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Command & Conquer 3: Kanes Wrath - Hands On |
by Guest
1/20/2008 |
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Electronic Arts invited me, the Baron of Xbox365 down to California, Los Angeles to E.A. Headquarters for a Command & Conquer Community Summit, showcasing their newest edition to the C&C series, C&C: Kane’s Wrath. The EA Community Manager Aaron Kaufman aka APOC had us guests stay for accommodations at the 5 Star Hotel, the Ritz Carlton, in Marina Del Ray, for the length of the stay, and after the showcase of C&C: Kane’s Wrath APOC took us all to the Staples Center for the Hockey game, Buffalo Sabers versus the Los Angeles Kings, all in all a great event, a great summit, and a great game.
The Flight and Getting to know the Community Members
I left Canada where there was a wind chill of -17C at the time to fly to L.A. where it was at least 75F when I got in. It was also my first time on a plane, so it was an interesting experience, kind of like going up in a rollercoaster when the altitude changed, pretty fun, plus the clouds looked awesome. Except for a tiny problem, when I got in the plane, everyone got to their seats then the Pilot came on the intercom with a message explaining that the plane’s computer has shutdown and the crew have left the plane so we are to wait till things get fixed. We only got delayed around half an hour but still, the plane’s computer shutting down and some of the people panicking because the crew abandoned the plane after was something you just don’t expect, but it was ok, didn’t bother me, it’s all part of the experience of traveling.
 
Upon getting to Los Angeles I checked out their gift stores and proceeded on my journey, got a taxi cab and headed down to Marina Del Ray, the Ritz Carlton. When you check in the service is great, inside the place it looks like a million dollars and they give you a short tour after you check in, you got a view of the Marina, hot tub outside, swimming pool, walkway gardens, exercise rooms, it was pretty great. Everyone met in the Lobby of the Hotel, where the EA Community Manager met up with us, everyone introduced themselves to each other and as a group we headed out to a Mexican Restaurant, where I ordered the $30 steak, and the Communities members exchanged their information of where they were from and what they think so far. Some were from France, Germany had a small group, there was a Representative from Hong Kong, one from Britain, another from Australia, a bunch from the USA, pretty much a global effort it turned to be. After the Dinner we all headed back to the Ritz Carlton hotel and rested to get ready for the big event the next day at EA headquarters.
The Community Event @ E.A. Headquarters, Los Angeles
The Community Representatives from the 360 community and the PC community were flown in for the Summit about the next game of the C&C series, Kane’s Wrath, so we were all prepared for this event and the preview of this game, except me, I left my book in the hotel and had to borrow paper from the guy next to me to write on during the EA member’s speech about the game, but all is good I got all the info down that I needed. After the stay at the hotel we met up in the lobby again with Aaron and we were taken down to E.A. Headquarters and given a tour of the place, and got to eat at their café, plus purchase from their store within the EA building, with a discount of course for us, some stocked up pretty good on the games and merchandise, heh.
When the event started they brought us into a room full of computers for a later tournament game against each other, and in the backdrop projectors with Kane’s Wrath starting up for us to witness this preview from. We went over unit breakdowns, faction breakdowns, even story and plot which to you C&C fans out there, you’re going have to wait and see for some fairly interesting developments in that field. The factions are of the three seen in Command and Conquer: Tiberium Wars, but each have 2 sub factions now, each with new units, so it’s like 6 factions. I’ll give a brief breakdown of some of the new units for each, but let me first say that the Wolverine and the Titan are both back and in this version of the game, thanks to Aaron Kaufman pushing for it, a lot of people wanted that and will be happy to see them, they will both be on the Steel Talons sub faction of GDI..
The faction and unit breakdowns
Faction: GDI Units:
Slingshot - Anti-air hover unit, fast and fragile.
Hammerhead - APC, Garrisons and is a more or less balanced unit.
Shatterer - A Sonic Tank, destroys things in rippled waves, awesome unit.
MARV - The Heavy Duty tank, this thing is huge, can garrison 4 units, kills the infantry to upgrade to 4 weapons on it.
GDI Sub Faction: Steel Talons Units
Behemoth - A Walker, has long range, a big mech.
Engineer - This engineer has a gun, so he can fight back somewhat.
Harvester - Steel Talon Harvesters can be garrisoned and garrisoned units can shoot from them.
Repair APC - An APC that can repair.
GDI Sub Faction: Zocom Units
Zone Raider - Female agent, replaces Zone Troopers, more powerful.
Rocket Harvester - A harvester that shoots, possibly can be used to rush at the start.
Faction: NOD Units
Reckoner - APC that is large and slow, garrisoned units cannot shoot from it, but the APC can deploy into a bunker that can take some heavy damage.
Specter - Stealth artillery
Redeemer - Awesome huge robot, can garrison two infantry to give extra weapons to it. And it also says the quote “Resistance is Futile”, a definite Must to get when playing.
NOD Sub Faction: The Blackhand Units
Purifier - Avatar that has a flamethrower and area of effect Buff.
Confessor Cabal - Infantry are lead by them and when upgraded infantry are quite powerful.
Anti-Air tank - A non-stealth anti-air tank, currently under the name Tank Tank for the time being.
NOD Sub Faction: Marked of Kane Units
Awakened - Cyborg, EMP weapons.
Enlightened - Like a slow and tough Zone Trooper.
Tiberium Trooper - Anti Garrison Unit, with a flamer type Tiberium based weapon.
Faction: Scrin Units
Ravager - Anti Harvester Unit, damages easily Tiberium based Units or structures, like Harvesters or Refineries.
Eradicator - 4 Garrison able, and looks like a giant spider, cool unit.
Scrin Sub Faction: Reaper 17 Units
Shard Walker - A Gun Walker type unit.
Shielded Harvester - A shielded harvester.
Reaper Tripod - A stronger Tripod Unit that uses Tiberium to strengthen itself and it’s attacks.
Scrin Sub Faction: Traveler 59 Units
Cultist - Their appearance is that of a person with a bug on their head, they can do short range mind control.
Prodigy - Can teleport, and use area of effect Mind Control
Testing out the Game
After the preview we got to try out the game, for both the PC and the 360. The PC one we had a tournament with where on the first round I faced one of the German Representatives, fought for 9 minutes but I died in the end. But it’s ok, it was a good death. The Winner of the tournament got a recorded interview by EA, it was one of the younger representatives from Germany, he was an Ace at the game. We got to play test the game greatly though, for both the console 360 version and the PC. DELL donated the computers for the event, and Logitech the Keyboards we used that we later got to keep.
The faction I used specifically a lot and liked the most was a NOD Sub-Faction, “The Black Hand”, they have no air unit production at all, but their units focus on ground assault, specifically infantry upgrades that when maxed makes them a force to be reckoned with, coupled with their low production cost, can take out quite a lot, I really enjoyed using this faction, their anti-air tank is new and unstealthed but makes up for it in versatility. The Black Hand’s infantry however without their upgrades did not fair too well if you mass produce them against vehicles, but upgraded they practically walk right through them, and give them a Heavy Walker Unit, and some anti air tanks and they dominate the field, however air to infantry unit killers will decimate them of course.
The factions brought about new thinking in terms of strategy to be used, since each faction can specify in certain directions, be it speed, ground infantry, mechanized troops aka vehicles, or heavy units, with bonuses for each faction. The only downside is that with all the new units per faction there wasn’t much in terms of air units at all, but that’s ok, new ground units more than made up for it, each sub-faction felt like an entire new side instead of separate GDI teams or Nod teams, or Scrin. These differences really fleshed out when we played games outside of the tournament against each other 4v4 and 3v3 to test out the sides, the balance between the factions was done quite well and showed throughout each game played quite clearly from what I saw.
The GDI players at the event did fairly well and have been strengthened a lot from C&C3: Tiberium Wars, but the NOD players were the over all winners in terms of being successful and using their units the most efficiently, maybe I’m saying this because NOD is my favorite side, but generally I did see them play and use the new units with ease and tactics that worked well, using a lot of cat and mouse strategies with their new guys, and the Scrin mainly going for their Tripod rushes, which in the end didn’t do well in the long run against the new units, although a unit that was tested out and still in the works, a mechanical caterpillar type unit did extremely well, and looked really cool, you build attachments to it and it gets larger, and you destroy them when attacking it to weaken it, I look forward to using this unit, it might make me switch over from NOD, heh.
For the GDI though, their Shatterer and MARV are two of the best units I have seen from each faction, the Shatterer’s strength in its wave attacks is so useful against anything, it rips apart the entire battlefield in a fight practically, and destroys buildings easy, and the MARV upgraded makes people scared, very scared, it’s a moving fortress, it’s firepower is so powerful.
Three sides with 2 sub-factions each, it’s more like 6 factions each separate when you start to play the game, so this is good, more variety from Tiberium Wars, and its done well, and from what I saw of the story campaign mode, each faction and sub-faction can be played and progresses accordingly to the faction chosen.
After the Event at EA
After testing out the game we got shown to the Battlecast Primetime room, got an introduction about it, and talked about how the show is presented by EA for Command and Conquer, and everyone got to sit in the chair and get a picture taken. After that we headed over to a conference room, and talked over the game, question and answer period, and signed up some papers for the event and questionnaires. We stayed a bit longer, got to play test the game some more and got to keep the Logitech keyboards, plus got a copy of the C&C Saga set for the PC, plus a Kane Bobblehead.
The Xbox 360 version
This version revamped the control scheme greatly; it was a huge improvement over the old one, using a radial system that helps so much it isn’t funny. First of all you can build away from base, no old style square drop down menu needed; you can access all buildings and levels of development and do them by a multi-leveled radial system on the click of a button using the thumb sticks to direct which part of the radial interface to choose from. As a console gamer I felt better using the Radial system than I did when we played on the PC using a keyboard and mouse. So all you 360 users here that get the game, and played C&C 3 with the old interface, you’re going to be happy about this new addition.
The Hockey Game at the Staples Center
After the event we headed out in one of those huge buses, it was waiting for us at the EA HQ, Aaron counted heads and to the Staples Center we went. It was night when we got there and the towers outside used spotlights in a radial movement so it looked great already heading in. We were stationed in the VIP room so it was a good view for the Hockey game, and they also showed our VIP room on the big screen for a short time over the game. The teams facing each other were the Buffalo Sabers versus the L.A. Kings, of which Buffalo got completely destroyed with a score of 8-2 for the Kings. After the game finished Aaron had another surprise for us, he gave our Metal Rings with the NOD insignia to each of us, after that we headed back to the Hotel, went over some end stuff with Aaron as a group, then everyone got to sleep one last night at the Ritz Carlton, and we all headed home the next morning, except the overseas Community Representatives, they got to stay another day at EA.
Thanks to Electronic Arts and the Command & Conquer Community for the great event! Look out for Command & Conquer 3: Kanes Wrath sometime in Spring 2008.
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Spinelli666
X365 Member
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Yo Baron,
nice report and overview, it was great to meet up with you.
Spin from Germany.
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juan
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nice baron. can't wait to get me paws on this
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Now, parents rich flavor. and saw Street stretching
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