Command and Conquer 3

C&C 3 came out today for the PC and my god...does it look sweet or what? I myself am a huge RTS(real time strategy) game fan and have been a fan of the C&C series since the very first game. There hasn't been a C&C game released since 2005 (C&C Generals) for the PC which I didn't get a chance to play because, well, I don't have a gaming quality PC. Luckily for me, C&C 3 is coming out for the 360 within a couple of months (I'm fairly sure it's a couple of months anyway).

What is so exciting about this iteration of the C&C series is that it marks a return to the original storyline of Command and Conquer, as opposed to the alternate WWII history of the C&C: Red Alert series or the real world battles of C&C: Generals. In the future, a strange mineral/plant called Tiberium has been found on earth and it's been discovered that this substance can be used as a very effecient fuel source, unfortunately it is also a very aggressive plant and it is highly poisonous to humans. In this Tiberium filled future, two world powers struggle for dominance not only over each other, but over the world's Tiberium supply. The Global Defense Initiative, or GDI, originally started as a global defense force to work toward the elimination of terrorism and evil throughout the world while their arch-enemy, the Brotherhood of NOD, led by a mysterious man known only as Kane, seeks to rule the world and destroy the GDI by any means necessary. But as the story goes in C&C 3, times have changed and the GDI has gradually developed into a facist, worldwide government while NOD has almost seen a role reversal as the main opponents to the GDI's new world order. C&C 3 also introduces a new race of alien characters, the Scrin, that has some connection to the Tiberium which now covers most of earth.

C&C 3 also makes use of the FMV (full motion video) cut scenes that the series has become famous for and celebrities such as Billy Dee Williams, Josh Holloway(Sawyer from "Lost"), and Michael Ironside will all play characters in C&C 3. Another interesting fact about the cast of C&C 3 is that the man who played Kane in the original C&C, Joseph D. Duncan, will be reprising his role of the leader of the Brotherhood in this game.

I'm such a huge fan of the RTS genre and especially of C&C that I am more excited for C&C 3's 360 release than practically anything else right now. Even though RTS games on home console systems have historically been pretty terrible, recent games, such as Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth 2, have proven that with a little ingenuity, even a genre originally designed for only PC games have a place on home console systems. The reason behind console gaming never being a proper home for RTS games is all in the way the games are played on the PC and the 360. A point and click interface with a mouse and keyboard have traditionally been the only way RTS games were designed and being that most home consoles never had proper mouse perhipherals released for them, RTS gaming was almost non-existent on home consoles. But now that consoles have the power of gaming quality PC's and now that game developers have spent a considerable amount of time on the control scheme for console based RTS games, the genre is and will be making a huge impact on the console market.