At long last, the continuation of the story!
The news has been spreading like wildfire around the community sites and I missed out on the initial wave. The upside was that the scans from the magazines and wiki is up and running by the time I noticed, so everything is laid out nicely, without the need of having to wait for the information to be posted. 
Oh, if you’re not an RTS gaming fan (that stands for Real Time Strategy) you can probably stop reading now.
Now, for the rest of you who’s still with me it’s going to be a pleasant surprise!
So, which is it? Who’s going to come up with a new title? For those who know me well enough, you should have guessed by now. There’s practically only one line of RTS that will get me excited, and yes, you’re right! Command and Conquer is still alive and kicking! A full decade later, they’re still running! Thankfully, it’s not a continuation of C&C: Generals but a return to its original storyline. I don’t have anything against Generals actually. Yes, it provides some nice game play and all that, but the storyline isn’t tied in to the larger C&C universe.
See, after the initial disappointment with the ‘announcement’ for C&C: Red Alert 3, there has been little cause for joy in the community. Actually, I’m also rather disgusted with the idea of RA3, because of the flop that they call RA2. I’d rather go back all the way to plain old RA instead of that seemingly childish game that succeeded it. After all that, I only went back to the sites to see some cartoons, war stories, new maps or the occasional updates about other RTS games. And today, Christmas has come early!
Ok, the new working title for the upcoming game is called C&C3: Tiberian Wars. It’s basically what was promised long ago by Westwood, when Tiberian Sun came out: ‘We’ll be back with a sequel’. Now, Westwood got swallowed by EA and then Generals came along and went, and finally the promise is apparently made good. This time, it’s an official announcement with a press release! Plus, some magazines have gotten their hands on some pretty nice stuff.
Copyright EA Games
The story is post Tiberian Sun (duh!). Set in 2047, 17 years after the events in Tiberian Sun, Tiberium infestation has worsened since then. NOD has managed to evolve into a superpower status from its humble terrorist group beginning and has overall territorial ground control in the Yellow Zone, areas where a majority of the world’s population live in and Tiberium infested. The Global Defense Initiative exerts ground control in the Green Zones, areas that are still relatively Tiberium free. But that’s only 30% of the Earth. Yellow Zone is about 50%, and the Red Zone, the remaining 20% (it’s uninhabitable due to advanced Tiberium infestation). In the tenuous state of truce, GDI actively sought ways to reverse the Tiberium infestation. NOD, in their perverted belief of the Tiberium (remember Kane’s prophecy?) decided to prevent the research from succeeding. So, in March 2047, NOD launched a nuclear attack on the GDI space station Philadelphia and launched a full scale attack on GDI ground forces. That’s where the ‘Welcome back Commander’ part comes in.
Frankly speaking, it’s still in early stages of development, and all these stuff might just get tossed out in the end but I’m hoping that they’ll keep the storyline. Basically, the game is using an upgraded SAGE engine (the same one used in Generals) so we’ll probably don’t need significant upgrades to our PCs to play it. Even in early development stage, the graphics already looks great! As for the Tiberium, they actually gotten help from scientists at MIT to research Tiberium down to the molecular level! Hell, wouldn’t that be fun? Applying science to games? Yep, that’s how detailed they’re trying to be. Game play and units? Too early for anything definite, but the stealth tanks, mechs and mammoth tanks is in! Hooray! I wonder if hoping for a Mammoth Mk III isn’t too much. And yes, full motion videos are back! But nobody knows if Kane will be back. We’ll have to see about that. Oh, before I forget to mention it, there’s a third faction! Top odds are currently on the Forgotten, and then the Scrin.
For more info, there’s scans of the feature article in PC Gamer here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
It is projected to be released late 2007 so it’s going to be one long wait before it’s released. Must start praying that the release will be in conjunction with term holidays! But at least it’s some good news. Haven’t had much of it lately.
