Command and Conquer 3: Kane’s Wrath is the expansion pack for the successful Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars. This is the first foray into 3D for the Tiberium Universe of the C&C series which started the RTS genre as we know it. Kane’s Wrath adds more units, sub factions, more multiplayer maps, a global conquest mode and 13 new single player missions to the core Tiberium Wars game.
The single player portion of the expansion focuses entirely on the NOD faction and Kane’s survival after the second Tiberium war, what led to the third Tiberium war and what happened next at the end. So through all the 13 new missions, you play as NOD only. The cut scenes do answer some questions about what happened between the second and third Tiberium wars from NODs perspective and explains some of the events happened during the third war in addition to the end. You will feel some disjoint sometimes if you aren’t familiar with the Tiberium universe story. The missions themselves are nothing special yet are fun for one or two days play, since they are easy and pretty much require destruction of your enemy’s base. Nothing ground breaking there.
The new global conquest mode is nothing new as well. It is very similar to the Lord of the Rings Battle for Middle Earth 2 War of the Ring mode. The idea is you have the whole map at display and you get to try taking as much territory to win or either by achieving curtain goals for each faction. The game plays in a turn based way. You make your moves and go for the next turn. Conflicts then can be resolved either by real time game play or via auto resolve which lets the computer determine who will win by comparing the two forces’ strengths. Personally, the global conquest mode doesn’t feel right and you really need to be good to win since making one or two mistakes can end the game easily.
Kane’s Wrath adds a lot of cool new units that change the balance of each faction yet still enhance the overall balance during conflicts. In addition, each faction has it’s own Epic unit. These are huge and powerful units that can seriously turn the tide of battle if properly used. Though they are left at the very end of the tech tree and are seriously expensive to build.
The new units are either shared or split throughout the six sub factions, two from each main faction. These sub factions are a more specialized version of their parent faction in a certain area. For example, the Black Hand NOD sub faction focuses on infantry and flame and has no stealth or air technology. The factions are marginally much more balanced when compare to C&C Generals Zero Hour sub factions.
Kane’s Wrath main feature is really the multiplayer section of the game. The layout is still the same of Tiberium Wars multiplayer where you can either ask for an auto match or go check the lobbies for matches that you want to participate in. With all these new units, maps and sub factions, Kane’s Wrath is really a lot of fun online. Add to that the dedication EA is giving to the C&C series, that new patches are more and more common these days with balance changes which are always important when dealing with online exploits. This is no Starcraft polish, but it is good enough to have a fair and fun online experience.
Nothing spectacular in terms of the graphics since it is really the old SAGE engine used in C&C General’s years ago with more shaders. So the game is smooth and will run on a wide selection of PC configurations. The music is mostly untouched and is the same from Tiberium Wars bar one track which is a remixed version of the NOD faction from the previous Tiberium game.
Kane’s Wrath is more of a fans’ expansion pack than for the general audience, yet if you are into online multiplayer RTS games, I strongly recommend you try this since it is fast and fun to play.
