However, the Crusader sounds nothing less than inspired when compared to US Detention Camp, which comes fitted with a 'demoraliser’ ray gun which gathers the mood of your captives and fires it at enemy troops in order to reduce their morale. Where are the bloody double-turreted, rocket-launcher mounted Mammoth Tanks, that could bulldoze their way through walls? Now that was a tank. Team USA will be stocked up with cutting-edge technology, including a hovering tank called the Crusader, with a laser-firing sidekick drone. To aid you in your struggle for freedom, you’ll be provided with a selection of hi-tech, somewhat futuristic and at times ludicrous weaponry with which to annihilate the enemy. The GLA on the other hand are fanatics that will stop at nothing to gain victory, even if it means the massacre of hundreds of their own troops. The Americans, ever concerned with public opinion, will place more importance on troop preservation, generally making them more powerful, but conversely more expensive than those of the Chinese.

However, you’ll also have to contend with the restrictions that each one throws up. Generals will be split up into three, ten-mission campaigns - one for each of the three sides - all of which will come with their own set of goals and unique selection of military hardware. And as if you couldn't have guessed, it’s only a matter of time till the Americans stick their noses into the whole situation, by helping out the Chinese. In this futuristic world, the Chinese government is filled with young forward-thinking pinkos with capitalist intentions, who promptly realise that their ambitions to turn China into a major economic and military world power can only be realised once the terrorists have been dealt with. By some unexplained means, the GLA have gained access to Chinese military hardware as well as devastating biochemical weapons, and is using these resources to power its numerous terrorist activities in and around the Chinese borders. It’s 2020, or thereabouts, and a terrorist organisation called the Global Liberation Army is threatening world peace (whatever that is). No, forget all that and instead take my hand (nothing pervy you understand), and follow me into a new world - the world of C&C: Generals. No more Stalin or Einstein, no more mad scientists with names that sound like bowel movements, and no more buxom Tanya flashing her cleavage gratuitously at the camera in a vain attempt to cover up her lack of acting ability. No more smudged-looking 2D isometric graphics which patronise your $300 graphics card. Which means, no more bald-headed paedophile-looking terrorist leaders. No, in fact from what we’ve seen and heard so far, Generals couldn’t be further removed from the C&C universe if it tried. Neither will it be based on a power struggle between Communist Russia and the Allies, as envisioned by the Red Alert games. Possibly the most striking difference (other than the aesthetic one, which I’ll come to later) is that C&C: Generals will not be based in the C&C world we're all familiar with, where NOD and GDI forces battled for world supremacy. It’s all change on planet C&C, and if you’re hankering for more of the same then don’t bother.

In fact, things couldn’t be more different, so forget everything you know about the previous games, lock it in a wooden casket and fire it into space, never to be seen again. But as you’re about to find out, that’s not the only change from this, the most famous RTS series. After almost ten years, four games, and innumerable add-on packs, the Command & Conquer franchise is finally moving into 3D, rejuvenated by developer EA Pacific (a branch of Westwood), who brought us the excellent Red Alert 2 addon pack Yuri’s Revenge.

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