I decided to purchase C&C4 because I like to play games before passing my own judgement -- unless of course it really does look like a pile of ****. And after a few crappy hours of playing it I can tell you what you probably already knew, it sucks arse -- simply in more detail.
C&C4 had some interesting ideas that seemed to be based upon the RPG/RTS style that Dawn of War II brought to us; and to quite good effect might I add. Let's go through it shall we.
NO BASE BUILDING
This is most definitely not C&C style at all, but it doesn't mean to say that it will not be an enjoyable RTS, because DoWII was good, right? No. EA's attempt of using "Class" MCVs without base building couldn't be more epic of a fail.
You're given the choice of three MCVs; The Offensive, the Defensive and the Support classes. Each has their own functions which create a unique style of play.
However.
Each MCV is only capable of building one type of unit; either Ground, Air or Infantry. This means to build a more "complete" army, you have to swap MCVs as you go along. If units are destroyed by enemy attacks while you're forming the army; you'll have to swap back to the required MCV to rebuild any lost units.
Verdict: Just build Buggies.
POPULATION CAP
Population caps are not normally that bad, both Battle for Middle-Earth and Dawn of War made them work quite sucessfully; but this is mostly due to squads rather than individual units.
EA decided to stick to individual units, with each unit taking from 3 to 9 off your population cap, which is around 50 to start with in the Campaign. (No idea if it goes higher because I've given up at this stage) The result of this is the production of very small armies. So small they'll remind you of IC3's penis -- only the army is slightly bigger.
Verdict: Just build Buggies.
MULTIPLAYER
The Multiplayer mode isn't your normal, fully customisable type deal. You have one game mode, Domination. (A game type which requires a team to reach 2500 points to win. Points are gathered via Nodes which can be controlled during the game) and you are forced to play with other people, since AI cannot occupy additional slots other than 1v1.
The AI is also restricted to the use of one MCV class; making it very repetative.
Verdict: Just build Buggies.
OVERALL
All in all, C&C4 adopts a very slow progressing tech upgrade line which makes it extremely boring as you're stuck with the same, non-upgraded bollocks until the end of time. It lacks the RPG factor where units gain XP and can be uniquely upgraded, meaning that it's still just drones. There are no "hero" units and the battles are decided by "Counterattacking"; where units do damage/take damage based upon whether or not the opposing unit is their counter, or vice versa.
Verdict: NEED MOAR BUGGIES!
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Overall verdict: Buy Dawn of War II.
