Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour

Review - The original Generals improved and expanded in every way?

Here's a game for Dubya and Tony. For in this game they will be able to find naughty people who not only possess WMDs but will also use them with all the abandon of a government spin doctor applying the euphemisms. Better yet these nasty folks are a terrorist organisation who want nothing more then to see the end of freedom and civilisation. Okay, they may not be religious fanatics but otherwise they fulfil all the criteria of the enemy number one. So strap on your MOABs and let's get down to the business of ridding the world of evil.

Of course the makers of Command and Conquer: Zero Hour aren't going to limit the killing to the kind delivered in a Texas/Sedgefield fashion. No, the GLA and China make a return alongside the USA in a fifteen mission single player campaign that makes up just a portion of this massive expansion to the most enjoyable RTS of recent years. And seeing as this campaign is considerably better than the somewhat limp affair that came with the original we'll look at it first. You can play the sides in any order, but the story will make much more sense if you start off with the Yanks before progressing to the GLA and China. Each side gets five missions of increasing difficulty. In fact, the difficulty levels have been upped considerably this time round, a response to some players' disappointment at the lack of ability the computer displayed the first time round. Unfortunately while playing through these missions I thought my PC had been taken over by the ghost of Commodore programmers past; so rampant was the cheating. Make no mistakes here, the computer is pumped with steroids - it can take a massive beating and still survive long enough for a technical to wipe out a couple of Paladins on the hard setting. However I saw this in a positive light. It makes the game a much more interactive experience: I haven't shouted at a screen so much and so vehemently since McAllister was lumbering around the field during France 98. There's a good story in here as well involving all sorts of twists and turns and a nice presentation which harks back to the FMVs that brought the older C&C games to such vivid life. On top of this there's a truly gratifying array of toys to play with, from massive naval bombardments and carrier strikes in a USA mission to the GLA capturing all and sundry to further their own intentions. There's a nice pace as well, with the stealthier missions being followed by a 21st version of the opening day of the Somme. None of the missions bored me, and the difficulty level, while insane, let you get just far enough to want to take another crack at the level, even if it was your fifteenth attempt.

The campaign would have been enough to charge the twenty quid price EA is asking for. But in their generosity EALA have also seen fit to provide a totally new game mode, one which should take even longer to complete than the campaign. This is the Generals mode wherein you have to take each of the nine generals on offer and defeat the rest in a versus mode akin to Mortal Kombat, although the developers haven't seen fit to include gory killing moves. A pity. This is where you learn to make best advantage of the various strengths that each of these generals have, and how to exploit their weaknesses as well. For example, General Granger, the US Air Force general, gets no wee tanks or heavy armour but a plethora of airborne death-dealing goodies. The Super-Raptors carry six missiles and do more damage straight out the box, while there's a B2 Stealth bomber with a truly devastating MOAB bomb that will wipe out anything in its targeting circle. However, if you find yourself up against the Chinese General Shin Fai then your in trouble, for all his troops come out as veterans carrying mini-guns which will knock your planes out of the sky quicker than Rio Ferdinand getting his plane ticket confiscated. Dr. Thrax will devastate all these troops though as his toxin capabilities are phenomenal. And the Chinese general Tsing Chi Tao is just plain fun as his MiGs can be upgraded to drop tactical nukes. In all there's a heck of a lot of gameplay in this mode, with each consecutive battle presenting a different challenge from the last. If you manage to defeat every general then there's a secret super-badass general to take on. It's also good practice for the multiplayer where you get to take each general you've defeated and use them online. Or if like me you prefer LAN battles with people you know you can get straight into the action. With the nine new generals plus the three original vanilla armies there's plenty of variety to be had in multiplayer. When combined with a very healthy selection of new maps we once again can see that Zero Hour is a very bountiful expansion pack.