When EA Games closed the Westwood Studios division in 2003, many Command and Conquer fans were concerned that the series itself was going to follow a similar fate. Westwood was not only renowned for creating some of the best RTS games in the business, but they effectively helped mold the genre into what it is today. So, when Command and Conquer 3 was announced, there was a worldwide cry of joy followed by a wall of skepticism. While Kane was officially coming back, many wondered how well the game would fair without the original developers at the helm. Fortunately, Command and Conquer 3 sticks pretty close to the successful formula laid out by Westwood, resulting in an extremely fun, although familiar experience.

The single player mode, though not the main focus of any RTS game, has a very solid presentation. For those who are unaware, the original Command & Conquer series has used full motion video cutscenes for virtually all of its games, and EA has brought this back in Tiberium Wars. This time around, the cast of all-stars is strongly evident, with Michael Ironside playing the GDI commander, Joe Kucan reprising his role as Kane, and many others from popular television shows like Battlestar Galactica and Lost. While the dialogue and story is not meant to be taken seriously, this star power still helps to provide an entertaining respite between missions with the game's cutscenes.

In most RTS style games, single player campaigns tend to grow tedious rather quickly, as they usually end up being a series of skirmish-type battles against a computer opponent. The same seems to ring true here as well. While the game is fun against a highly intelligent, unpredictable human opponent, the AI becomes fairly easy to defeat within the first few battles. EA remedied this by breaking up the campaign and focusing many of the missions around Commandos and small-scale unit warfare. In these cases, missions involve capturing half-destroyed bases and defending them until your support comes. When your allies do finally arrive, the typical skirmish begins, but you're already at a disadvantage for the remainder of the battle. In a lot of cases, this actually makes much of the campaign more difficult than it probably would have been otherwise.

Overall, the single player mode is fun, but let's be entirely honest here. Single player modes are not why most of us buy RTS games. We buy them for the multiplayer, and in that respect, Tiberium Wars does not disappoint. The game sports 20 multiplayer maps allowing anywhere from two to eight players in a single match. You can configure any sort of team-based setup that you like, as well as set up the starting funds for each player. In terms of balance, the upgraded mammoth tank of the GDI still holds a key advantage over the ultimate units of both Nod and Scrin. The Brotherhood is no slouch, though, with flame units that can easily burn garrisons out of buildings, and cheap suicide bombers that can obliterate everything in their path. However, the Scrin, in some cases, are a disappointment. Though their tripods are powerful, and their units are relatively quick, a decent GDI or Nod player will make short work of them, which is disappointing. The super weapons are extremely powerful this time around, so the nuke, ion cannon, and the Scrin's rift generator will effectively obliterate everything in their increased blast radius.

As for the online features, there's Battlecast, which includes the ability to watch any game being played (with a ten minute delay to avoid cheating) and enables a player to take an announcer's role, and call a match. In addition, there's integrated voice over IP support in the game, and unlike VoIP in many other games, chat here is clear and easily understandable. Not many people seem to be using Battlecast at the time of this review, which, given some of the bugs that take place in a typical online match, is not all that unexpected. So far, numerous patches have ironed out some of the latency and dropped connection problems, but a few issues still remain.

Graphically, the game looks like an upgraded version of Command and Conquer: Generals, but with a substantially better visual presentation. EA has mostly given up on their so called "battlefield scars," as they commonly drag down performance on low-end systems. As a result, the impact damage on the ground during actual combat has been greatly reduced. Even with these details removed, the game still remains colorful, eliciting a bright, crisp battlefield. Units are not necessarily highly detailed, which allows for hundreds of them to be on screen with a minimal performance hit, which has always been a great feature of the series, and works just as well here. Since the default player's view of the battlefield is pretty high up, the lack of detail is not considerably noticeable anyway. All in all, the graphics look and perform great on most modern systems.

The audio is on par with the quality of the graphics. The music, which remains typical to the series, alternates between a hard driving rock and a soothing ambient sound, which creates a soundtrack worthy of listening to outside of the game. Units sound softer than past C&C games, with their movement and gunfire quieted down so that voices become more prominent, giving more life to troop selection. The unique unit sounds are easily the strongest technical asset of the overall audio in the game. The biggest improvement in sound remains in its balance, where, unlike in previous games, the jarring noise of a particular gun or troop is far less innocuous.

Command and Conquer 3 enters the reinvigorated RTS genre by providing a fun single player experience along with some great multiplayer. Hardly groundbreaking, the game upgrades just enough to feel unique on its own while still remaining enjoyable to play. True, it could be said EA played it safe with this latest entry into the series, but most seasoned C&C veterans probably prefer it this way. Featuring some of the fastest-paced battles in any RTS, Tiberium Wars delivers not just for fans of Command and Conquer, but fans of the genre in general.