First Thoughts: Command & Conquer 3 Demo

EA seems to have put together a solid sequel to its Tiberium series. I played the demo yesterday, and I thought it was pretty good. The demo was helpful, if a little slow and incomplete. I would have liked to see more units and structures featured in the demo, to get a feel for the different abilities. The prologue mission was pretty good. The demo mission available was really nice, with plenty of Nod and GDI units available. Skirmish was decent, although I've only played it on Easy so far.

Overall, the demo was pretty good. I'm looking forward to the full game, so I would guess the demo did its work.

Sound: Pretty good, but some of the unit sounds are confusing. For example, it seems that when Orcas (aircraft) are ordered to move, the sound is "Return to base!", which makes me think that the aircraft is actually going to rearm and repair, when instead it may just be moving to another area and remaining there.

Graphics: Very nice. The animations are clean and attractive. It has the "futuristic" feel that you would expect. I wish I had more opportunities to use the Ion Cannon, because I really liked the view.

Units: Only GDI units are usable in the demo, but from what I've seen, I like them. Riflemen, however, seem a bit underpowered. I'm still having a little trouble keeping track of the different vehicles and their strengths and weaknesses, also. Mammoth tanks with the railgun upgrade make Derek very happy.

Defense structures: After playing Generals, where sides have only 2 structures (and can generally get by with only 1), three different defense structures are a little difficult to work with.

Interface: Very C&C. The building bar is very reminiscent of any C&C game, except Generals. The actual interface seems to take too much space on the screen, with the main map visibility being severely reduced. If there was one thing I'd change about the demo, it would be making the interface smaller, so I can see more of the battlefield.

Overall, a great demo. I would recommend any fan of RTS to try it out. Nothing terribly innovative in the game, it's just a good RTS installment.