C&C Labs News

There's some new C&C 3 media out today. GameTrailers.com has two new C&C 3 videos:

• First, one is a gameplay video with some good (but not great) shots of the game in action. If there's anything that video shows, it's the sheer number of particle effects in the game; while the observing eye can spot some similarities to the Zero Hour-era SAGE engine, it's clear that there's been at least a reworking of a lot of the engine for C&C 3--something that was much needed.
• The second video is an interview with Amer Ajami, the producer of C&C 3. He outlines a lot of basic tenets of the game, and the video is well cut with some battle scenes. There's no new groundbreaking information, but a lot of the key features are highlighted. The few things to note from the video is the lack of C&C music; for both videos, Generals music is played in the background. If they have a C&C 3 soundtrack, they're clearly not sharing it yet. Secondly, Ajami concludes his interview by saying, "It's been seven years since a C&C..." perhaps indicating a dismissal of Red Alert 2 and Generals as true C&Cs. In any event, Ajami, who did not work on anything except Generals, clearly believes that C&C 3 is the big one. 

Finally, I expect news of the third faction in C&C 3 to be leaked tomorrow or Saturday. All I can tell you is all that I know from reading various sources over the years, including some from the pre-EA days: the original Brett Sperry-led plan for Command and Conquer was to have the Scrin actively involved in the series in the later game(s) (as it was unclear how many games there would be) and to let the latter games develop the character of Kane significantly, as Kane's relationship to Nod, to Red Alert, and to the Scrin in the backstory is revealed. Now, all this planning was before Tiberian Dawn came out, before the Scrin ever made an appearance in Tiberian Sun, etc, so things may well have changed since then. Brett Sperry has been forced out of the C&C scene, and I don't have much of an idea of what happened inside closed-door EA meetings. However, all I know is that the original plan was to include the Scrin in some active engagement with the human player. What EA does with this, we'll soon be finding out.