CnC: General

... But these aren`t prism or mammoth tanks. Instead, the tanks are real-life modern military hardware, nicknamed crusader tanks, rolling around on a remarkably realistic and present-day terrain. "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Command & Conquer: Generals," Skaggs proclaims. "This is an all-new Command & Conquer, with a modern conflict inspired by events relevant to today." ...



... As he moves through the environment, he describes some of the possibilities for missions. "Imagine playing a Black Hawk Down-type mission," he tells the audience. "In Red Alert 2, it felt like you were on a mat or carpet because the environment didn`t interact with the units. Here, when the chopper flies by, there will be a wake in the water, trees swaying, and smoke from burning tires parting as you fly through it." Better yet, Skaggs quickly adds that the game supports well-developed air-to-air combat, a new feature for a C&C game. ...

"The biggest issue for us was performance," says Skaggs. "Some 3D RTS games have pulled the camera really close to create a squad-based game, while other ones create an army-based game with really ugly boxy units." For years, Westwood had considered going 3D with the C&C series but always resisted the temptation. Now, it appeared they would make a go at it. "The challenge became whether we could get high enough performance to do an army-based game in 3D with a lot of detail," explains Skaggs. ...

"We explored using the Quake engine, the Unreal engine, and LithTech," says Skaggs, referring to three popular 3D engines. "But we ended up using the W3D rendering technology from C&C Renegade as the basis for our engine, although we built a new 3D architecture on top of it." ...



... For fans worried that the introduction of Generals means the end of the GDI-vs.-Nod storyline, Castle shares some good news. "Nod and GDI haven`t finished their battle quite yet," he says with a sly grin. Skaggs also divulged that the Sage 3D game engine created for Generals has been given to Westwood for an upcoming unannounced product. It appears that the regular C&C lineage will live on and coexist with the new Generals franchise. ...



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