C&C Labs News

• Gamespy has a Kane's Wrath preview up that has some details on the nature of the singleplayer campaign.

  While we've only played through the first four missions of the 13-mission Kane's Wrath campaign, a couple of things have become quite quite clear almost from the very first. First, this is not an expansion pack for newbies. The very first mission of the campaign ("The Rio Insurrection") drops the player right into the middle of the map and challenges the commander with first capturing four radio stations and knocking out four GDI command and control centers and then defending their exposed position against one of the NOD splinter groups that are operating out of Brazil. It's pretty fast and furious and requires the player to instantly adapt their playstyle to the lightning-quick C&C3 pace.

  You can read it here.

• EA has released unit spotlights of the Awakened and Enlightened units for the Marked of Kane subfaction, as well as the Cultist and Prodigy from Traveler-59.
• EA also has released a promo video showing Nod support powers and upgrades.

• The Open Map Competition--the biggest community mapping competition--is announcing its results. Congratulations to the winner, JBV3737, for his winning map, Wind of Desolation. It was the top-ranked map by four of the five judges. You can view all the results here. He'll get a nice prize package of some old C&C games and guides. Unfortunately, his map won't be featured in Kane's Wrath. Though EA initially was very supportive of the idea and of the OMC, they've--for an undisclosed reason--elected not to include winning Open Map Competition maps in Kane's Wrath. This is a shame, because the maps, even those that didn't win, are of a truly high quality and unique nature and would have been an excellent addition. Hopefully EA will correct their mistake in a forthcoming patch.

IGN: Red Alert 3 was recently revealed. It's been a while since the last one, hasn't it?

Chris Corry: There actually hasn't been a Red Alert game for a little while now; it's been seven years. It's kind of interesting reintroducing the world to Red Alert. For those who are already familiar with Red Alert games and their place in the C&C universe, certainly Red Alert 3 is going to be everything that the hardcore fans have been looking for. It's going to have that trademark, light, humorous, fun, Saturday matinee popcorn feel to it, with live-action cinematics and all these great actors chewing up the stage.

• The biggest news item recently was the release of the C&C 3: Kane's Wrath developer's podcast. Producer Jim Vessella answers 10 questions from the EA forums in this 20 minute episode.
• Nod's stealth artillery unit, the Spectre, has been featured on the latest KW Unit Spotlight.
• All the C&C 3 trailers have been uploaded by EA here, in both standard and high definition.

• Community Manager Aaron "Apoc" Kaufman wants to know if you liked the Unit Spotlights for C&C 3. Should he continue them for Red Alert 3? Tell him here. Speaking of which, there's a new Kane's Wrath unit spotlight here.
  
• Episode 7 of Battlecast Primetime is available here, with features on Kane's Wrath, C&C 3, and RA3.
• There's a short article from C&C Lead Story Designer Sam Bass available here about the making of the story in Kane's Wrath. Not a ton of new info (only one real piece which I won't spoil but that I think was known a while back), but it's a good overview of what their goals are for the Kane's Wrath story.
  
• Gamespot has a short preview of the Nod subfactions. Not a ton of new info, but a good overview.
• A new C&C Bug Database is online. Sounds like an ambitious project. Check it out when you get the chance.