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Command & Conquer: Generals is the most recent real-time strategy game in the Command & Conquer franchise. Generals utilizes the SAGE (Strategy Action Game Engine) engine. This proprietary engine is an extended version of the C&C:Renegade 3D engine, and EA has not made any announcements as to whether or not it will license the SAGE engine to other developers, however it has been used for other EA games such as The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth.

Generals was released onto the PC platform in 2002, and a Mac OS version was released in 2004. Generals marked the return of the Command & Conquer series to the Mac OS, and the first new game since Command & Conquer (although plans for a Mac OS version of Red Alert were under way before being scrapped).

Plot

Generals takes place in the 2020,2030 period, unlike the other Command & Conquer games. However, players are given a choice of three factions to play rather than the two in the early parts of the Command & Conquer and Red Alert series. In Generals, the Americans and Chinese are the world's two superpowers that are the targets of the Global Liberation Army, a generic Middle Eastern terrorist organization with an unclear agenda. Both the United States and China are depicted as the protagonists in the series, and frequently cooperate with each other throughout the storyline. The three factions thus comprise a war similar to that of the real-life War on Terror.

Each of the three factions are depicted in a different manner: the Americans use state-of-the-art technology, while the Chinese army has older but effective technology like that of a developing country. The GLA, being technologically disadvantaged, often resort to guerilla warfare to achieve victory in the battlefield.

Unlike Tiberian Sun or Red Alert, Generals has no major characters other than that of the in-game heroes (where they only play a minor role) and the player itself. The player is portrayed as a General in their respective army, and earns Generals Experience in order to rise in rank and receive new abilities, such as the ability to order airstrikes or the ability to repair units in a certain area.

Despite the generally positive spin on China in the series, the Generals series, interestingly enough, is banned in China, probably due to the depiction of a nuclear attack on the Tiananmen Square in the first mission of the Chinese campaign, also, in the game China shows a degree of indiscretion with nuclear weapons, although they are in the lower tactical nuke yield range.

The Generals story is continued in the expansion pack Command & Conquer: Generals - Zero Hour.

Generals presents players with a separate musical score for each faction. The game's opening and ending theme music during the China campaign features China's national anthem, March of the Volunteers. The United States' theme music consists of epic, militaristic scores composed by Bill Brown. The GLA faction's theme soundtrack can be described as a combination of Middle Eastern sounds coupled with heavy metal music, similar to the Somalian sequences in Black Hawk Down.

Command & Conquer controversy

Fans of the Command & Conquer universe and its alternative Red Alert universe have had reservations about the use of the words "Command & Conquer" in the title of Generals due in large part to C&C's style of gameplay. In every other Command & Conquer game released players have had video briefings which tie the game's missions and plot togther, the control bar for construction of structures and units has been to the extreme right of the screen, there has been no "middle man" (a unit needed to build other structures), and all plot lines are centered either between the Allies and Soviets (Red Alert), or GDI and Nod (C&C).

Generals, on the other hand, departs from conventional Command and Conquer themes: The GDI, the Brotherhood of Nod, and the tiberium resource are not present in this game. This game is not part of the 'Red Alert' theme either, it is an entirely separate game world. Unlike previous C&C games, Generals and the Zero Hour expansion were developed by EA Los Angeles, after EA Games absorbed Westwood Studios. The game mechanics are more like other RTS games, such as Blizzard Entertainment's StarCraft and the more recent Warcraft III. The control bar is now at the bottom, the unique units for each faction (USA:Colonel Burton, China:Black Lotus, GLA:Jarmen Kell) resemble Warcraft III's Heroes, several units have special action buttons (cfr. the Warcraft series magic spells). There are no video breifings for upcoming missions, and the introduction of a "middle man" has been met with some resistance. As a result of these changes, some fans of the series argue that it is not a true Command & Conquer game.

Third-party modifications

Command and Conquer: Generals has a relatively strong online community. Among the community members are mod-developers. Below is a list of some of the mods that have been in development for Generals and Command & Conquer: Generals Zero Hour.

• An Act Of War
• Battletech: The Capellan Solution
• Blitzkrieg II
• Cold War Crisis
• Call To Arms
• GenDev
• HaloGen (Mod)
• Imperial Assault
• Iron Curtain
• Operation: Restore Justice 1
• True War 2
• CTW Mod
• Rise of the Reds
• Vietnam Reborn
• Ace Combat: Distant Thunder

A thing to note about these third-party groups is that despite C&C Generals having a generic plot, many of these groups seek to give Generals an in-depth plot and backstory, mainly contributed by Derelict Studios.

See also

• Command & Conquer: Tiberian Series
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert
• Command & Conquer: Generals Zero Hour
• Rise of the Reds
• Three Dozer Build

External links

• Command & Conquer: Generals Official Site
• PlanetCNC
• Derelict Studios, a modding community for Red Alert 2 and C&C Generals
• SlipStream Productions, also a modding community for C&C Generals

• Command & Conquer series
• Windows games
• Apple Macintosh games