Customer Reviews

Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a good game, on the whole. The graphics are stunning, the interface is very effective, "planning mode" is incredibly useful, and, aside from some frustrating bugs here and there, it's a remarkable showing. However, I suspect that, depending on your playing style, you will either love or hate this game.

If you tend towards the "meat grinder", tank rush and wave-after-wave-of-pain approach in RTS games, this game is for you. There's no shortage of cool units that are plenty durable and versatile enough to keep it interesting.

However, if you're a turtle/hedgehog/porcupine like me, preferring to keep a very well defended base and strike out using precise, tactical and strategic methods, this game will frustrate you endlessly. Base defense structures are hopelessly weak and no quantity of them can save you against a major rush. Resources are limited, and there's no means of getting more without expanding your base (like the Supply Drops in Generals). There are also some pretty severe holes in the unit inventory (tough, anti-infantry vehicles, for instance) which mean that any attack will suffer mass casualties.

Although there are some good, specialized units (Snipers, Zone Troopers, etc), they don't really offer the sort of complexity and strategic benefit that they do in Generals and other RTS'es. Air Units are far too weak to do anything other than mop up a few stray harvesters, and when it comes down to it, the sole strategy for winning is "build 15 [insert most powerful unit] and rush". There is no workable counter to, for instance, a 15 mammoth rush, and in the end, the game seems to devolve into "who can churn out more units more quickly".

So, if you're a fan of sending masses of units to smack into each other, then sending more, then this is a game tailor made for your style. But, if you're a defensive, strategic and tactical sort of player, you'll likely find this game limiting and disappointing (and should seriously consider Generals and Zero Hour).

Pros
------------
- Incredible graphics
- Some very cool unit innovations (Zone Troopers with Jetpacks, "Call for Transport")
- Great cinematics

Cons
------------
- Meat-grinder, masses against masses combat is the sole winning strategy
- Defensive and air units are almost worthless
- Bugs and glitches can be really frustrating
- Slow to load

Command & Conquer 3 for Mac OS X is a sound port, using most of the original code and running in Cedega.

Cross-platform (PC/Mac) online play works. The game itself uses either DirectX 8 via Cedega API or OpenGL, the latter being the preferred and default method. It doesn't look as good as the PC version, even with an X1900XT in a Mac Pro, but still runs well.

As for the game itself, well, I agree with the critics - 9/10 - but you can search around for that sort of thing.

Judging only the Mac version, it's a sound port, and runs well on any Intel Mac (PPC not supported - it's not a universal binary, it's Intel only!).

Definately worth a purchase for any RTS fan!

Let me make it clear from the beginning: GREAT GRAPHICS! Physics and details are AMAZING! I particularly liked the exhaust distortions, the dust of the passing mammoth tanks and the burning debris falling from destroyed flying units!
And for graphics like that it does not require the moon an the stars hardware-wise! Even my 3year-old office system sporting a 3.2MHz P4 with 2GB of RAM and an nVidia 7600GT can manage the highest settings.
Why is this important? I had STALKER gathering dust waiting for my next PC - only, when it will eventually be playable, it will also be...obsolete!

The story moves along, new units get unlocked, you gather, you built, you defend, you read the terrain, you amass your forces and you push forward hoping for the best. No try it again with the Bad guys.

Where it misses the 5th star: one cannot hold a battle formation while moving as most major units move at different paces and (although the AI has improved) they keep bumping on each other. May be the next C&C could have some TOTAL WAR infused into it, with battle formations options.

- Is it balanced? Mostly YES.
- Does it require tactics? As much as one might expect from a COMMAND & CONQUER Game.
- Can you still hog resources until you tank-rush the opposition? YES (sometimes the only solution)
- Is it GENERALS 2.5? Definitely NOT! It has a clear C&C character!

True, I could do without the wooden acting of Michael Ironside! (Gone are the days of Kari Wuhrer...Lock'n'Load!)

The Mac porting of this excellent game was long overdue. Apple users count your blessings and do not miss on it.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!

Used copies that have been previously registered will not work for online play. EA Games reported that once a game is registered it can only be used with the original account that completed the registration. If you're looking for online play make sure you buy new, or you will be stuck in single player mode.

C&C3 is leaps and bounds ahead of Generals in terms of gameplay, sound, and graphics. Unfortunately, like the first installment of any C&C game, your options are a little limited. You'll rapidly find that each team only has 2 or 3 useful units, and your strategies won't vary much from game to game. For this reason, the replay value on this is limited. Fortunately, there's an expansion. I haven't played it yet, but my guess is that it does for Tiberium Wars what Zero Hour did for Generals.

Pros:
-Great Graphics (if your processor can handle it, turn everything all the way up)
-Great sound
-I like the return to the older style C&C game management system. This is much more like the old red alert games than generals.
-Challenging (beating a medium army in a skirmish is pretty tough. Beating a hard army is nearly impossible)
-Fun campaign (probably the saving grace of this first installment)

Cons:
-Limited production options, so it gets old fast.
-Needs the expansion
-If you prefer the two button interface, it's really annoying to play on a mac mouse.

I purchased this game as I wanted a MAC game to fill in a little spare time and test out my new MAC.
I have always been a PC user until recent times and have always loved this style of game - especially the Weswood games. It started with Dune on my 386 PC and then Red Alert on the 486 onwards. Tiberian Sun was a favourite of mine (on a Pentium) - then came along Red Alert 2 - that was just great! I held off getting more of these games (generals - expansion packs etc) as they are too addictive. Then Tiberium Wars came along.

I have a intel 1.83GHz MacBook Pro and I had to get some extra memory to run it (I got 2GB cheap from Crucial).

The game is great. The stories keep you hooked to the missions. I actually found this very difficult in parts - I don't remember other games in the series being so hard. Anyway - it was a good challenge in parts and the skirmishes are pretty good - you can even pick the style of your opponent - turtle, rusher etc.

The only down points are:
- It's more expensive than the PC version (I saw the PC version for about £15) and whatever version you get Mac or PC - it is a native windows game - so if you have a windows PC - just get the windows version.
- Because this is a windows game port - your mac will run a emulator in the background (its like wine for Linux). On top of that it is graphics intensive. The result is a boiling hot mac laptop on your lap. It got so hot that I had to get some sort of heat sink device to calm my poor mac fans down. I found a heavy frying pan (copper base if available) or pot or oven tray works well. It is times like this you wish for water cooling.
- As it is a windows port and is intensive on the mac - you are limited to the graphics options. I had to pick the least amount of graphics details in most areas. This is not a major issue - but it must look SO much better on a PC. I did put some of the graphics levels up a bit - but game play was very slow.
- There was enough cursing to be slightly annoying - but that is just me I guess.

Apart from that - it is a very absorbing game and getting your mind around all the units of all of the sides will take a while. There are a few surprises in some of the missions which can be interesting. GDI are pretty tough to fight against. The alien missions are unlocked when you totally complete the GDI and NOD missions (that means taking on the aliens at the end).

My only wish would be for friends to have the game who I could fight against - or that my wife would get good at it...

Hours of intense battle fun. The only benefits I can think of for your real life are organisational skills and problem solving.

If you have a Mac and you love to play Command and Conquer this game is for you. I've been a fan of strategy games since the first Red Alert and when I made the move to Mac I was happy to see that this game was available. The graphics are very good, but beware that the load times can be a little long.

There are multiples campaigns to play and the game itself is quite long. I do agree with another reviewer who said that bum rushing with a cheap, but massive, force will decidedly win the game for you. I prefer to build up resources and my base and build particular units for a particular job before I attack, and while this in theory is a more efficient fighting style, this game makes it very difficult to win that way. It can be done, but you will get frustrated repeatedly if this is your sole tactic.

However, the pure fun of this game outweighs that aspect for me. You really do have a wide range of troops and vehicles at your disposal and figuring out how to use them and keep them alive is half the battle!

Great game, but by saving just a little bit of money and buying used, you lose the capability to play online because it requires a one time use passcode, that the original owner didn't pass along.

I don't play a lot of games and I am a new Mac user as well. This plays great on my new MacBook Pro, 2.6 GHz, 4 Gb RAM, 512 video RAM, 200 Gb 7200 rpm drive, 17 -inch glossy screen Hi-Res. Smooth video and action. No problems what so ever.

Macbook users, check your video card in system profiler. This game will not function with the GMA 950 integrated card. It's surprising that it's in the fine print in the readme file.

Complete waste of time and money.