Historically speaking, real-time strategy games simply don't translate well on a console. Though faced with the same limitations, namely the lack of a mouse and the granularity of control it provides, Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars seems to have finally broken the mold. The game still has a few obvious issues such as an admittedly steep learning curve and the fact that heavy action on-screen causes the framerate to take a nosedive. Still, after a half a dozen hours of play it seems that the game is getting a lot of things right – and is succeeding where other real-time games before it have failed.
The hardest thing to get used to about C&C 3 on the 360 is the control scheme, but it does become somewhat intuitive after a few hours of play. The left stick pans the camera while the right stick rotates and zooms, and clicking the right stick brings the camera back to its default rotation and elevation. The A button is set up as most of your bread and butter functions such as selecting a single or multiple units.
Once units are selected the cursor becomes context sensitive, and when over an attackable unit or object the crosshair changes shape and turns red to signify that an attack is possible. The cursor also changes shape when you are selecting units or structures, whether or not your selected units can garrison the structure (in the case of infantry), and other actions. If you double-press the A button on open terrain your units will perform an attack-move; moving to the selected point but attacking any enemies en route.
The triggers serve as modifier keys, with the left trigger allowing you to select all offensive units on the screen when you hold it and press A. Holding the right trigger allows you to access both a context-sensitive menu of your currently selected unit's abilities (left and right on the directional pad) as well as the tab menu (up and down on the directional pad) which allows you to use your current super powers, access and use your build queues to produce units without having to have the camera at your base, and set up groups. Once set up, groups can be cycled through using left and right on the d-pad.
The gameplay itself remains largely unchanged from the PC version and features the GDI and NOD campaigns as they fight each other for dominance as well as against the arrival of an alien threat that seems more powerful than the two factions combined. The Earth has become practically infested with Tiberium which is growing at an alarming rate, making a large portion of the planet inhospitable to human life.
The action in the console version of Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars is just as tactical and fast-paced as on the PC. Base building is a bit clumsy due to the nature of using control sticks to rotate and place your buildings, but controlling your units in combat actually seems a bit more fluid at the same time. By using the sticks it is incredibly easy to position the camera exactly where you want. The only big frustration is that while you can cycle through groups using the directional pad there’s no indication as to which group is actually selected; this is an issue if you have two groups with the same portrait.
The graphics so far have been a mixed bag. The gameplay does tend to slow down a great deal if many units are exchanging fire at once. Additionally a depth of field effect is used to blur out the landscape and units that your camera isn't directly pointing at, and while it works well from a cinematic standpoint – from a gameplay standpoint it does nothing but blur out vital details.
There are a few aspects of C&C 3 that haven't been fully dug into such as the Xbox Live multiplayer or the ability to set up single-player skirmishes against up to three AI combatants. Based on the first several hours of game time, the title seems to be a fairly decent attempt at getting a real-time strategy title to work on a console platform but at the same time the awkward control scheme and sometimes sluggish performance are definite sticking points. Look for more information on the Xbox 360 version of Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars in a full review coming up in a few days.
