Tech,Space,Gaming, and Science Fiction News to wet your whistle
Hands on with 'Command & Conquer Rivals'
Get link
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
Email
Other Apps
The Command and Conquer franchise made its PC debut all the way back in 1995. In the two decades since, the game has garnered a rabid following with dozens of sequels and spinoffs. In 2018, the C&C experience returns to mobile with the free-to-play Command and Conquer Rivals, which EA debuted ahead of E3 2018 on Saturday. I was afforded a brief hands-on with the title during the EA Play event and this C&C strongly reminds me of the original. In that I had no clue as to what I was doing through most of it and lost almost immediately to a 12-year-old.
Like its desktop-based ancestors, C&C Rivals tasks players with balancing force and resource production against attacking enemy positions, a la Clash Royale. In this case, two opposing players situated on either side of a central missile silo attempt to destroy one another's base. True to its C&C lineage, Rivals players can play as either the GDI or Brotherhood of Nod with each faction offering unique super moves like the ability to set auto-turrets or zap remote targets with an orbital laser cannon.
The goal of each match, which thankfully last just a few minutes at a time, is to control a majority of the three platforms surrounding the missile silo. Control two or more platforms when the missile launches and it will detonate on your opponent's base. Strike their base with these missiles twice to win the match. Easy, right? Not quite.
The pace of these matches is, well, frantic. Your Tiberium reserves, which fund the production of your troops and vehicles, regularly replenish so you don't spend the first quarter-hour of each match mining enough minerals to get going. Instead, you must start pumping out grunts and mechanized infantry as fast as you can, sending them out to either attack your opponent or defend the silo platforms, or preferably both at the same time.
Battles between unit types are essentially a fancy game of rock, paper, scissors with each offering an advantage or disadvantage depending on what you send it out to attack. Turns out that light infantry are comically inept at taking down tanks regardless of what you saw in Saving Private Ryan. Who knew, aside from the 7th grader that wiped the floor with me, that is.
Since the game is free-to-play, EA is of course working micro-transactions into the game. I didn't encounter any of these during my playthrough but a company rep explained that more diverse and powerful units will be available for sale. That said, everything that you can buy in game can also be earned via grinding. There's no word yet on what sorts of rates EA will charge. The game is currently available as a pre-alpha build for Android and is expected to come to iOS some time later this year. The completed game will be released "some time in the future" the EA rep told me.
Overall, Rivals feels like a pretty decent compromise, trading in some of the depth and complexity of the desktop version for a more streamlined mobile gameplay experience. It's no Command & Conquer: Red Alert, but is still a good way to kill a few minutes when you're waiting for your bus. Which makes the nearly immediate and full-throated denouncement of this game from the online community seem just a tad unhinged. I mean, people were flippin' furious.
What a sad, sad story Command and Conquer has become.
Note-taking app Evernote has fallen on hard times of late, culminating in its latest spate of job cuts impacting 15 percent of its workforce (54 employees). CEO Chris O' Neil -- an ex-Googler who took the reins in 2015 -- announced the firings at an all-hands meeting earlier today, reports TechCrunch . In a message on the Evernote blog , O' Neill admitted he'd set "incredibly aggressive goals" for the company in 2018. He continued: "Going forward, we are streamlining certain functions, like sales, so we can continue to speed up and scale others, like product development and engineering." The layoffs follow an exec exodus just weeks ago and the company's recent brand refresh (complete with a refined logo and wordmark). But critics are more concerned about its product, especially the free tier, which they claim lacks the perks to
By Liam McCabe This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter . When readers choose to buy Wirecutter's independently chosen editorial picks, it may earn affiliate commissions that support its work. Read the full article here . After six summers of researching, testing, and recommending window air conditioners, we've learned that quiet and affordable ACs make most people the happiest—and we think the LG LW8016ER will fit the bill in most rooms. This 8,000 Btu unit cools as efficiently and effectively as any model with an equal Btu rating, and runs at a lower volume and deeper pitch than others at this price. Little extra features like a fresh-air vent, two-axis fan blades, and a removable drain plug help set it apart, too. The LG LW8016ER is a top choice for an office or den, and some people will find it quiet enough for a bedroom, too. If our main pic
Pre-loaded cartridges of cannabis concentrate are currently among the most popular means of consumption, and for good reason. They're discreet to use and easy to handle, a far cry from the dark days of 2016 when we had to dribble hash oil or load wax into narrow-mouthed vape pens by hand. But, frustratingly, an ever increasing number of oil cartridge manufacturers employ one-off design standards so that their products won't work with those of their competitors, thereby locking customers into proprietary ecosystems. We've already seen this with nicotine vaporizers -- which has a seen a massive rise in "pod systems" in the last few years, each outfitted with a unique canister and battery built to be incompatible with those of their competition. Is it too late for the burgeoning cannabis industry to set a universal standard for their product designs?
Comments
Post a Comment