While it seems nowadays nothing can beat the older RTS games, this one is actually a decent attempt at it and worth playing.
Stability wise, no issues whatsoever, not a single crash or bad framerate across both campaigns.
Gameplay wise, its closer to Command And Conquer Red Alert 3 than Tiberium wars.
I would rate this game 7/10, here is why.
First the positives
- Runs extremely smoothly, zero crashes, good framerate across the game, havent encountered any bugs or forced restarts.
- Game looks pretty
- Factions, despite being bootleg GDI and bootleg Brotherhood of Nod do have sufficient identity for the world setting and diverse arsenal that reflects their lore.
- Surprising QoL features, like aircraft ammo system being automated (Your helicopter returns to rearm and then automatically returns to the position where it spent its ammo initially, repeat, this is SupCom level convinience).
- Power can be cut and rerouted, a feature that took TIberian Wars to implement.
- Has CnC vibes all over it
- Voice acting is budget one, but its not bad and sounds good, also accents are believable (esp with the Dynasty). Its not god tier memorable like Red Alert 2 tho. Sound design is decent and soundtrack is really good.
- Has generous population limit (200), while older games did not have a limit in the first place, i learned to accept that technology is going backwards so its what it is, though 200 alot of units so you do get to make huge armies and massive bases so i was satisfied enough on that front.
- Veti visual design and introduction is top notch
- Campaigns are ran at the same time, instead of just one being canon for the story, and both campaigns elaborate on each other and events in game, this is a VERY good choice, originally i was contemplating if this is going to be like Red Alert or Tiberium Wars, it went with the "all campaigns are canon, play both to get both sides of the story".
- MIssions are very open in to how you complete them, with MASSIVE freedom on how you do it, be it through backdoor drops, commando mini missions, brute force assaults, base crawling, you name it and missions let you get very creative with your arsenal.
- Units are very responsive, its more Starcraft 2 than Command and Conquer, so some uber micro is possible.
- Storage system, you cannot go up in infinity with money, encouring you to either constantly spend it, or create large storage systems, silos that can get attacked.
Now, the negative, and oh boy, after reading it you would be suprised i actually gave it a positive rating, frankly i cant be too harsh on the creators of this game, they have shoe string budget and its clearly a passion project, though that does not shield it either:
- The story feels way too fast paced, abit too much "show, dont tell", the premise is not even that interesting, its just Tiberium 2.0, except its dangerous to vehicles and not infantry, woah, what an original twist, as if we didnt have tiberium veins already with such flip of effects.
- Extremely disjointed story telling and gameplay, story constantly harps on radiation, yet there is no such feature in game, your troops cannot get irradiated and there are no weapons whatsoever that would play with radiation poisoning and frankly i could probably write a +2000 word long essay about this one.
- Maps feel empty and lifeless, buildings are props, units can just shoot through buildings, garrisoning of structures doesnt work except pre-placed bunkers and emplacements, cities feel hollow, there are no vehicles to destroy, civilians, wildlife, NOTHING except your enemies.
Again, compare that to Tiberian Sun, where you had civilians, houses, hostile flora and fauna on every map, craters were made, ice could be smashed to sink tanks that were on it and the ice would freeze back if destroyed. Modern RTS game continue the trend of failing to do what was done almost 3 decades ago at this point, things that got done with fraction of a budget and technology.
- Bunch of the units seem redundant, air units are hilariously overpowered and can consistently beat their own counters on the ground, the final missions of both campaigns were me just hustling drone carriers and levers as they obliterate everything, all the anti-air units trying to do their job, only to be erased from existence, the drone carrier is easily THE WORST offender i seen in an RTS game in a while, durable as ♥♥♥♥ and anti EVERYTHING that keeps spawning chaff that draws all aggro on it.
Atleast the Leveler cant shoot against air, so i was actually forced to surround it with Dragonfly blobs.
- Story is rather uninteresting at the start, again due to disjointed story and gameplay and empty maps, but it picks up mid-way onward.
- Infantry feels useless, way too many units have splash and units blob up instead of spread out and maintain distance from each other, so you will lose giant squads in a blink of an eye, so this just resulted in me going tank-airforce midgame onward, only Dynasty has me continue to sprinkle in gunners and rocket troops, because they have obscene range so they can be outside of AOE or the risk of just being ran over.
- Difficulty, i ran this on normal and had to switch to Hard after just 1 mission, and even then, Hard barely felt like anything and this was my first time playing through, so i wonder what the impossible difficulty will do. There were only like 2-3 missions i would consider atleast slightly challenging, i dont know if i am conditioned to Mental Omega level difficulty, or the game is actually really easy, could be both.
- Artillery, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ wot mate this game has for artillery, anti-everything that moves on the ground, ♥♥♥♥ ton of armour, giant splash, these things cannot do so much damage to ground units, the time to kill with these units is just grotesque, your entire armies can evaporate at massive range and even if you rush them down, you realize the Trebuchet has 900-1100 HP, more than your main battle tank. The Dynasty MLRS has homing missiles, because why the ♥♥♥♥ not, they can unleash half of their ammo on your units, and by the time you see the missiles flying out of the fog of war, that unit is already dead man walking as the missiles will chase them through streets, around corners to obliterate them with splash.
