Swedish PC Gamer article scan + translation
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Okay so I've spent pretty much the whole day to translate this (What don't you do for the C&C community?) and I haven't edited it or anything so it may have some grammar errors in it but it should be readable.
Cheers!
"Yup, you read correctly. After seven years of waiting, in-buyings and closures, digressions in other universes and a lot of question marks EA have finally decided to return to the original Command & Conquer- universe. Forget about terrorists and Chinese, put your dreams about Soviet invasions and Tesla coils aside for a while and instead start to think about ion storms, Orca- hovercraft and bald cult leaders with goatees. The third Tiberium war is about to break out.
The most of us who have hanged around with the series from when the original Command & Conquer (Tiberian Dawn) came out in 1995 will take this news about Command & Conquer 3 with certain hesitation. Surely you yearn yourself to death for the continuation about the saga about GDI and Nod. At the same time, most of the people know that it is no longer the same people working on the series. Under the time that has gone since EA and Westwood started cooperating Westwoods real enthusiasts one by one left EA and are now only a minority of the old team. One of these is however Louis Castle, who founded Westwood together with Brett Sperry, and who will have a great influence over Command & Conquer 3.
The third, that still goes under the working name Tiberium Wars (And thusly not Tiberian Twilight) takes place in the year 2047. After the events in Tiberian Sun and the expansion Firestorm, Nod:s presence has decreased and GDI now have other problems to take care of. But you should never underestimate the brotherhood. In Mars 2047 the heaven shines up over the earth. A gigantic nuclear explosion annihilates the space station Philadelphia, GDI:s largest symbol of might. As like a signal, secret attacks by Nod-troops are carried out all over the earth and GDI find themselves in a jostle position. It’s here where you come in as a commander.
THE WORLD OF TOMORROW
Like in the earlier games everything in Tiberium Wars revolves around the mysterious mineral tiberium and the pros and cons it conveys. Very powerful as a resource but at the same time fatally poisonous and a plague across the earth. The earth year 2047 isn’t a very pleasant place and is divided into three types of zones. The green zones constitutes a third of the planets area, they mostly belongs to GDI and are relatively unharmed by tiberium and the wars ravagins. The yellow zones constitutes half of the planets area, these are the home grounds for Nod and wreaked havoc after decades of war and have a large infection of tiberium. The red zones are the worst. They constitute 20% of the earths area and are totally torn down by warfare, ion storms, and Tiberium glaciers that well up from the underground. A hell on earth, if you so may.
The world Westwood created with Tiberian Dawn grew enormously to Tiberian Sun and has became a very deep and detailed history that never stopped growing, not even since Tiberian Sun if we should believe Mike Verdu, which is the executive producer for Command & Conquer 3. “Even if it has gone years since Tiberian Sun was released we never really left the Tiberium universe. We have been working with the next chapter in the Tiberium series in one or another form under a very long time.” EA also seems to have realized that the strong background history that the players have been in about telling the storyline in the first two games, will be one of the third parts biggest assets. With Tiberium Wars you will be able to bake in the story in the playing in an even bigger way than in Tiberian Sun. “ The story will be everywhere when you play the campaign in Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wats”, Mike explains. “The story will not only be weaved in through the traditional FMV sequences, but also through the way we deliver mission goals, through radio conversations you hear on the battlefield, database information about the world and characters that you can discover, events that take place during the missions, EVA briefings and other cool details that you find while you play the game.
TECHNICALITIES
Just like in the latest row of games from the EA Pacific studio Command & Conquer 3 will be based on the SAGE engine that made its debut in Generals. It has since been updated in both Battle for Middle- Earth and Battle for Middle-Earth II. Now it will be further updated and give Tiberium Wars a really well- polished appearance. Big effort isn’t only laid on to update the engine with graphical effects but also in the forms of better AI and more advanced pathfinding. Mike also talks himself warm about improving the games tempo by decreasing the reaction times so that the game immediately responds to your commands. With the SAGE engine, the physics that constantly been developed since Generals also follows, and will be even cooler, if yet not realistic, in Tiberium Wars.
Something else Mike mentions as something extra cool is the games weather effect system. Ion storms occurred already in Tiberian Dawn, became more serious in Tiberian Sun (Particularly under the difficult mission where the Kodiak gets trapped in one) and will be even bigger and meaner in Tiberium Wars. To that they will be more dynamic. You will be able to control them yourself and command an Ion storm and furthermore there are units and vehicles that will gain property bonuses if they are inside an Ion storm, exactly like electric systems stop working like they should if they’re in one.
Still you do best in wait with the expectations on the games technical areas. The game has been in very long pre- production phase where the story and the design have been prepared strongly and then the development team has been relatively small. Just now after Battle for Middle-Earth II came out it has gotten strongly increased and the real production have begun. The games release is reckoned for release some time during 2007, which means the game’s appearance likely will change a whole lot under the coming year.
NEWS
You can’t build a game on old qualifications, even if EA seems to exploit the Tiberium universe to the full in Command & Conquer 3. The audience of today is fastidious and needs to see a little news and unique details to be the happiest. According to Mike, Command & Conquer 3 will offer some of these. Besides the fact that there of course by the side of new updated versions of the famous units will also be new units, EA is also experimenting on increasing the concept that begun with the IFV units from Red Alert 2. You will be able to assemble different units and infantry to create new constellations with different effects. The developers has not yet elucidated exactly how they will look like, but they are experimenting the possibilities with assembling two vehicles, give a vehicle different properties depending on which infantry you put in it, but also give different units new properties depending on which ones you put in the same formation
Another news is something EA is calling World Domination metagame. Speaking clearly, it seems to be an open campaign mode where you’re in control of a big strategic map over the Earth and make your decisions on it which results in battles on the tactic 3D map. Are you thinking of the War of the Ring mode in Battle for Middle- Earth II? We did as well and therefore we asked Mike about that. “World Domination is the next evolution of the strategy part in games. There will be more tactical possibilities on the worldmap, much bigger consensus between RTS mode and map mode, including all your units and structures, and a lot more variation in the type of RTS encounters that settle ownership of terrotories”. So hopefully it will become a little deeper experience than the War of the Ring mode.
MEMORIES FROM THE PAST
It is already obvious EA puts a lot of gun powder on the games story and exploit as much as possible of the rich background history. Many wonders though about how to follow up the many questions that was awaken in the end of Tiberian Sun and Firestorm. One thing is for certain either way. Kane will be back in one or another form. The last mentioned is most probable because the ending of Firestorm implies that Kane may take another form. It is yet unclear about the FMV sequences and the actor Joe Kucan which acted Kane in the earlier games, returns to come and help also in Tiberium Wars. When it comes to actors, Mike means the game is in a too early state to have anything clear. Thinking of that Tiberian Sun offered James Earl Jones and Michael Biehn and with EA:s abilities to draw in real big names, you could imagine some big names to turn up in Tiberium Wars.
Another thing it has been speculated a lot about is the alien race the Scrin, that made entry in Tiberian Sun. Under the long period when it was only rumoured about a sequel being in the works, concept pictures from Command & Conquer 3 that showed battles between the alien race and the humans turned up. When talking about Tiberium Wars Mike tells us that there will be a third playable side in the game except GDI and Nod. They will have a unique gameplay and one own of the three different campaigns that ties all the games events together, but he didn’t want to answer on our questions if Scrin will be the third playable side in Tiberium Wars.
The music is also something that belongs to the series premier trademarks and can whole and fully ascribe to the Westwood composer Frank Klepacki which created a whole new style. The problem for EA is that Frank is closest cooperating with Petroglyph and with certain probability will not contribute to Command & Conquer 3. Bill Brown jumped in and made the music in C&C Generals, which worked then when it was in another universe. But with Tiberium Wars the fans will want the music style from the old games. Mike meets these thoughts rather subtly. “The original Command & Conquer had a very distinct personality when it comes to music. We are working to update the sound so that it is modern and cool – but will still be faithful to the spirit that you could hear in the first games.”
MANAGING THE HERITAGE
“He who commands the past, conquers the future” – a mantra we learned from Kane in Red Alert. Command & Conquer 3 has just a very strong story to build on and many expectations on itself. But also a lot of question marks. The heritage consists not only in Command & Conquer that so many remembers as one of the best games ever, but also in Tiberian Sun, that got really delayed and even if it became a selling success, not really lived up to the hype and thusly at a later time got a whole lot of negative criticism. Starcraft had been released the previous year and stunned the RTS world of sheer astonishment and when other games started to take the step into the 3D world, Tiberian Sun was betting on voxel graphics, and the result was a game that in certain ways was before and in other ways was after its time.s
Before Tiberium Wars it’s obvious that many fans will contemplate with certain scepticism. As said not a lot of the original gang is left on EA Pacific and even if Louis Castle is in on the production he often has a smaller role behind people like Brett Sperry, Erik Yeo, Joe Bostik and Joe Kucan. With that not said that the game not will be good. EA Pacific has made fully capable games since Red Alert 2 and has proven with Battle for Middle-Earth that they can manage strong licenses in a satisfying way. But thinking of Tiberian Suns unbelievable hype and delay you will do best in keeping the expectations down for Tiberium Wars to not go in the same trap as in Tiberian Sun. The competition is also entirely different than under Westwood’s early years, when it principally only were Blizzard and Westwood that was fighting about the speculators.
What you can is that the developers definitely has realized which an unbelievable backstory they have in their hands and made sure to build it out properly. The future conception of the world in which the games takes place is dark and full of atmosphere and gives a strong spice to the game. Now it’s only for EA to succeed to get the technicalities and game-joy to merge and hopefully offer a taste that’s both familiar and refreshingly new. In about a one years time we should have the answer, but count on that we will peek closer on Tiberium Wars until then."
Picture text on page 3 (Magazine page 46):
"HARVESTING TIME
In the most RTS games we notice today that the developers pull themselves away from resource gathering to instead entirely focus on tactics. In Tiberium Wars the whole game is about the resource and therefore the resource gathering will still be there. To make the whole thing interesting the three different sides gather the crystals in different ways. GDI will gather it like before with the harvesters that drive out, collect and leave it at a refinery. Nod and the third side have other ways, yet unknown, ways to collect the crystals."
The picture text on page 5 (Magazine page 4is nothing about the game, just how Westwood was created and stuff like that.
-T7z
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