Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight

  Yes, the brilliant and calculating mind of the NOD leader is gone, although still with the same actor skills, the writers has chosen to dumb him down, where he shows that he has gone from a calculating cool guy into a wreck with a low fuse.

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STORY -[ 1 / 50 ]- Like rape to the rest of the series.
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The story itself is stupid. Not only is this bad, considering the fact that the story in the Tiberium series was like the foundation of the whole game. The story was intriguing back then, it was interesting as well as cool to see Kane dominate with his tactical calculating genius. Although more subtle in his evil intentions, he still was and is evil. He wanted to rule the world. Spread the tiberium. But not in this one, here he want to get rid of the very tiberium he once wanted to spread, in interviews they say that there's a reason for this, but it is never explained anyway. There is a lot of new questions that come up rather than answers. There's a lot of stupid solutions to problems that could have been easily solved, for example.

The whole purpose of the game is to do something that Kane already had the power to do in the third game. He had ultimate control over the alien teleportation node as well as a group of brilliant scientific minds and the key to alien knowledge beyond the level of technology of their own.

However, with all this, their technological advancements is still on the same level as GDI. How the hell did this happen? Nobody knows. Let's go to the next stupid part of this game. You are introduced to.. yourself, you are a decorated GDI soldier. Huzzah.

You are a decorated soldier, still with no experience in the field of combat or anything. Does that mean that he has been a man with a desk job for god knows how long and they trust you as if you had been commanding them for years? Insane and retarded.

This is the first of many errors seen in the new story. For one, you can't begin from the rank of a private if you are already supposed to be a decorated marine. You are then doing some basic missions to learn how to play the game, since this game is no longer about tactics, but now resembles more of a endurance test. There's no economy in there. There's no base building. The idiotic thing is, the creator thought that no base building was a good thing. HOW? The Tiberium series was fun simply because you could dominate the field, crush the enemies as you pleased. You had the power to play any tactic you wanted. You had no need to use this new retarded class system. Because in the old games, you could go Defense and support. Defense and Offense, Offense and support. You had the freedom to play however you wished, without any specific rules limiting your replay value.

Anyway, out of the blue, you get the option to choose a side. The story does not build up to anything. They just say choose. You are a highly decorated GDI soldier, loyal to the GDI side. Yet you get the option to betray GDI without any story to back up why you even would think about betraying your side.

Now, Let's say you would choose NOD. There's still no explination, just the comment. "I see you wanted some answers". That's it, nothing more about that. You then crush the temporary leader, get a needle in your arm and suddenly you look like Kane. There's no buildup here either. You suddenly look like Kane. While looking like Kane, you invade the alien teleporation node guarded by GDI troops, although it would be more reasonable that the place would be guarded by rebellious NOD forces. Then you get shot, die like a pawn and Kane flees through the portal. And then GDI lives happily ever after, WHAT THE **** Where is the epic conclusion to Kanes brilliant masterful plan? Playing the NOD campaign takes two hours to beat, simply because the last level was hard and took me a half an hour. If you rush through the maps instead of trying to make everything go in slow motion, you'll beat it in less than an hour.

Oh well, let's say we give the game another chance and go with the GDI campaign. Here you have no purpose. Just obliterate NOD forces, simply because all NOD forces are evil without any reason to be evil. But who cares? The shades of good and evil has been cut down to two definite sides. One black, one white. There is no longer shades of gray in the story. Anyway, after massacring some defenseless NOD troops, your wife dies. But who cares? Anyone who played GDI campaign by that time wanted to have the ability to shoot her yourself. GDI finally realize the loss of your commanders children has made her unfit for combat and locks her up in prison. You are ordered by her, without the option to follow the base's orders, you betray the rest of GDI, again without any reason to do so. You also get thrown into jail, then you break out again, kill some GDI troops, get to the alien teleportation node, get killed like a pawn, watch as your commander get killed, that the teleport is opened and kane walking through it.

Then you still get the same **** ending. Happily ever after for GDI, NOD forces are gone for good. It takes a little over an hour to beat the GDI campaign. It is supricingly easier than the NOD campaign, even though it seems like you the creators worked more with making the GDI campaign make sense than the NOD campaign.

The story seems halfassed, as if it was thrown together to squeeze out money out of dedicated fans before shutting down the series without no effort put into it whatsoever.


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Design -[ 15 / 50 ]- Disapointing.
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The design choices has been bugging me quite a lot as well. The unique differences of GDI and NOD has blended together. There's a few units that's cool, by few, i mean less than seven units. The other units was butchered and now seems like they are mocking their previous versions. A good example is the scorpion tank. The scorpion tank was in the earlier version a nickname to a good tank with quite the nice sting to it's cannon. Now they literally turned the tank into a scorpion. It is capable of digging underground without any means of doing so. It's not just ugly, it's physically impossible to dig underground having a frigging tower on its back. Engineers look kind of strange. NOD has gone for a frigging alien look, while GDI has gone for a rocket pack look. There's no real explination as to why they should have these powers as engineers should be engineers, not commandos without abilities.

The walkers have bothered me, not GDI, but NOD. The fact that they have walkers which looks like they adapted their already working walkers into a functioning mobile base. That seems reasonable to GDI.

But NOD? No, their "cultural" designs so to speak has had a completely different look in all other games. You do not change a whole culture in a few years. It is not only impossible, it's stupid. The only way to change a culture somewhat is to rule over it. GDI does not rule over NOD.

The NOD avatar in the previous version was far superior to this one. Some people might not like the design, but to me, it was more of a functional killing machine rather than eye candy. You could use them for scouting, stealth, hit and run strategies. A lot of fun stuff. But now? They are just walking tanks, with four cannons.

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Music -[ 35 / 50 ]- Very Good.
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One of the few acceptable parts about Tiberian Twilight is the music. A large amount is very repetitive, but not bad. I don't have much more to say about this one.

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Gameplay -[ 5 / 50 ]- Unacceptable.
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The tactical part of this game is gone. There is no economy, No base building, no big armies under your control. You are a petty officer that never gains rank. It is not satisfying in any way. You can no longer dominate as you could do before.

Well, troops, simple. Pick the best unit and spam it. When you reach the maximum limit of units, send them out and crush the enemy base again, and again, and again and again and again.. a never ending cycle that pisses you off more than it entertains you.

The class system was a bad move. The previous game had specific factions, with similar units. This enabled the player to choose how to play and you could still enjoy the game longer and gave the game a better replay value as the little difference between factions, the little units that was different, enabled new and fun tactics to beat your opponent.

You could but did not have to play with someone else to have fun. Now you no longer have a choice. Get a large group of people to play with you or it isn't worth playing. The limitations of the class system is clearly visible, as sometimes you want to combine the classes. Sometimes you want to go support AND defense but are unable to do so due to the class system.

Tiberium, the core of the story has now been narrowed down into a crystal that blows up and one that gives you tech points. Tech points that would have been better if we had been given a economy system.

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Movies -[ 10 / 50 ]- Okay, yet disapointing.
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The movies are another good example on how you ruined two sides by blending them together. Nod's red style building and architecture is gone, now replaced by a single boring ship.

GDI suffers the same fate, the military blue steel building background is gone and replaced by the very same background as NOD. Hell, the places are so similar that they could secretly be having their bases on the same ship.

The otherwise deep and interesting speeches by Kane has been replaced by quick and boring orders, they are not explained anywhere and again, Kane's calculating genius is gone. It's like the numerous wounds and scars of war has given him brain damage and made him stupid. Or well, normal. But Kane is not supposed to be frigging normal. The writers thought the same and made it sound like Kane had lived for a thousand years. Since it is revealed in an expansion pack a few years back. The reason Kane survives everything GDI throws at him is simply because when he dies, another clone pops out.

However if he has lived for thousands of years, then he would technically have had the cloning technology a thousand years ago. This only makes us ask more questions. For example, why doesn't the NOD have a technological supremacy when it comes to genetics? After all, Kane did have that techonolgy a thousand years ago, did he not?

Let's say he didn't have that back then, how did he live then?

Back to GDI, The commander of GDI is presented as angry lady with questionable mental health, which is confirmed later on that yes, she is crazy, by killing you. Until that point, the woman seemed angry and effective. But when you realize that the woman is and was crazy, it puts all her other actions into perspective.

The wife was added to add drama, but more or less made it feel less realistic than the game before it. Some scenes were incredibly cheesy and some just made my slap my hand in my face when you ignore plot points that had already been considered important in the previous game. There was even a build up to a conclusion that never happened since you removed the Scrin.

The Scrin could easily have been adapted into the story if you had just worked with the story a little more. They fled after underestimating the earths defense and then they could've returned with a reasonable big force. They even had answers to the mystery of Kane that you chose not to reveal.

The mutants could also have been given a bigger role, using ideas and designs from the previous games, you could've expanded the tiberium world in a positive way. Instead you choose to narrow the game AND its replay value by having two sides and then splitting each up in three classes.

The supposed epic conclusion to this game was like being insulted, followed by you giving me the finger and being kicked in the groin.

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Special Effects -[ 50 / 50 ]- Excellent.
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The only thing I'm giving you a maximum score for.

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Insane Censorship -[ 5 / 50 ]- Annoying.
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The insane censorship was extremely annoying. I'm not sure if you were preparing for a shit storm but the moment you revealed the fact that there was no base building, we all waited for you to over compensate with the story. But nope. The story was utter crap.

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Forced Online Playing -[ 5 / 50 ]- Annoying.
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You could no longer connect a LAN back home and play for as long as you wished. If you had internet troubles, you wouldn't be able to play anymore.

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Final Score -[ 10 / 50 ]- Not worth the money spent on it.
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The game took 3-4 hours to beat The gameplay was terrible, the level system, although interesting, didn't work with the C&C series. You hindered cheating which ironically lowers the replay value. Being able to dominate a game is among the most entertaining experiences you can have in a game.

You changed an already winning concept into a game that focused on king of the hill style of gameplay. I know why the guys at marketing choose to market it as C&C 4, by taking advantage of your fans, you could at least get a reasonable profit from this shit storm. Had they presented this as a new game with lower price, maybe some people would consider this a good game, I don't know? Still, It wouldn't have been popular. But people wouldn't have so many reasons for hating it either.

But as a sequel to tiberium wars? It's an insult. If you're a C&C fan, do not buy this game. The third game is a better ending.