11 out of 11 people found this review helpful.
For the even more Ultimate,Modern warfare General!
Date of Review: Dec 1, 2003
The Bottom Line: Buy Generals:Zero hour, even if you werent convinced by the original its a different game in itself and will keep you entertained for months to come.
I refer to My review of Command and Conquer Generals, there I stated that Generals was a flawed gem, a game capable of being the best strategy game of the year, period.
However it was bogged down with technical problems and a somewhat bad single player option.
Now heres where Zerohour comes into it because Zero hour is everything Generals should have been and much, much more.
Firstly theres the much improved interface, there are now superweapon limit options and money options, these add variety to the play, there are also minor additions that you may not notice short term but are a great improvement in the long run.
Graphics: The graphics in Zero Hour have not much changed from the original, theyre still gorgeous and spectacular, in fact there some improvements, but none that are incredibly significant explosions now seem deeper and bigger and the sound is much improved to promote realism, the games graphics are now also slightly better optimized to support the lower end machines, but as with Generals it is still a system hog and requires a very hefty pc to run it smoothly.
The new units are interesting and fun and make excellent additions to the armies, the most noticable of these are the chinese 'Helix' helicopters, a huge chopper basicly like a flying tank. The usa's avenger now help against aircraft, while for the gla the combat motorcycles are perhaps the most interesting unit, able tride over huge mountains and cliffs, creating a never before seen level of uniqueness. All of the units are superbly detailed and look great too.
Singleplayer and Multiplayer: Singleplayer is the biggest improvement is Zero hour,1st off FMV is back, although in the smallest form of news broadcasts, this however gives the missions more storyline, the missions are also better scripted and more fun this time round.
Skirmish is also better as the brutal armies really are brutal now so theres a lot more of a challenge to be had there.
However the biggest new feature is the 'Generals challenge mode', this is a mortal combat style system where 2 Generals will duke it out on a specific area, instead of the original Generals 3 sides we now get 3 generals from each side, effectively making 9 different sides.
Example
China-China tank general-China Nuke generals-China infantry General.
Each General has his special weapons so Infantry generals will have more powerful infantry, while a airforce general will have super planes and stealthed helicopters. This is one of the winning sides to the game, and theyre tough so it should keep you going quite a longf time.
Mutliplayer in Zero hour is as good as Generals, still the same incredible battles and exciting gameplay when playing big online games, but now you might find it lagging a bit less due to optimization.
Overall Zero hour is an excellent expansion to a good game, it turns a good game into a great game, with exciting units, better singleplayer more of the same explosive fun, its everything generals should have been, Get in with the winning side and buy it NOW!
-92%
