soldiers. The Paladin is a robust heavy tank with substantial amounts of armor plating and even a laser that zaps enemy missiles out of existence. It should also go without saying that America also possesses the strongest air force in the game, with formidable Raptor jet fighters taking down enemy artillery units or hostile planes with ease. Lastly, we have the GLA, which is in many ways the most fun team to play as, and not only because they're the bad guys. The GLA team is designed with speed and aggression in mind, and are therefore stronger than the USA (and especially China) early in a match. GLA forces, being native to the deserts of the Middle East, do not require any type of electricity, unlike the other factions. As I said before, the downside to using the GLA is that they are underpowered. Their vehicles are very easy to kill if caught in the open, and a head on fight will almost always result in them being defeated. This means GLA commanders will have to rely on such technology as the GPS scrambler (which turns vehicles invisible) and tunnel networks in order to turn the tide of a fight. The team also has another big downside in the fact that they possess absolutely no air force, save for a large cargo plane that comes in to drop bombs loaded with dangerous illnesses (such as anthrax) on enemies. Lastly, I think I should comment on one of my favorite aspects about this game, which are the superweapons. Superweapons were featured in previous Command and Conquer games, but it wasn't until Generals when the concept really took off. You can build as many as you want, as long as you have enough electricity and money to do so. The superweapons for the 3 teams are the Particle Cannon, Scud Storm, and Nuclear Missile for USA, GLA, and China, respectively. The particle cannon is ironically the weakest, as it just fires a laser beam into space which bounces off an orbiting mirror and allows you to incinerate ground targets. I say it's the worst because the beam moves very slowly and doesn't do widespread area damage, the USA favoring precision weapons that minimize casualties. The nuclear missile is exactly what you would expect. It smashes down onto a target area, pieces of buildings and vehicles go flying everywhere, and it's just glorious destruction. It also leaves dangerous radiation at its explosion point for a while. The last (and probably best) superweapon is the GLA's scud storm, which launches a group of 9 anthrax-filled scud missiles wherever you want. The scud storm is the most overpowered superweapon because it hits the target multiple times, has a decent recharge timer (5 minutes), and leaves poisonous clouds of toxins on the target. I know this has been a really long review, but I could have gone on much longer. Generals means that much to me and to the world of strategy games. I know it wasn't really respected upon its release, so I hope that more people realize they made a really big mistake by passing it up, especially because the later C&C games are just pure garbage. I understand that this game is much different from the previous ones and takes a more realistic approach to things, but that is probably why it's my pick for my favorite game of all time. The only bad thing I can say about it is how the music is not as good as the previous games, mainly because Frank Klepacki (who did the soundtracks for the others) did not do the soundtrack for Generals.
Okay game
gillmurphydogg10 February 2023
If we are going to judge this game on its game quality, yes, for its time it was a great game visually and in terms of gameplay. But being the forum we are on, I would say this wasn't the best from a storyline perspective. There's three sides- essentially Americans, Chinese imperialists and Middle Eastern terrorists battling for territory.
But beyond that description, there's not much of a plot. This goes against the general formula of Command and Conquer games, where there is a stronger narrative component. I did like the voice acting and the music score is so diverse and something I still listen to. You could easily pass on this one.
But beyond that description, there's not much of a plot. This goes against the general formula of Command and Conquer games, where there is a stronger narrative component. I did like the voice acting and the music score is so diverse and something I still listen to. You could easily pass on this one.
A decent game but a bit dull in places.
jvm039321 September 2015
Command & Conquer: Generals was the last game that Westwood Studios developed as the company was liquidated by Electronic Arts (EA) shortly before this game was released. The game came out at the height of Bush's War on Terror. At the time the game was heavily criticized due to the similarities between the fictional GLA (Global Liberation Army) and the Iraqi terrorist group known as Al-Qaeda, this even cause a temporary ban in Germany as well as a full scale ban in China as the Chinese in the game are depicted as a brutal army that use heavy-handed tactics such as leveling the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre and destroying the three gorges dam. Which I find somewhat Ironic seeing how this is the only western game I can think of where the Chinese are actually the good guys in the game. Fun Fact: Command & Conquer: Generals came out in Australia just a week after the US led Invasion of Iraq.
Playing it now I can't help but think that somehow this game predicted the future seeing how alike the GLA is to ISIS, the game itself is also base in the not too distant future where the Global Liberation Army a large well-organized terrorist organization declares war on the two main superpowers of the world, the United States and the People's Republic of China. In response the two Nations form a Coalition against the GLA whom controls most of the Middle East, parts of China along with Central Asia and the whole of Kazakhstan. You play as one of three the Chinese, the United States or the GLA and that's really about it. There are no Cut scenes or any story behind the missions you are given and very little backstory on how the GLA came to power in the first place. Similar to the first Command and Conquer game (nickname Tiberian Dawn) is set in a divergent reality, however done in a more realistic setting and style.
Now that the game is 12 years old I found it to be limited compared to its predecessors like Red Alert 2 and Tiberian Sun which had more depth and detail with both the game mechanics and plot. It is no means a bad game but it is somewhat lackluster and compared to Red Alert 2 (release in 2000) it hasn't really age that well.
All in all it's an alright game and I give it a 5 out of 10
Playing it now I can't help but think that somehow this game predicted the future seeing how alike the GLA is to ISIS, the game itself is also base in the not too distant future where the Global Liberation Army a large well-organized terrorist organization declares war on the two main superpowers of the world, the United States and the People's Republic of China. In response the two Nations form a Coalition against the GLA whom controls most of the Middle East, parts of China along with Central Asia and the whole of Kazakhstan. You play as one of three the Chinese, the United States or the GLA and that's really about it. There are no Cut scenes or any story behind the missions you are given and very little backstory on how the GLA came to power in the first place. Similar to the first Command and Conquer game (nickname Tiberian Dawn) is set in a divergent reality, however done in a more realistic setting and style.
Now that the game is 12 years old I found it to be limited compared to its predecessors like Red Alert 2 and Tiberian Sun which had more depth and detail with both the game mechanics and plot. It is no means a bad game but it is somewhat lackluster and compared to Red Alert 2 (release in 2000) it hasn't really age that well.
All in all it's an alright game and I give it a 5 out of 10
Updated and interesting but lacks the westwood style
Rirasoray11 August 2003
This C and C installment is quite possibly the worst so far in the series. Don't hold me fully to this statement because I have only begun the game on each campaign, but I have instantly noticed that the game can actually be quite boring, something no c and c game has ever been to me. It is still however a good addition for C+C fans. The first chinese level requires a simple path to an enemy base, the first gla mission is well done, and usa is just boring. Your opposition and supplies are too merciful; I laugh at the thought of there actually being an 'easy' difficulty setting on this game. Check this with the first level on any other campaign on other games in this series and they will all require decent commanding skills and the AI on the lowest difficulty setting,(easy) is still challenging, with the exception of the first NOD mission on the original, which had good AI, but a simple objective. Westwood have worked on every C+C for the past nine years, this one is the only one that has disappointed me, partly because I know they could have done so much better with this game. I recommend you preplay if you plan to buy it.
No story
randydandykkkbb17 March 2019
worst game in the series
furiso112 January 2007
Warning: Spoilers
this game is the worst of the command and conquer series
they have removed certain featuers of the game that makes it command and conquer.
there is no longer a toolbar, so in the result of that there is workers/buldozers.
it has nothing to do with the tiberian series or the red alert series. I think the gameplay is awful, the graphics isn't good either, it looks to much of an animation rather than a realistic game. take my advice if you are a command and conquer fan, don't get this game.
THe only good thing I could say about generals is that it is in 3D
they have removed certain featuers of the game that makes it command and conquer.
there is no longer a toolbar, so in the result of that there is workers/buldozers.
it has nothing to do with the tiberian series or the red alert series. I think the gameplay is awful, the graphics isn't good either, it looks to much of an animation rather than a realistic game. take my advice if you are a command and conquer fan, don't get this game.
THe only good thing I could say about generals is that it is in 3D
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