MisterCrow

Whilst not the deepest, most hardcore RTS ever made, C&C Generals still sits on my hard drive ever since it was released around 10 years ago. Why? Simple - it's just so much fun, and isn't that the whole point of gaming? When Westwood were bought by EA, and me being a longstanding fan of the C&C series from the days of the very first C&C, I thought the series was doomed. But I was so surprised to see what a great job EA had done with it and brought C&C forward into the 21st century. EA have moved the series forward whilst keeping the classic C&C formula. For example, you still have the classic rock-paper-scissors formula i.e. tanks kill tanks but are vulnerable to rocket men, who in turn are vulnerable to the basic infantry units. But the resource system is now much better. In the past, whoever owned all the tiberium / ore, etc won the game. Strategy would usually involve annihilating your opponents harvesters / ore trucks, etc and starve them of cash. With the introduction of buildings / units that can generate an infinite amount of resources, players can no longer adopt this strategy. This means that more emphasis is placed on combat rather than waiting for your harvester to deliver a load of tiberium so you can build a tank and a man! This may not be to everyone's taste, but I think it works well. Tank rushes are still possible, but the AI opponents can opt for this strategy too (and frequently do). I don't generally enjoy playing RTS games online against players, and so spend most of my time playing C&C against AI opponents with or without mates. I always feel that the difficulty of this game is about right for me - it's challenging without being ridiculously impossible on the easiest difficulty setting (take note CoH2!) . Perhaps I'm just hopeless at RTS games, but "hard" really means hard, and "easy" really means easy in C&C Generals. At time of release, the graphics were impressive but although now clearly dated, they aren't laughable. I expect this game is cheap to pick up now and any RTS fan should pick this game up. Judging by the number of positive reviews on here, as opposed to negative ones suggests that this game is a must.

BF4 isn't remarkably different from its predecessor, but is still a winning formula. There are some truly epic moments to be had in BF4, far more so than in BF3. For example, the moment you realise that the building you are sniping from is about to collapse or when you notice a storm working its way in onto an archipelago before an enormous battleship hits the island. Many criticise these events as being scripted and pointless, but I have to disagree. Whilst not only being epic to watch, they change the play style of the map (or at least partly). The map design is some of the best I've seen in the BF series with maps like Golmud Railway, Paracel Storm and Seige of Shanghai offering to suit a good variety of play styles and encouraging strategic thinking. The Frostbite engine is ever better, with many buildings being fully destructible, but without making you end up playing on a flat map without any features. If you loved BF3, you will love BF4. The classes have been better balanced, with recon now having access to C4 and zeroing of rifles now being a possibility. Assault now feels less confined to infantry only maps whilst Support and Engineers remain vital to any squad. Vehicles feel a little outbalanced. Firing a tank shell in someones face rarely results in an instant kill, attack helicopters feel flimsy and the AH-60's feel overpowered. However, these issues annoy rather than upset the balance of the game. The graphics are awe inspiring with some maps really showing off the remarkable engine (Paracel Storm in particular). Whilst I've not played this game on any other platform other than the 360, I can safely say you will not be disappointed with the visuals. Personally I enjoyed the SP campaign, although the story is weak, the missions are well varied and fun to play. In summary, the game is evolutionary, rather than revolutionary, and feels like BF3.5. But the thing that stops this game getting a higher score, is the frustration of the bugs, crashes, DICE's appalling servers and the fact that you're paying about £100 if you want to include Premium. It is frustrating that such games are released unfinished at this price tag when more stable pre-alphas are available at a quarter of the price (Day Z anyone?), and until this game becomes more stable, I cannot justify rating it higher. If you can tolerate the frustration of all this, buy it, otherwise hold off until EA / DICE fix the game properly.