Command & Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath

They also follow the route of increased sides. Traditionally, C&C has gone for two teams, with only the odd child C&C Generals offering a third. C&C3 added the third in the form of the Scrin, and they've pursued this by allowing sub-factions. Each side gets two, which gives a spin to the traditional faction play-style by adding their own unique units. For example, the Marked of Kane sub-faction of Nod swaps the usual basic wimpy foot-soldier for a really mean cyborg warrior - this leads to a more direct style of play than the traditional stealth-heavy Nod. This succeeds in remixing the C&C cocktail in the way that a good expansion pack should.

All of which are relative small-fry compared to the big experimentation - that is, the Global Conquest mode. This is a strategic-level wrapper - a little like what was tried by Relic in their latter-day Dawn of War expansions and EA in Battle for Middle-Earth 2 - which allows you to replay the C&C3 scenario as an actual game rather than a linear campaign. Each of the three sides, as well as a "Kill everyone" objective, have their own way of winning - so the Scrin are building their odd devices to do something fancy, Nod triumph if they manage to make enough cities riot at once, and GDI win if they control a percentage of the world.

It's a considerably more sophisticated game than - say - Relic's attempt, with you setting up bases in the exact position to maintain dominance over cities, while farming the spreading Tiberium fields and dropping orbital weapons on whoever looks at you funny. In fact, it's so successful that it ends up pretty much failing as a way of generating interesting skirmish missions. Rather than Dawn of War: Dark Crusade, which often has you entering a map with a limited number of troops so that you just play a skirmish game to see who wins, the strategic-level stuff dominates. If a big army marches in, it's going to crush your base pretty sharpish.

There's an irony here - by being a better strategic game, it makes the tactical level more irrelevant. Dark Crusade and Soulstorm - by making the strategic game pretty empty - keep the skirmishes playing as well as the skirmish is balanced to, but make the actual structure of the game completely uninteresting. I wonder if it's possible to square this circle - the standard RTS formula of harvesting and combat is a complete thing. A strategic level doesn't sit naturally with it. It's notable that the strategy game that has got this to work is the Total War series, which has no economics on the battles. Just battles. Battling.

There's a few flaws in the execution too - stuff like missing pop-ups in the army-creation screens, which makes remembering what some people do a little tricky when learning the game. Some of the sound effects are somewhat mysterious, too (is that burning sound a riot going off? It's hard to work out). But it's still a fun, brave and novel approach that manages to feel very much like part of the C&C universe. As an experiment, it deserves high praise - it's certainly convinced me I'd like to play a more developed strategic-level game in the era, even without the tactical-level battles.