I'm gonna tell you why this game is the better console RTS game instead of that inferior one called Halo Wars.
The game:
Command and Conquer 3: Kane’s Wrath is an expansion game to Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars. Unlike other expansions, Kane’s Wrath is its own standalone game and does not require Tiberium Wars to play. Kane’s Wrath focuses on The Brotherhood of Nod and Kane himself and it adds much more content to the game as well. This review will focus on the console version of the game.
The story:
The story of Kane’s Wrath is sort of a prequel to Tiberium Wars but it also takes place during the events of that game and a little while after too. To some people, this may be confusing but the game does its job of giving you information about what time period you’re in as you progress. The story begins with a crippled Brotherhood of Nod and Kane who is presumed dead at this point. The player’s character, known as LEGION, is an artificial intelligence created by Kane himself to help regain power and influence he had on the Brotherhood of Nod sub-factions and get revenge on GDI. You’ll mainly be doing this the entire singleplayer campaign with some other missions involving stealing technology and finding The Tacitus, an alien AI that Kane believes is the key to the future of human evolution.
There’s a lot of missions in this story that require you to capture a special building and defend it until a timer runs out which was something I grew to hate a lot. Tiberium Wars had its fair share of these types of missions but they weren’t as monotonous and annoying like the ones in Kane’s Wrath. Like Tiberium Wars, there’s also a couple missions where you control units only and these can be rather difficult, since some of them are stealth missions where your guys will be killed almost instantly by the enemy if you’re not careful. The length of Kane’s Wrath’s storymode consists of around 14 missions which is pretty decent for an expansion. The missions that didn’t annoy me were the ones I had the most fun on, especially the missions when you get to be the Black Hand because their flamethrower weapons literally melt everything on the battlefield.
Kane’s Wrath continues the Command and Conquer tradition of using live-action cinematics in between missions using the game’s main characters. This time around since the game is focused on Nod, there isn’t as many actors used. There’s only 3 major characters including Kane that you will see in these cinematics. The characters are Alexa Kovacs, an advisor to Kane and will brief you on your missions whose sanity continues to dwindle as the game goes on. The other is Brother Marcion who is the leader of The Black Hand and declared himself leader of the Brotherhood of Nod before you capture him and Kane reveals himself. While Tiberium Wars had a more Hollywood-esque cast such as Michael Ironside and Billy Dee Williams, Kane’s Wrath was rather limited and I guess this makes sense since its an expansion. At least I know Carl Lumbly is (He’s Brother Marcion) as he does voice acting for other games and TV shows.
The singleplayer had its moments but there were some moments that were easily predictable, like how Alexa turns on you and Kane when she thinks you, LEGION, are the real enemy instead of the Scrin. Also the cyborg-looking headpiece that Kane wears looks insanely fake and you can tell big time. Other than that slight screw-up, Joseph Kucan, the actor who portrays Kane does another fantastic job at his role. The man was literally born to be this role as the charismatic and intelligent leader known as Kane.
The gameplay:
Both versions of Command and Conquer 3 do surprisingly rather well for a console RTS as they have the PC version’s elements as well as their own unique additions as well. I’ll let you know what they are and how they perform below.
- The game’s controls like base building and unit training is built around this thing called the Radial Interface made exclusively for the console version. Everything from making buildings, training units, repairing buildings, and selling buildings is in this Interface and it works extremely well in Kane’s Wrath. The best thing about the Radial Interface is that you can use it from anywhere on the battlefield. One of the biggest problems with console RTS games is that you can't quickly jump from one area of the map to another and instinctively pump out infantry, vehicles and buildings and react to the evolving battlefield. Kane's Wrath avoids the problem because, if, for example you're watching a close skirmish between forces in the far corner of a map and you need to quickly pump out some reinforcements all you have to do is bring up the radial interface and make the order from there. There's no need to move the camera all the way back to your barracks, select it and then make the order. If you need to repair/sell/power down a structure, all you need to do is click their respective icon in the Interface and the cursor will change into that icon and you can select which ever needs it from there. I absolutely loved this Interface and out of any console RTS I’ve played, this game does a system like this justice and if there are to be more console RTSs, they should be like this.
The Radial Interface looks like this. Its great because it doesn't take up the entire screen and you can still see stuff around it.
While using the Radial Interface, pressing LT will provide more information about the units/buildings/powers you hover over.
- While Tiberium Wars had the 3 main factions to play, Nod, GDI, and Scrin, Kane’s Wrath offers 6 new sub-factions for each main faction to select and play. GDI has the Steel Talons who prefer using heavy-hitting mechs instead of tanks. ZOCOM specializes in sonic-emitter weapons and anti-Tiberium armor. Nod has The Black Hand who specializes in flamethrower weapons and other anti-infantry technology at the cost of stealth and aircraft. The Marked of Kane use mechanized infantry instead of the standard Nod Militants and specializes in energy weapons. Scrin has Traveler-59 who prefers speed over firepower and specializes in mind-control abilities. Reaper-17 specializes in powerful units that are fragile and other powerful abilities that help their units in combat. All of these sub-factions have their own playstyle with them, offer their own unique units/upgrades/powers and surprisingly they play different than the main factions. Notable favorites of mine were the Marked of Kane and ZOCOM. GDI, Nod, and Scrin are still playable and they get some love too as they get new units/upgrades/powers as well.
All the factions and their respective logos. Best picture I could find of all them together:
- Tiberium is the resource in this game and there’s multiple Tiberium fields scattered throughout each map. There’s two types of Tiberium, Green and Blue. Green is the standard color and Blue is rarer and gives you double the resources. When a Tiberium field is depleted, it will slowly regrow over time and some Tiberium fields won’t grow back at all. Luckily if you’re playing as any of the Nod and Scrin factions, you have powers that will generate mini-tiberium fields for you to harvest. The GDI factions lack these types of powers as they want to rid the Earth of the crystal.
- While Kane’s Wrath adds new units, the game also adds a new variant of units called Epic Units. These are the MARV, Redeemer, and Eradicator Hexapod. The MARV is a giant tank exclusive to all GDI factions, the Redeemer is a super-heavy mech exclusive to all Nod factions, and the Eradicator Hexapod is a giant plasma-spewing bug exclusive for all Scrin factions. These units need their own unique structure in order to be built which is pretty pricey. Only 1 epic unit can be built per player and they all have their own special ability. The MARV sucks up tiberium like a vacuum cleaner, the Redeemer has a Rage Generator which causes enemy units to go crazy and kill each other, and the Eradicator Hexapod gets resources for every enemy unit and building killed. Infantry units may be placed inside of these units to boost their firepower. For example, you can put Engineers inside of them to give the unit its own repair mechanism or Rocket Troopers to give them missile pods. When an epic unit is created, all players in the game hear its intimidating spawn quote. To the Redeemer’s “I Live!” or the Hexapod’s haunting shriek, these are sounds you definitely don’t want to hear. I love these additions as they make your armies more intimidating being led into battle by one of these units but I just wish they had the Mammoth Mk. II for the Steel Talons. That would have been so cool and it would fit their faction better than the MARV.
The Nod Redeemer
The GDI MARV
The Scrin Eradicator Hexapod
A trailer showing off these units and what they do:
- You almost have the freedom of building wherever you want in this game as the ring which indicates where you can build will get bigger as the game goes on and you advance in tech. You can expand these rings better by making another Construction Yard or by deploying a special vehicle. You may also build structures and turrets in an ally’s base too if you wish.
- Infantry units can garrison civilian structures, bunkers, and foxholes to hold strategic locations and provide covering fire for your units on the ground. While in a structure, the infantry gain both a sight and firing range. Special units like the Tiberium Trooper and Flame Tank can clear out an entire structure full of infantry without any trouble.
- Key elements this game has for units is the multiple commands you can give. All units in this game have a Hold, Guard, Patrol, Aggressive, Stop, and No Attack command. This is something you’d see in PC RTS games and this console version has them. There’s also an Attack/Move command which is a must to have too. You can also command your units to stand in a specific order like for instance, if you want all your tanks to form a line and move together you can do that. All of these commands are welcomed and its just another reason why I love this game. You can also have separate groups of units too, up to a total of 10. Doing this makes it much easier to manage your armies effectively.
- All factions have their own tab in the Interface for Powers and Super Weapons. Powers allow you to do insane damage or call in reinforcements. Halo Wars having a MAC Gun is cool and all, but Kane’s Wrath does it much better as you have way more Powers at your disposal like airstrikes, vapor bombs, tiberium-based bombs, and even creating a stealth field too. When you use a target, you get a target which you move around and press where you want to deploy it. All factions have a Super Weapon too. Nod factions have the Nuclear Missile, GDI factions have the Ion Cannon, and the Scrin factions have the Rift Generator. All Powers cost resources to use and have a cooldown before you can use them again. Super Weapons have the longest cooldown which take 7 minutes before you can use them again.
Example, here is the Rift Generator. Its a black hole that sucks up everything in its vicinity.
- If you want to fight the AI there are 4 different difficulties; Easy, Medium, Hard, and Brutal. You can also choose how the AI will play by choosing its behavior. The behavior types are Balanced, Turtle, Steamroller, Guerilla, and Rusher. I always played on Hard with the AI on Balanced as it offers a challenging and fun experience with the AI. If you have a few hours to spare, play the AI on Brutal Turtle and you will be basically fighting them forever. Playing against a Brutal AI with friends was always a fun time online. We’d always play against the Scrin and we’d pack up our MCVs and go to the corner of a map and pretend we’re the last remaining human force on the planet fighting against the aliens using only infantry.
Graphics/Design:
The graphics for Kane’s Wrath are pretty great on PC and even console too. Environments are fleshed out and one really well, notable favorite setting of mine was the Tiberium-infested wastelands you encounter as you see entire cities and terrain being swallowed up by the crystalline substance. In a recent game, Fallout 4, there’s an environment in that game called The Glowing Sea and going through that the first time immediately reminded me of those Tiberium Wastelands from Kane’s Wrath so that was pretty cool.
The designs for some of the units I find pretty badass, especially the Nod and Marked of Kane units. I’ve always loved the designs of the Avatar, Enlightened, Black Hand trooper, and Nod structures. Nod’s architecture looks alien and out of this world but at the same time humanlike which is awesome.
Soundtrack:
The Command and Conquer series has had its own iconic themes. Act on Instinct and Hell March are the most popular C&C songs out there. Kane’s Wrath offers a remixed version of Act on Instinct which only plays once during the entire game which is extremely disappointing. On top of that, the rest of the soundtrack isn’t the best and it isn’t the worst. However it’s not a soundtrack I would recommend to anyone. Its one of those soundtracks that should stay in the game it belongs in. If you watch the History Channel or any channel similar to it, sometimes the shows will play the music from Command and Conquer 3. Why? I don’t know but it’s absolutely hilarious.
Here's the soundtrack if you want to give it a listen. Its better to hear it in game but I dunno, it may be different for you.
The classic and iconic Act on Instinct
The remixed version of Act on Instinct in Kane's Wrath. Its okay, but I've heard better remixes.
Extra Content:
The Console version of the game has this mode called Kane’s Challenge. It’s a gauntlet type of gamemode where you fight against the AI in rather difficult matches. You pick which faction you want to play as and you run the gauntlet, with each match being more difficult than the last. Kane’s Challenge has 10 missions per faction which adds up to 90 missions. In one of the missions I had lost all of my structures and most of my units. I only had a handful of units left, around 12 I think. To this day I still don’t know how I managed to win that match when the odds were obviously against me. I felt so proud of myself and that victory was deeply satisfying.
When you pick a faction to use in Kane's Challenge, a brief cinematic of Kane himself will speak to you about that faction and what their strengths and weaknesses are.
Final Verdict:
Command and Conquer 3: Kane’s Wrath is hands down my favorite console RTS game and is probably perhaps the best console RTS of our generation. I convinced a ton of my friends to get this game and we all ended up loving the game to death and had great memories with it. We never touched Halo Wars again when we got Kane’s Wrath. There’s just so much things this game gets right when it comes down to the RTS basics like base building, resource gathering, unit commands, variety in gameplay, and overall lasting appeal. The Radial Interface is perfect for this console port and it works like a charm. As I said before, future console RTS games if there some to be made, need to have an interface like this game.
Command and Conquer 3: Kane’s Wrath gets an
8/10. This is a fantastic, fun, and challenging game that future RTS console games should try to match or even be better. This game is great, but it also has its flaws as well. There's a lot of balance issues with the game, especially the Black Hand how they can easily melt entire bases if not dealt with. There's the slight balances and this game pushes the console's limits on to how much total things can be on the map at once before the game calls it quits and lets you know it can't continue. This is a problem due to the Xbox 360's lack of power but I've only encountered this problem in online matches and not singleplayer Skirmish modes.
It makes me sad because this was the last real Command and Conquer game we got and probably the last one we'll ever get too…
Command and Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath review