Under the Knife: Command and Conquer 3 Kane’s Wrath

By Kaiserhawk

(I Gotta a Present for ya!)

If you’ll look through my previous articles you’ll probably guess I have a huge stiffy for the Command and Conquer franchise, and with the revival of the C&C series under the Tiberium banner over a year ago came an expansion to Tiberium Wars under the title of Kane’s Wrath. While the game has been out for a while on the PC it’s only been released recently for the Xbox 360 and that’ll be the version that I’ll be reviewing. This is also a follow up to my previous review for Command and Conquer 3 Tiberium wars that I had wrote a few months back.

Kane’s Wrath is a lot similar to previous C&C game Generals expansion “Zero Hour” as it adds additional sub factions to each of the existing three factions as well as a new campaign. On the PC it added a mode called Global Conquest which was somewhat similar the War of the Ring mode in other EALA game The lord of the Rings: The Battle for middle earth 2″ which was replaced with another mode called Kane’s Challenge which is similar to Generals Challenge in the aforementioned C&C Generals: Zero Hour. This mode has you facing the different subclasses of the game and increases the difficulty each stage you go up.

The story of the game is told entirely from the Brotherhood of Nod’s perspective, and through this we see Kane’s Machiavellian antics first hand. Also the few occurrences where you do not play the role of an anonymous commander but rather LEGION, a next generation AI created by Kane to fulfil an unknown course of action. The games timeline spans three decades from the reformation of the Brotherhood after it’s defeat to GDI in Tiberian Sun, to the backstage events of Tiberium Wars and beyond, leaving behind yet another cliffhanger ending. Huzzah!

The core gameplay and graphics remain the same, what were you really expecting the game is an expansion after all. However I have noticed a bit of slowdown whenever you have a large body of units it’s not all that common but it’s worth mentioning as it can be frustrating but as I said it doesn’t happen all that often. The main change is that of constructing building and units. The old system was removed in favour of a “wheel” menu, which requires more use of the analogue stick that makes it’s easier to navigate than the previous game. Though it takes a bit to get used to at first it is much easier to command rather than the previous menu system. However a few tweaks made have been an added support helipad, which acts like a normal helipad but cannot build fighters, and the ability to only construct one turret at a time even if you do have an additional crane. Presumably for balance issues but it’s worth noting.

Other major additions to the game are the increase of Skirmish and multiplayer maps that have been raised to 50 and include a few of the downloadable maps from the previous game (With the exception being Blacks Big Battle which was a favourite of mine). Also included are the new sub factions each sporting their own unique units and abilities.

For GDI we have GDI, the Steel Talons, and ZOCOM. GDI is the overall faction that is essentially the same force used in the Tiberium Wars but sport a few new vehicles. However the Steel Talons and ZOCOM are a bit different since Steel Talons is more vehicle based and uses Vehicles from Tiberian Sun such as the Titan and Wolverine walkers, whereas ZOCOM uses more Sonic based weapons. Nod has the Black Hand and Marked of Kane, the Black Hand negate stealth technology in favour of aggressive hard hitting tactics, while the marked of Kane take the guerrilla warfare nature of Nod and amplify it. Finally there is the Scrin who have the Reaper-17 and Traveller-59 factions. Reaper-17 is a ground based shock force that has great ground units but cannot build any advanced Air units, while Traveller-59 is more of a speedy attacker. They don’t have certain stronger ground vehicles but they have mind control units and a faster air force. Since the Scrin already were established in my opinion as an unfair, unbalanced faction due to their aircrafts Traveller-59 has taken this cheapness and amplified it.

The new mode Kane’s Challenge is somewhat bittersweet for me as it is supposed to be a trade off for not getting Global Conquest mode. As I said before this mode is similar to the Generals Challenge in Zero Hour except it isn’t even as good as that. In Generals challenge each Combatant had their own unique stage and would taunt at you throughout the map, oddly enough even when they were losing badly. In Kane’s Challenge you play on maps that you can find in Skirmish mode while facing a silent opponent as you fight your way to the top of a chart, which has all your opponents on them. This mode can be challenging as the starting points have been changed so that you’ll be at an economical advantage as well as the AI becoming more difficult as you rise through the levels. At the beginning of Kane’s Challenge you are shown a video featuring Kane proclaiming his challenge, then you choose a force to play as, then you get another video of Kane describing each force in his own way. However what makes this bittersweet for me is that I was pumped for Global Conquest mode, and in return we get this Skirmish mode in sheep’s clothing

Overall Kane’s Wrath is really the optimised version of C&C 3. More factions more maps, and an additional if somewhat generic new mode as well as a new story line. For fans of the series this is a must get, hell even if you like strategy games this title is pretty healthy for the 360, also for those who are curious this game doesn’t require the original copy of C&C3 to play as it’s a Stand Alone expansion on the 360 BUT for the PC you’ll still need the original disk. For me if you had the choice between the two platforms I would choose the PC since It’ll control easier and you’ll get access to Global Conquest mode as well as new user created maps as well as the Red Alert 3 beta being released sometime this summer. However if like me your PC is not up to the task then the 360 version is still fun and enjoyable and I would recommend it to most people looking for their strategy fix.

1 Comment(s)

Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI