Richard Ingram checks out Command & Conquer's first foray into 3D.

As gaming franchises go the Command & Conquer (C&C) series is easily one of the most celebrated examples in the business. So it's only natural that there's a frenzy of activity when a follow up is announced, let alone released. However, labelling Command & Conquer Generals as a mere sequel would be doing it a grave injustice, think 'overhaul' and you'd be much closer to the mark.

Yes indeed, Generals heralds a sudden, but welcome, directional change for the series in numerous ways. Firstly, rather than continuing the somewhat musty formula of a single dictator hell-bent on taking over the peace-loving world, the developers EA Pacific have instead retreated to more familiar territory by focusing Generals on the more realistic aspects of global warfare, which in this case would be the increasing threat from organised terrorism.

An association of freedom fighters and terrorists known collectively as the Global Liberation Army (GLA) have begun crossing into Western China to gain further public support for an independent state in this area of centralised Asia. The main players in the Security Council have been contributing in the deployment of peacekeeping troops in the region but with one notable absentee, the United States. They remain somewhat bitter about the Council's refusal to support their military stance on counter terrorism in the Middle East and don't regard the potentially volatile situation in China as their problem. However, the Americans are not aware that China isn't the only nation the terrorists have in their sights.

The GLA have blocked any moves by the Security Council to commence any kind of negotiations, which makes their job of preventing any such conflict all the more toilsome. No-one in the Council chambers or indeed the media are quite sure how the faction is currently being funded and more worryingly who their leader is.

In previous C&C games the story was driven by the movie-like cutscenes, but in Generals the new in-game 'SAGE' engine has taken the lead role. The engine does an impressive job in telling the story behind every mission, but my only gripe with this is that the cutscenes do tend to last longer than they really should do. Even the Max Payne 'bullet-time' feature has been employed to show off large explosions and so on, although after a while this feature can get mildly irritating.

There are 24 missions in total, which make up the Chinese, American and GLA campaigns. These are all nicely varied, which makes a welcome change from the tried and tested 'destroy the enemy stronghold' objective that seemed to apply to most of the missions in the previous incarnations. Those classes of missions are still here in abundance, but in Generals they are at least grouped with other, more original offerings such as trashing and pillaging a village in search of enough cash to maintain the upkeep of your army, or guarding the withdrawal of US forces. In terms of the difficulty of the mission they are rather akin to a series of peaks and troughs. You'll get a decidedly easy mission which will take no time at all to complete and then, straight after you'll get something which will frustratingly require you to retry several times.

When it comes to acquiring funds for each side there are several resource depots scattered around the maps, however the way each of them collect the resources is done differently to really emphasise the gulf in finances. The Chinese for instance use supply trucks to transport the resource crates and the GLA employ workers, but the Americans flex their financial and military muscles by using Chinook helicopters to air-lift the crates into their Supply Centre. Eventually these resource depots will run dry, but they are not the only means of gaining funds. The Americans can once again demonstrate their sheer strength by calling in airdrops; the Chinese can use trained hackers to obtain extra funds from their adversaries while the GLA have to resort to stealing money from the bodies of their enemies.

The units which make up the three sides are perfectly balanced, each possessing their own obvious advantages and disadvantages. Naturally, the Americans have the most potent units at their disposal, but at the same time tend to be the most expensive so building an extensive army can, at times be financially crippling. It's in the skies where the Americans can feel a real advantage with their strong Stealth Fighter and Comanche helicopter units, but with their tanks having the ability to shoot down enemy missiles and snipers who can shoot from afar and remain undetected at all times means they are not too shabby on the ground either.

The Chinese tend to look at outnumbering and overpowering the opposition rather than employing any kind of stealth tactics. They possess the weaponry which can absolutely obliterate the opposition; it's really all about making as much mess whilst doing so with these chaps. China may not have much in the way of an Air Force, but they own the largest collection of armoured ground units with no less than five different types of tanks. My personal favourite of those units is the Dragon Tank, which creates a huge wall of fire that can take out a large group of military personnel in seconds. The Chinese are also very evidently pro-nuclear, indeed if it's not their reactors providing the power for the buildings then it's their huge missile launchers and depleted uranium tipped shells which can cause utter devastation. Indeed the vast majority of the Chinese weaponry does tend to make a mess of the surrounding landscape as well as the intended target, meaning you will lose quite a few of your personnel units in these situations so it's best to keep them at a safe distance.

The GLA terrorists on the other hand will use anything if they think it'll be of some use to them, but while they are nowhere near as advanced as both China and the United States they can still cause the same level of devastation, but using different means and levels of attack. Whether it's the terrorist with a bomb strapped to himself, the converted tractors which can discharge a deadly toxin or the truck packed full of explosives the GLA make good use of small scale explosives and toxic weaponry. The arms dealer, which is the GLA equivalent of the war factory, is where the terrorist group acquire their armoured ground units like the Scorpion tank, Rocket Buggy and Scud Launcher. Certain units like the Marauder for instance can also arm itself with extra weapons from destroyed enemy vehicles, which is a great addition to give the GLA a helping hand in readdressing the balance of military power.

As you progress through the game and win more battles you constantly gain experience. When you've acquired a certain amount you, as a general, are promoted to the next ranking level. Every new ranking opens up new abilities for your side. So for example as you progress through the American ranks you will eventually have authority to employ special attacks such as napalm assaults or devastating daisy cutter air strikes. The trick with these ranking abilities is to obviously pick the correct moment to use them because they could just swing a potentially tricky mission your way.

On the whole the enemy AI is very impressive; especially on the advanced levels of play. You have to be extremely vigilant during the small scale attacks because the AI may just be about to execute something much larger elsewhere on the map meaning you are caught off guard. The only AI problems I encountered were with my own units. There is nothing more irritating than watching your military personnel units stand still; completely unaware of the fact that they are being constantly pelted with tank shells from a mere few metres away. You would have thought at least in this day and age your units would be able to recognise that it might be a good idea to return fire rather than waiting for my blessing. Even when your base is in the process of being burnt to the ground the only units that ever seem to respond are your Construction Dozers who help to repair the building, your other units decide to warm their hands on it instead.

Aside from these niggling gameplay problems you really can't fault the way Generals looks, quite clearly the best looking RTS to date. Compare it with Age of Mythology, which is another game that recently took the plunge into the 3D perspective and Generals clearly wins hands down. From the terrain to the buildings and the armoured units they all look equally as impressive from afar as they do close up. But the best aspect of the new engine has to be the way the surrounding environment reacts to certain occurrences. For instance the trees which topple over in the event of a nuclear blast, the crowds of panic-stricken civilians who scatter after an explosion or a destroyed dam which creates large floods which decimate whole towns and villages in their path.

However, these environmental elements aren't just there for eye candy as you can easily use certain elements to your tactical advantage. One example, which certainly worked for me was when I toppled over a row of columns so they land on top of an advancing tank platoon and crushing them in the process, even the angle in which you topple the first column has to be correct for the last one to fall in exactly the right place, thus indicating the in-game physics are nothing short of first rate.

However all these graphical enhancements have rather taken their toll on the recommended system specification because unless you are the proud owner of a 1.8Ghz Pentium 4 or Athlon equivalent with 256mb or more RAM and a GeForce 3 graphics card you are simply not going to get a souped up Generals to run anything like a thoroughly greased whippet. Of course it may be the case that the mere thought of the thrust your PC is going to require to run Generals to its full capabilities may just be twisting of the arm you need to shell out for a new system. However, in terms of benchmarks take note that I reviewed Generals on a 1.1 GHz AMD Athlon based system, with a 64mb GeForce 2 MX graphics card and 256mb of RAM and I had to make significant alterations to the graphics details to get the game running at an acceptable pace, which is a shame when you remember in the past the Command & Conquer series had always been a particular favourite for players with less than average system specifications.

So despite the obvious hardware strains and minute gameplay flaws there is no question that Command & Conquer Generals is an instant contender for the strategy title of the year purely because it's utterly addictive, totally engrossing and at the same time wonderfully enjoyable. Full marks go to EA Pacific for pushing the series forward and in turn providing Command & Conquer fans with the kind of game they've been waiting years for.