As the day grew short the four soldiers stood proud over a recently defeated NOD base, smouldering, banging and hissing submerged the ears as fire rained around them from the burning buildings of the base. They had stood one of the greatest battles of all time, a battle which saw 100foot high mechs poised against each other and lone soldiers desperately trying to survive as a previously bright sunny day turned dark through the thick fog of war. The success in achievement stood high for the four men, they had survived through the most bloody battle with Kane’s forces yet, one that would be remembered for all time. The sense of victory clouded the air as the rain started the break through the deep dark sky of smoke and pat upon their foreheads as they looked on. They knew they would become captains and generals for this, yet they also knew they would be back.

Having been one of those many out there longing to see the day when Tiberium Sun loaded up on my computer, I had not unusually high hopes for Westwoods sequel to the original genre busting C&C. Also being one of the many who got annoyed when people call it C&C3, which it is not. TS is in-fact the sequel to C&C and not Red Alert which was the prologue to C&C, follow? Still it’s here now and as a shiny copy arrived through my door, visions of massive explosions in high quality landscapes whisked through my mind. The recent months have seen new screen shots of TS that actually depict it to have gotten worse then was shown in the shots from about a year ago, “proofs in the pudding”, as they say. So I hurriedly ripped the box open with my bare hands and flung the GDI CD in first before quickly installing it to my hard disk.

The first thing you notice about TS is one of it’s always most important features, the movies. They tell the story as the game progresses and like it’s predecessors, TS has gone all out on producing the sequences. However it doesn’t seem to have always paid off, the acting is cheesy at best with James Earl Jones providing the only real talent. The thing about C&C and Red Alert’s movies were that they actually showed the base you were attacking being defeated in pretty similar detail to how it was in the game, which adds depth. In TS you just see the acting and with it being so poor, they might as well not bothered with it at all. Still it’s there and it tells you the story. Following that you see the video briefing screen called EVA, which tells you possible routs you can take for your next mission (often more than one choice). It would be perfect if it weren’t for the fact that it doesn’t fill the screen as the whole game changes for the resolution you use. This means all the screens before the game look tiny in anything from 800*600 and up, which is what we all will be using right? Makes mission briefings seem a little poor.

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