Kane is back ! but are we sure we're happy about that ?
Single Player
The first thing you'll notice playing KW it that there's only one campaign which features Nod only. Length wise the campaign spans 13 missions which is ok but not that long. Unfortunately however some of the mission are down right boring and some of them even feature skirmish maps which feels kinda cheap. The story spans three acts from the end of the 2nd to the end of the 3rd tiberium war. The hard core CnC fan will definitely be able to appreciate the story. It fills up several plot gaps and gives an alternate view to some of the events during the 2nd and 3rd tiberium war. To the casual play it might feel a bit more like a rag tag collection of events however that doesn't take the fun out of the few good missions in the campaign.
To complement the single player campaign there's also a conquer the world, risk style mode. I was pretty excited about this feature but in the end it was somewhat of a let down to. You can play as each of the three core sides and also use the forces of their sub factions. Each side has an alternate victory condition besides destroying all enemies. There's a fancy system of building bases and strikes forces but in the end the game mode is nothing more then a chain of skirmish missions. Strike force sizes don't really matter since as long as you have an MCV you'll be able to build al the forces you need. As long as you're a good skirmish player the conquest mode won't be a problem for you. Sadly you can only play this in single player. The conquest mode would have been allot more fun if it also had multiplayer options.
New Toys to Play With
While the single player aspects of the game are quite a disappointment the new units and maps aren't. Each core faction now has two additional sub factions that specialize in a certain aspect. There's allot of new units some of which are restricted to the sub factions others are also available to the core factions. Some units fill previous gaps that sides had like the Spectre artillery for Nod and the Slingshot AA hovercraft for GDI. Besides the new units there's also an impressive amount of new maps which are both playable in skirmish and multiplayer. Last but not least each faction has several new powers and upgrades which all seem to fit in just nicely.
Balance and Epic units
It took EA about 5 patches to finally get CnC 3 balanced out. KW however seems fairly balanced right off the shelf. None of the new units seem dramatically over- or underpowered. Something that does feel out of place at the moment is early game economical harassment. Some early game units like the Nob bikes excel at taking out harvesters and probably 50% of the games I've played so far online where decided within 5 minutes because of early game eco harassment.
Next up are the new epic units which each faction receives. When I first heard about this feature it felt like a somewhat strange attempt to match the success of the epic units in Supreme Commander. The epic units have however turned out pretty nice. They've been balanced to a point where they are worth their cost in destructive power but not powerful enough to roll over an enemy with a single push and feel overpowered. Especially noticeable is the GDI Marv which can drive over tiberium field to harvest the green crystals.
Multiplayer
I've played CnC 3 online allot and fortunately multiplayer is still as much fun in KW. The new units, maps and powers all add up to more diversity and more tactics available to you to crush your enemies. There are a few minor balance issue's as mentioned above but since EA isn't a stranger to patching I am sure some of those issue's will be corrected in the weeks to come.
Concluding
It took EA LA more then a year to finish Kane's Wrath and for that time the game just doesn't seem polish enough. Especially the single player campaign which has been so iconic for the series is a let down. The multiplayer fortunately is still allot of fun to play and thanks to the new factions, units and maps there's simply allot of online replay value to this game.
Command and Conquer 3 Kane's Wrath might not be to ultimate expansion we had all hoped for but it will at least keep us busy until we can get our hands on the recently announced Red Alert 3.
7.5
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Lone_Warrior_66