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— Wednesday, February 12, 2003 —

Posted By: Mike at 11:10:24 AM ET

Generals Reviews

With the release of Generals, reviews have been pouring in as expected.  All of them review Generals as being a great game.  Here is the list of reviews, and a snip from each of them:

UGO (Website | Full Review)
Would-be Generals begin their journey by choosing an allegiance: The USA offers strong tanks, well-trained crews and the best air force in the biz. On the flipside, the GLA stick to the ground, digging tunnel networks and sacrificing strength for speed. Finally, the Chinese fall in the middle, with some tough armored units, sufficient air power and horde tactics that can drown their enemy in sheer numbers. Depending on the playing style, all three factions are interesting and fun, but deviating from their intended purposes will get you in trouble. Blitzing with the USA is slow and cost-prohibitive, while bunkering in as the GLA will get them killed in no time.

GameSpot(Website | Full Review)  Rating: 8.9/10
The gameplay itself is what you'd expect from a Command & Conquer game--it's fast, responsive, and filled with lots of great explosions. There's no dillydallying about, just a quick-and-dirty setup process where you slap down a few key structures and then move on to cranking out a good, mixed group of forces. Numerous, unique upgrades are also available to each faction, competing for your resources. Resource gathering, while slightly different for each faction, is fully automated like in Red Alert 2. The US helicopters, Chinese supply trucks, and GLA workers will all make a beeline for the closest batch of "supply," which is basically a big stockpile of valuables just sitting there and waiting to be collected. As in all Command & Conquer games, a viable strategy in Generals is to attack the enemy's all-important gatherers, though the buildings in the game can't withstand much damage, either. You can't build walls, base defenses are pretty flimsy, and a lot of the buildings are quite large and vulnerable--so the game definitely favors an aggressive style of play. Overly defensive play will merely land you front-row seats to the fiery destruction of your own base.

GamersDepot (Website | Full Review)  Rating: 5.5/6
The back-story to Generals is that there are three Armies competing for world dominance and each have their own methodology of going about it – sort of like Starcraft’s three races but not set in some far futuristic setting. The USA, China and a terrorist army called GLA (Global Liberation Army) are jockeying for ultimate rulership with GLA having it the hardest as they have to fight both China and the USA throughout the campaign.

IGN (Website | Full Review)  Rating: 9.3/10
Westwood and EA decided to move away from the silly cutscenes of old and instead stick with a more mature style. All scenes use the in game engine to good effect although they use a Matrix style camera for too many of the explosions. There are no main characters to fart around with this time around, instead focusing on the war and the fact that while there are heroes, it's no one man or woman that conquers the enemy. It's a good move for the series and while some people might miss past attempts at character driven fiction, Generals manages to stay true to the series with its gameplay and faction styles.

Last edited by Mike on Wednesday, February 12, 2003 at 4:50:35 PM.

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